CNC foam cutter (also known as foam CNC router, EPS CNC router, etc.) is a cutting machine to process soft foam including EPS foam, EVA foam, PU foam, EPE foam, EPP foam and other foam materials. It also processes wood and other non-metallic materials or soft metals. CNC foam cutter has wide applications in foam molding, packaging and decoration industries.
Comparing with manual cutting or hot wire foam cutting, CNC foam cutter cut foam is more flexible in the processing of complex 3D foam products. The foam product has smooth arc and good quality. Watch the video below to learn how Blue Elephant foam CNC router processes automotive foam mold.
How to cut foam material efficiently and precisely? This article will give you the best solution. In the following contents, we mainly introduce the features and applications of CNC foam cutter as well as recommend six top selling CNC foam cutters for your purchasing need. In addition, we also include the basic introduction about foam laser cutter at the end of the article for small to middle foam processing users. If you engage in foam processing and are looking for a suitable foam cutting machine to fit your need, this article is the right way to go.
Foam is a porous material and very soft. The main raw materials to make foam are foaming polymers such as polystyrene, polyethylene, polyurethane, etc. Foam has two types according to its physical properties: open-cell foam and closed-cell foam. Open-cell foam is soft and has good compression resilience. Closed-cell foam has high compressive strength and good insulation performance. Both of them have wide applications in various industries.
Depending on the original raw material, there are many types of foam material, such as PU foam, PS foam, PF foam, EPS foam, EVA foam, etc. Foam is an important material in our daily life and in the industrial production by virtue of its light weight, heat insulation, sound absorption, shock resistance and corrosion resistance ability.
Foam plays an important role in a variety of industries. We often see many types of foam products in our daily life, such as foam package, foam sofa, foam cushion, etc. People also use foam to make the insulation layer for building exterior walls, insulation panels for refrigerators and freezers, and insulation foam boxes for fruit and vegetable transportation.
In addition, soft foam materials like EVA foam have good softness and elasticity, and they are ideal materials to make soles and interiors of sports shoes, leather shoes and sports equipment. EPE foam has strong cushioning and shock resistance, and is an ideal material to pack electronic instruments, handicrafts, glass, and high-end goods. EPP foam has good corrosion resistance, elasticity, insulation ability, and is very useful in the automotive interior decoration and packaging industries.
Although foam is a soft material, it is difficult to produce a smooth cutting edge by manual cutting. How to cut foam with good effect is an essential question to think about. Why do we choose CNC foam cutter to process foam? CNC foam cutter is an automatic foam cutting machine. When a CNC foam cutter processes foam, the spindle rotates in high speed and gives the foam surface a uniform cutting force. The foam product has smooth cutting surface.
Below picture shows some foam products made by CNC foam cutters.
Users of CNC foam cutters mainly work on 3D foam carving or wood carving, such as car mold, sculpture, etc. CNC foam cutter is the most convenient machine for 3D foam carving or wood carving. A 4 axis or 5 axis CNC foam cutter has rotary spindle which rotates and carves work pieces from different levels and angles. CNC foam cutter opens a door for the designers and turns their designs into real products.
The main CNC cutting tools for foam processing include CNC bit cutting, laser cutting and hot wire cutting. Comparing with laser cutting and hot wire cutting, CNC bit cutting has better performance in the 3D foam carving. The good performance of CNC bit cutting lies in the rotary spindle and stable operation of CNC foam cutter. Also, the heavy-duty frame structure and high-end router kits make the processing perfect.
CNC foam cutter is a type of automatic foam cutting machine. Although it has same working principle with common CNC router, its price is usually much higher. The main reasons are as follows:
Firstly, a CNC foam cutter adopts U shape frame structure. Most CNC foam cutters mainly process middle to large foam mold, wood mold or sculpture. Therefore, the distance between gantry and working table needs to be long enough. A Blue Elephant CNC foam cutter has 2.2 meters high Z axis at most. If we only raise the gantry height on the basis of common CNC router frame, this extremely reduces machine’s stability, and the machine easily run into shaking during high speed operation. This not only cannot achieve a precise and stable processing, but also brings danger to the operators. The U shape design lowers the gravity center of CNC router and well ensures the processing precision, stable operation and operators’ safety.
Secondly, CNC foam cutter has higher requirements for the configuration of parts, such as the controller, spindle, motor and drive system. As the frame structure is large, the router kits for common wood CNC routers cannot achieve the high processing precision requirement. Therefore, a CNC foam cutter usually equips with servo drive system and high-end powerful spindle like Yaskawa servo motor, Italy HSD spindle, etc. The high-end drive and spindle can make the machine achieve high processing efficiency and precision. In addition, most users need foam cutting machines to perform complex 3D foam mold carving, so a good controller like SYNTEC control system is a must to realize 4 axis or 5 axis linkage.
CNC foam cutter is suitable to carve EPS foam molds, wood molds and other non-metal molds, especially for car molds, ship molds, aviation molds or train molds. The machine also specializes in processing good foam products in other industries, such as sculpture, decoration, packaging and furniture industries.
CNC foam cutter has good rigidity and its frame structure is made through strict heat treatment processes. If you are looking for a reliable foam cutting machine, CNC foam cutter is an ideal choice. You can read below contents and get to know how CNC foam cutter shows its versatility in different industries.
The main application of CNC foam cutter is to make foam molds. The foam molding industry has close ties with auto manufacturing and machinery manufacturing industries. Many specialists and experts need CNC foam cutter to realize their mechanical designs. CNC foam cutter processes foam mold with high precision. The product highly restore the appearance and internal structure of each part. The foam molds vividly show the design concept of designers, and allow designers to analyze and optimize their designs.
The traditional method for foam molding is to fill the foaming compound into different molds. The compound melts and forms a large number of tiny foam nuclei. These tiny foam nuclei grow as foam mold. This molding method needs different molds for different shapes of foam products and is inefficient. By contrast, foam CNC router doesn’t need any molds to make foam products. The machine carves foam material directly according to the commands of computer. The processing is more efficient and convenient. Users just need to import their foam 3D patterns into the software, and the machine will produce a good effect.
Foam has light weight and is easy to cut and carve, so it is an ideal material to make exquisite sculptures. From the sculpture designer’s point of view, a good sculpture needs to have unique patterns, special shapes and streamlined arcs. Manual carving foam is difficult to meet the high requirements of sculpture designers.
Foam CNC router is the ideal tool to design unique sculptures. The spindle of a 4 axis CNC foam cutter or 5 axis CNC foam cutter rotates and flexibly processes foam materials from various angles and levels. The sculpture perfectly presents design concept and can amaze visitors in the museums or art galleries. Also, the sculpture can decorate high-end hotels or large shopping malls and attract consumers.
CNC Foam cutting machine not only carves foam material, but also processes wood and other non-metal materials to make middle to large 3D sculptures. Wood sculptures are very popular in the field of home decoration and art. Foam CNC router is able to carve wood efficiently and make ideal wood sculptures. During the carving process, the processing path of spindle is strictly in accordance with the software design. The cutter carves perfect arcs and angles on the wood materials.
CNC foam carve wood sculptures can present the designs in museum exhibitions, high-end architectural sculpture decoration, art gallery exhibitions as well as private sculpture exhibitions and park sculpture exhibitions.
Foam is the most ideal material for packaging fragile products such as electronic instruments, household appliances, crafts, glass, etc. Electronic equipment or household appliances are expensive and usually adopt fragile accessories. Therefore, it is necessary to use soft packaging materials to prevent any collisions during the shipping process.
Foam can pack and protect expensive equipment and fragile products. Foam CNC router engraves foam according to the shape of the products that need packaging. The quality of the products keeps good during the transportation. Ceramic crafts, glass products and many other fragile goods also need foam as the packaging material. Foam CNC router cut foam not only protects the surface of goods but also brings a clean look to the buyer.
In the decoration industry, foam CNC router cut foam is very popular among homeowners and contractors. Foam is a cheap material, people can carve it and make beautiful foam letters to decorate parties or large outdoor activities.
Foam sculptures or foam ornaments are the most cost-effective ways to decorate hotels or malls. CNC cut foam brings the place a clean and aesthetic effect to the place. Flexible polyurethane foam can be the cushioning for a variety of home and commercial decorative products, such as sofa, chair, bedding, furniture, car, etc.
As you have known from the above contents, CNC foam cutter has a lot of advantages in the processing of foam, wood and other materials:
Firstly, CNC foam processing is stable. The heavy-duty frame structure adopts seamless welding of steel structure, which makes the machine very stable during high speed processing. The bed, side panels and beam are made through strict high temperature aging treatment. The parts have strong rigidity, no deformation, stable performance and long service life.
Secondly, CNC foam processing has high precision. The processing is automatic and there is little to no error during the processing. Also, a CNC foam cutter usually adopts high-end guide rails and racks to ensure a stable and precise processing. What’s more, engineers usually install Z Axis with triangle structure anti-resonance technology, which greatly reduces resonance and improves the carving precision.
Thirdly, CNC foam processing is very flexible in 3D foam/wood carving. The rotary spindle of 4 axis or 5 axis foam CNC router swings and carves 3D work pieces from various angels. And the good control system flexibly controls the carving path with optimized typesetting. What’s more, the high-end inverter has stable performance and allows fast speeding up of spindle.
CNC foam cutter gives user a more efficient way to process foam and other materials. Moreover, it makes many people successfully open business in various industries that need foam products.
If you are willing to purchase a foam CNC router and start a business, you need to determine what types of products that you need to process. Specify your requirement details on working size, processing speed and precision of the machine can help you have a most cost-effective purchase.
Furthermore, a machine’s performance depends on its parts, so a foam CNC router with good parts is more reliable. Here I recommend six top selling CNC foam cutters as follows. Blue Elephant provides you customization service, if you have special processing needs, we can customize the machine per your specific needs.
This CNC foam cutter adopts thick and heavy-duty bed which ensures the machine’s stability during high speed operation. Also, it adopts linear auto tool changer (8 tools) and it can change tools very quickly. The SYNTEC control system has user-friendly interface and easy to control. It has very stable operation and strong processing power. It can process both large 2D and 3D foam pieces and is a great choice for complex processing.
Router kits: SYNTEC control system, Japanese Yaskawa servo motor, automatic lubrication system, Taiwan Delta 11KW inverter
This foam CNC router has very big working size. The height of Z axis can be adjusted per the user’s special processing requirement. It can be used in the processing of large car model, ship model, wood mold, etc. The equipped HSD air cooling spindle has high cutting power and longer service life. With Delta inverter adopted, the machine has strong anti-interference ability and processes work pieces with good precision.
Router kits: HSD air cooling spindle, Japanese Yaskawa servo motor, SYNTEC control system, Taiwan Delta inverter
This CNC foam cutter has a rotary spindle equipped. The spindle can swing left and right and process 3D work pieces. In addition, it adopts a rotary device that can process cylindrical foam pieces. This high-end machine is very flexible to handle 3D foam processing. In addition, the intelligent visible control panel allows operator closely control and monitor the processing. The machine is also equipped with an automatic lubrication system, which is easy to operate and greatly extends the longevity of parts.
Router kits: HQD air cooling spindle, SYNTEC control system, Fuling inverter, automatic lubrication system
This 1530 ATC foam CNC router is equipped with high-end parts and shows advanced processing performance in the engraving process. It also has automatic tool changer and can change tools very quickly. It adopts high-end control system which supports many types of CAM/ CAD software. The visible SYNTEC control panel is intelligent and fully-functional to process 3D carving.
Router kits: HSD 9KW air cooling spindle, Taiwan SYNTEC control system, Japanese Yaskawa servo motor, Delta inverter
This EPS foam cutter has large working size and is the one of the most cost-effective foam cutters for Styrofoam carving. It can complete 3D processing from various levels and angles, and can perform fast and smooth three-dimensional engraving and cutting.
Router kits: Taiwan Delta inverter, Changsheng water cooling spindle, Japanese Yaskawa servo motor, NK105 controller
This 3D CNC foam cutter can process various non-metallic materials, such as foam, wood, etc. It is very suitable for wooden mold, industrial foam mold, food mold or sculpture work. The powerful YASKAWA servo system has large torque and ensures high processing efficiency.
Router kits: HSD air cooling spindle, Japanese Yaskawa servo motor, Delta inverter, HIWIN linear guide
In addition to foam CNC cutter, foam laser cutter also plays an important role in the foam processing industry. Foam laser cutter is also known as foam laser cutting machine or CO2 foam laser cutting machine. It has high cutting speed in the processing of foam and other materials. CO2 foam laser cutter generates high-density laser beam to melt and vaporize the part of foam.
As Blue Elephant has profound experience in the researching and manufacturing of foam laser cutter, we will share the features and applications of foam laser cutter in this section.
Firstly, foam laser cutter has good cutting quality and narrow cutting slit. The laser beam is high density, and the material quickly gets vaporized and only leaves a narrow slit. A laser cutting machine usually leaves a 0.10-0.20 mm cutting slit on the work pieces.
Secondly, foam laser processing has fast speed and high efficiency. Laser cutter doesn’t need to install or change tools, and users only need to change programs to adjust the laser power and cutting speed. Foam laser cutter is a computer controlled machine, so its operation is automatic and easy to operate.
Thirdly, foam laser processing is non-contact processing. Foam laser cutter generates laser beam to vaporize the work pieces, so there is no real contact between the laser generator and work pieces. This can ensure the finished foam produce clean and no deformation. Also, there is no dust after laser cutting, so laser cutting machine is the top choice for countries and regions that have high environmental protection requirements.
Foam laser cutter has wide applications in a variety of industries. In the packaging industry, foam laser cutter can make foam package for fragile products like glass, jewelry, crafts, ceramics and many other goods. In the shoe making industry, foam is an important material to make soles and interior of sneakers, leather shoes, slippers and other shoes.
Foam laser cutter has high processing precision and is very suitable to carve foam and make high quality shoes. Users just need to import their shoes designs and the laser cutting machine will produce the expected products. What’s more, for foam DIY lovers, a foam laser cutter allows them to carve and make exquisite foam ornaments or other useful foam products.
