I am starting with digital fabrication and I'd like to build a simple and cheap laser cutter. I've found mixed reviews around diode lasers, some claiming them to be just pricy toys. Surely a good airflow can increase the results preventing carbonisation of the borders. Are these 15-20W nominal power Chinese diode lasers any good for plywood cutting (under 5mm)? €24.28 25% de réduction|5500 mw 2500 mw 15000 mw 33mm Module Laser bleu réglable CNC gravure Laser Module PWM/TTL 3500 mw coupe Laser pour CNC 3018pro|Pièces machines à bois| - AliExpress €24.28 25% de réduction|5500 mw 2500 mw 15000 mw 33mm Module Laser bleu réglable CNC gravure Laser Module PWM/TTL 3500 mw coupe Laser pour CNC 3018pro|Pièces machines à bois| - AliExpress €148.14 39% de réduction|Machine de CNC de graveur de coupeur de bricolage de tête de Laser de Module de Diode du Laser 15 w de puissance élevée pour le bois en métal 450nm 15000mw 15 w TTL|Éclairage de scène à effet| - AliExpress
15-20W nominal is about 6.5W actual. There is no current diode rated higher than this. I would expect, with a good air nozzle, them to be able to cut thin balsa, maybe up to 1/16", in one, maybe two passes. Plywood, no chance, though I'd look into the possibility of them doing it in 5-6 passes. They're not toys, but they're also not for heavy fabrication. They excel with paper, fabric, veneers, non-transparent sub-1.5mm sheet plastics (or transparent with the film sprayed black to catch the light), etc. I use my 1.6W laser to cut stencils and recently fabric for masks. It's super handy. But it's not a 60W CO2 laser. Plywood and acrylic, that's what you need.
445nm lasers absorb (read does its job on) well into Organics (wood, paper, leather) but not in any kind of plastic/resin/etc - CO2 lasers with the smaller 10600um wavelength absorbs better into all kinds of materials. With plywood the problem is the PLY part of the word... its layers of organics (wood) glued together with Inorganic resins - so running a diode laser to cut plywood (even 3mm thick plywood consisting of three layers) fails because you "cut" (more like slowly scorch through though as the diode lasers are weak anyway) the first layer of wood, but then when it gets to the resin glue between the two layers, you get stuck and spend pass after pass trying to get through the glue line. But the time you did burn away the glue layer, all that heat has scorched the edge of the layer of wood above it beyond what it should look like. A piece of 3mm solid balsa, yeah, with enough passes, good focus and a Z axis to do stepdown to keep the focal spot on the right depth for each pass, you can cut wood - but yeah, if cutting is the game, get a CO2 (or cut with a CNC router) and keep the diode lasers for engravings (their linear power control makes them awesome for engravings, you can get photo quality grayscales out of them)
Actually, a friend of mine was able to cut 3mm plywood using a custom-made air nozzle and a 5.5W (optical output) diode laser. I am quite concerned his successful result was just due to the type of wood used and may not be reproducible with the one I can get off-the-shelf. Can a K40 or similar cheap CO2 cutter be disassembled and readapted to support a larger cutting area?
6w is the limit of diode technology at the moment, anything more is "marketing" (; Fair enough it can be done, the question is done to show you can, or done as in "this worked great" - question is what kind of feedrate, how many passes, etc. Air nozzle helps to blow up the carbonised residue, so yes, air assist is a good thing Speaking of marketing, see https://optlasers.com/manual/laser-head-test-1-plh3d-6w-optlasers.com.pdf and https://optlasers.com/manual/laser-head-test-2-plh3d-6w-optlasers.com.pdf for some quoted feedrates/capabilites of OPTlaser's 6w lasers. There is a test of 3mm plywood in there: 10mm/s (600mm/min) and 10 passes at 0.3mm each (they say) - if you instead cut that on a CNC with a 1/8th endmill, you could run 1500mm/min and 2 passes (about 10-15x faster)
In one pass that would be extremely impressive. Couldn't comment much without more details about the setup and the circumstances though. Yes. That gets you a 30W tube, PSU, mirrors, maybe a chiller and coolant plumbing. The rest of it you can basically turf, and replace with V-Slot. Might be cheaper to completely scratch-build at that point.
It's a NEJE 20W (output 5.5) at 10cm distance and 100% power, in two passes. I'll ask the permission and share the video with you. If it turns to be possible, I'd be paying less than $300 for a laser cutter able to slice 3-4mm plywood. Otherwise, I think using online service is more suited as A3-sized CO2 laser cutters are way out of my budget.
I don't know if they still do, but a while back that company had an overdrive driver on those modules (I had one myself): Instead of powering the diode continuously with a current-limited driver, it instead pulsed the diode without current protection, only relying on its initial high resistance to not burn out, to get high peak output for short bursts to "cut" better - I think they even had a warning saying "only suitable for cutting not for engraving" or something like that - sadly that style of driving shortens the diode life to around 80-100 hours. The better designed drivers power the diode with proper current limiting, for thousands of hours of diode life. Only mentioning this so the "cheap" module is seen as a consumable Also, those drivers don't do PWM well, so you loose some flexibility (can't use it for engravings too) Easy to see if you look at a cut video (camera settings dependant of course), the camera tends to look a bit stobe-ey from the pulsing
I have looked at the 4.5-5.5W units like the NUBM08 periodically, since my BlackBuck 8M can drive them too (though I'd have to add active cooling, I'm sure). 1.6W isn't as impressive as it was in 2016 when I started my build, but it does the job I need it to. Would be nice to be able to occasionally throw some slightly chunkier sheet materials in there though. When the current NDB7875 unit dies maybe I'll upgrade. It's only about a $15 difference on the TO5 canister packages. Yeah that seems like a horrible idea.
Most powerful diode laser is the nubm44-v2 (aka nubm47?) rated at 7W. Anyone claiming higher than that in a diode is fudging the numbers. Only one I could find for sale in a full module with lens, fan, heatsink and ttl driver is here 7W - 15W CNC Laser Engraving Module w/ Driver, G-7 Lens & Turbo Fan - NUBM44-V2 | eBay On the fence but think I'm going to grab one. Listing says it can be pulsed to 15W. I'd estimate you could realistically cut 4-5mm of plywood or bamboo.
Hello, my name is Jose I'm new and I have a question about the subject. It will be possibly created a 450nm fiber laser module like this https://www.lyocon.com/products/blue-30-50/ mixing a 450nm laser with the a fiber fault detector and a 450nm focusing lent. €8.24 |Precio preferencial láser 30MW/20MW/10MW/5KM VFL Localizador Visual de fallos, probador de Cable de fibra óptica rango 10 30Km AUA 30|30mw visual fault locator|visual fault locatoroptic cable tester - AliExpress US $3.88 50% OFF|1pc Triple Glazing Focusing Lens Collimating Coated Glass Lens Blue Laser Diode 405nm 450nm Durable|Lenses| - AliExpress It will be feasible?
watch this youtube vid he cuts 5mm plywood with a 4W laser in 12 passes. For whatever reason these blue diode lasers actually seem to excel at plywood over any kind of solid wood.
Yep! Barnett's got a fair chunk of change out of me over the last few years thanks to the bad driver I bought from them. I don't think it was their fault, I just got a bad unit of a less-than-stellar product. I've looked at that listing before though, should be a solid laser unit but I'm not sure I'd trust another unlabelled driver, if such it is. I'd go with a BlackBuck, a DTR X-Driver, something well-known in laser-forum-land. Exactly, no chance. Within the context of the original claim, I was expecting 1-2 passes. I wouldn't call more than five actually successfully cutting something, and even that's pushing it. Probably three, to actually be useful for production.
For production, I agree, not worth it. If you do production it infers that it's going to be making income so invest some more money in your 'business'. For the hobbyist, like me, for example, 12 passes may take a long time but I do it only once in a while so maybe the cost savings are a good option. Time I have lots it's money I'm short of!
To cut wood with a laser you really need an "air blast" to clear the smoke, and more than 1 pass ends up with nasty char on the edges.. my experience with laser cutting (i've sourced laser work with several companies) is that 40watt CO2 is what you want for 1/8" birch ply and up to 5/16" balsa (1/2 Balsa can be done but it's not easy).. I used one guy who made excellent kits with 20watts CO2 but setup was super critical. Plywood is the hardest, the glue scatters the beam, or something. Gary
You can go thicker then 1/8" with 40W. I've done a bunch of 1/4" birch ply with a 40W. 1 pass, no charring. Might be able to go more, but I've never had the need. But to echo others, CO2 is the way to go if you want to cut.
Nice to see real practical experiences. 40W CO2 is also in a pretty good sweet spot, price-wise, to DIY. The 1m tube lengths and 40-60W ranged PSUs also allow for convenient upgrade later, if desired. I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up doing a build like that at some point in the next couple years or so, it opens up a whole world of opportunities.
Hi there... Found this thread after a research on this topic. I was wondering the same as I have a pld-70 from IPG (60w fiber coupled diode laser with 980nm wavelength) a'd I was seriously wondering if I would be able to cut plywood with this or if I should stop dreaming about it.... If you have any idea. Thanks a lot. Sylvain
From simply Googling the model number, I'm gonna go with... Yes? NEW IPG Phononics PLD-70 fiber coupled 60w laser diode dpss cnc cutting burning • $700.00
Thx for your answer. My main fear was that it's a 980nm... So close to "fiber" laser with their 1064, which are not said as good to cut wood.... Plus it's a bare fiber and it's already a mess to set up with colimation a'd focal lens.... Plus I have to put a connector on bare fiber...
Might not be as efficient, absorption-spectra-wise, but evidently it physically works. At least to the point of being worth researching how feasible it is to grab some lenses to terminate the fiber and manually testing it before bothering to build a machine. Might not be worth it at all, might be a multi-mode mess where really you need to build a separate lasing cavity and use your diode to pump it, or something. Personally I'd be looking into seeing how feasible it is to try on metal. 60W 980nm might be pretty good for that. Or just sell it- clearly they fetch decent money on the used market- and use that money to buy a CO2 tube, driver and chiller.
But doing aluminium is a part of my goal also... So if u think that may work well on aluminium, I may keep it and try to make a co2 aside.... I didn't expect 60w to be enough for metal... But yes at the point I am I think I will try to terminate fiber and at least try it. That's when I saw this video of the 30w version just collimated and not focused (mine is 60w) that I went for this model thinking it would cut plywood easily
Checkout https://www.youtube.com/c/MarcoReps Marco Reps youtube channel. He often plays with stuff like that. Remember a while back he tried terminating one himself and it was a massive pain, failed to work, and incorrect termination can reflect/fry the source. He did manage to source terminated pigtails. Different laser but still his channel is gold when it comes to reusing industrial lasers
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