Patent ID: 7238914

Claim:
A method for controlling a laser processing apparatus in which a laser beam guided to an inside of a processing head from a laser oscillator is converged by a converging lens of said processing head, and is guided onto a material to be processed, and processing of said material to be processed is performed, a first laser beam reversal apparatus which reverses said laser beam from said laser oscillator, and a second laser beam reversal apparatus which reverses said laser beam reversed by said first laser beam reversal apparatus, and guides said laser beam to the inside of said processing head are provided, a first laser optical path which runs from said laser oscillator to said first laser beam reversal apparatus, a second laser optical path which runs from said first laser beam reversal apparatus to said second laser beam reversal apparatus, and a third laser optical path which runs from said second laser beam reversal apparatus to said processing head are parallel, and a position of said laser beam reversal apparatus with respect to said processing head is set at an arbitrary position, wherein said processing head, said first laser beam reversal apparatus, and said second laser beam reversal apparatus move in an axis parallel with respect to said first laser optical path, in a state in which the position of said second laser beam reversal apparatus is set with respect to said processing head, as said processing head is moved, said first laser beam reversal apparatus moves at half speed with respect to movement speed of said processing head in the same direction as a movement direction of said processing head, said second laser beam reversal apparatus moves at the same speed as the movement speed of said processing head in the same direction as the movement direction of said processing head, and when said second laser beam reversal apparatus reaches a movement limitation of said second laser beam reversal apparatus, said second laser beam reversal apparatus is maintained in a stationary state, the movement of said processing head is continued, and said first laser beam reversal apparatus moves at half speed with respect to the movement speed of said processing head in a reverse direction with respect to the movement direction of said processing head, and when said first laser beam reversal apparatus reaches a movement limitation of said first laser beam reversal apparatus, said first laser beam reversal apparatus is maintained in a stationary state, the movement of said processing head is continued, and said second laser beam reversal apparatus moves at half speed with respect to the movement speed of said processing head in the same direction as the movement direction of said processing head.