Laser Engraver
- Thread starter Johnny65
- Start date
Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:
Really comes down to what you want to be able to do with it, to some extent if it's for Hobby or Business use & what sort of budget you have. As with most things there is also a learning curve which can be quite steep if you have no experience of either the machines or the software used. There is however plenty of places you can learn these days which helps a lot.
Keith 66
Established Member
What do you want to make?
I had the use of a Laser cutter engraver when i worked as a school D&T technician, I used it nearly every day.
First thing to know there are two basic types of Co2 Laser commonly available, DC watercooled & RF air cooled. All the cheap chinese lasers are the former, Laser Tube life is often very short, weeks or months typically 1000 hours max though some may go a lot longer.
We had a Lotus laser systems 30w RF air cooled machine, the laser tube is metal cored & can be regassed when its spent, tube life is 10,000 hours or more, downside is they are considerably more expensive.
A cheap out of the box chinese machine will often require tons of work before it can be used. Most come with a aluminium honeycomb bed & these are prone to catching fire. A Knife edge bed is easier to clean & safer!
The Co2 Lasers will cut wood & other organic materials such as Acrylic (persex) plywood ,mdf, veneer paper, card. Some plastics such as PVC are an absolute no no as they give of toxic & corrosive fumes. Co2 lasers of these types will not cut metals though can mark it is special coatings are applied.
Our school laser had a 30W tube & could cut 4mm ply or acrylic, any thicker & it struggled. What is the max you want to cut?
If you want to cut or engrave metal you need a fibre laser which is a league above in terms of power & price!
Something that should be remembered is that Laser cutters stink. They produce a lot of smoke & fumes especially if working acrylic & you need decent extraction both for the sake of your lungs & your neighbours. It isnt acceptable to run a pipe out of a ground floor window for example!
They can also be very noisy & the extractors can be as noisy as the machine itself. I recently fitted a decent extraction system for welding & laser to my workshop with silencer etc & when running at full speed its about 50 decibels which is quiet.
Last week i bit the bullet & ordered a new machine from Kent lasers, a Solo desktop. Not cheap but built in the uk & with first class backup.
A lot of people have bought lasers thinking they can make a living from it but the market is probably saturated, if you have a use for it or a niche market you might do well. Im in the position where being recently retired & with a disability it will help me keep building stuff & the laser is a tool to help this.
There is a world of info on you tube, best channel i have found by far is Sarbar multimedia, the guy who runs it is obviously obsessed but has a wealth of good knowledge.
I had the use of a Laser cutter engraver when i worked as a school D&T technician, I used it nearly every day.
First thing to know there are two basic types of Co2 Laser commonly available, DC watercooled & RF air cooled. All the cheap chinese lasers are the former, Laser Tube life is often very short, weeks or months typically 1000 hours max though some may go a lot longer.
We had a Lotus laser systems 30w RF air cooled machine, the laser tube is metal cored & can be regassed when its spent, tube life is 10,000 hours or more, downside is they are considerably more expensive.
A cheap out of the box chinese machine will often require tons of work before it can be used. Most come with a aluminium honeycomb bed & these are prone to catching fire. A Knife edge bed is easier to clean & safer!
The Co2 Lasers will cut wood & other organic materials such as Acrylic (persex) plywood ,mdf, veneer paper, card. Some plastics such as PVC are an absolute no no as they give of toxic & corrosive fumes. Co2 lasers of these types will not cut metals though can mark it is special coatings are applied.
Our school laser had a 30W tube & could cut 4mm ply or acrylic, any thicker & it struggled. What is the max you want to cut?
If you want to cut or engrave metal you need a fibre laser which is a league above in terms of power & price!
Something that should be remembered is that Laser cutters stink. They produce a lot of smoke & fumes especially if working acrylic & you need decent extraction both for the sake of your lungs & your neighbours. It isnt acceptable to run a pipe out of a ground floor window for example!
They can also be very noisy & the extractors can be as noisy as the machine itself. I recently fitted a decent extraction system for welding & laser to my workshop with silencer etc & when running at full speed its about 50 decibels which is quiet.
Last week i bit the bullet & ordered a new machine from Kent lasers, a Solo desktop. Not cheap but built in the uk & with first class backup.
A lot of people have bought lasers thinking they can make a living from it but the market is probably saturated, if you have a use for it or a niche market you might do well. Im in the position where being recently retired & with a disability it will help me keep building stuff & the laser is a tool to help this.
There is a world of info on you tube, best channel i have found by far is Sarbar multimedia, the guy who runs it is obviously obsessed but has a wealth of good knowledge.
The other thing that is worth bearing in mind is eye safety. An industrial grade machine will have safety features such as interlocked access once the laser is operating.
But the scary things you can buy from Amazon - diode lasers chucking out anything up to several tens of Watts - are a guarantee for disaster. In the visible (from near UV through to 700nm) the eye safety exposure is 1mW - if visible, the blink reflex saves you. In the near IR nothing saves you because you cannot see it. At 10W, typical for an Amazon special, it is 10,000 times eye safe, and you will drill a hole in your retina, and probably cause explosive boiling in the vitreous humour in the proximity of the retina. The eye safe distance (because the beam diverges) is measured in kilometers.
Even scattered light from the region of the cut is way above eye safe.
So the OP needs to be clearer about what sort of budget, and what sort of laser he he is thinking of.
Craig
But the scary things you can buy from Amazon - diode lasers chucking out anything up to several tens of Watts - are a guarantee for disaster. In the visible (from near UV through to 700nm) the eye safety exposure is 1mW - if visible, the blink reflex saves you. In the near IR nothing saves you because you cannot see it. At 10W, typical for an Amazon special, it is 10,000 times eye safe, and you will drill a hole in your retina, and probably cause explosive boiling in the vitreous humour in the proximity of the retina. The eye safe distance (because the beam diverges) is measured in kilometers.
Even scattered light from the region of the cut is way above eye safe.
So the OP needs to be clearer about what sort of budget, and what sort of laser he he is thinking of.
Craig
Keith 66
Established Member
Lots of vids on you tube where guys have bypassed the interlocks so they can work with the lid open....
Good grief. This sort of behavior is hazardous beyond anything they remotely understand.
My original background was in laser development. Pulsed Nd:YAG. I once did the calculation that if you divided up a single 10ns pulse equally, there was enough to cause laser eye damage to the population of London.
Before we were let loose, we had to attend laser safety training, part of which was a video. One thing sticks in my mind - a war veteran who ended up doing laser research. He said nothing he experienced in active service compared remotely with the horror of looking at the world through his blood filled eyeball.
Then we had our retinas photographed - dilated pupils after drops - so that if any laser damage occurred there was a healthy reference against which to measure.
Those things did the job. It very soon became second nature to put on laser goggles before even switching the laser on. And all the lab doors were interlocked, with a flashing red light above the door. If the door was inadvertently opened, the laser shut off.
Now some of the laser diodes from Amazon come with a pair of "safety specs". Unspecified performance, but clearly cheap. Properly specified laser goggles for the wavelength of interest are about 100-150 or more (dollars, UKP, Euro - all similar now).
My original background was in laser development. Pulsed Nd:YAG. I once did the calculation that if you divided up a single 10ns pulse equally, there was enough to cause laser eye damage to the population of London.
Before we were let loose, we had to attend laser safety training, part of which was a video. One thing sticks in my mind - a war veteran who ended up doing laser research. He said nothing he experienced in active service compared remotely with the horror of looking at the world through his blood filled eyeball.
Then we had our retinas photographed - dilated pupils after drops - so that if any laser damage occurred there was a healthy reference against which to measure.
Those things did the job. It very soon became second nature to put on laser goggles before even switching the laser on. And all the lab doors were interlocked, with a flashing red light above the door. If the door was inadvertently opened, the laser shut off.
Now some of the laser diodes from Amazon come with a pair of "safety specs". Unspecified performance, but clearly cheap. Properly specified laser goggles for the wavelength of interest are about 100-150 or more (dollars, UKP, Euro - all similar now).
Last edited:
Designing (I think medical lasers) must have been super fun. I’ve learnt a lot from your insights.
In a previous life I used to run company’s that used laser cutting technology and although the retailers of the machines highlighted that the guards had to be in place, I wasn’t aware of the reflected dangers.
I had wondered about getting a laser engraver, but after your insights, I’m seriously reconsidering. Thank you.
In a previous life I used to run company’s that used laser cutting technology and although the retailers of the machines highlighted that the guards had to be in place, I wasn’t aware of the reflected dangers.
I had wondered about getting a laser engraver, but after your insights, I’m seriously reconsidering. Thank you.
I don’t take chances with my diode laser.
key activated override so the laser can be turned on in low power for focusing. Front panel has a very expensive window. Vented outside with a fan to pull the air out. This is just a home build 3D printer with a couple of diode laser modules for engraving and cutting. The cutting laser is a dual diode unit with about 7.5W of output.
key activated override so the laser can be turned on in low power for focusing. Front panel has a very expensive window. Vented outside with a fan to pull the air out. This is just a home build 3D printer with a couple of diode laser modules for engraving and cutting. The cutting laser is a dual diode unit with about 7.5W of output.
SkinnyB
Established Member
If that's all you are doing all you need is a diode laser. Get the highest wattage you can afford: More power=quicker to engrave.
I bought a cheap £100 from aliexpress with a size of 600x600mm. Use lightburn as the software to control and it is fairly straight forward.
I bought a cheap £100 from aliexpress with a size of 600x600mm. Use lightburn as the software to control and it is fairly straight forward.
from the above discussion it appears that a lot of it is focused on the more expensive lasers...
you can pick up much cheaper ones (like the NEJE brand) which are not going to laser through the workshop wall and take out small children in the primary school down the road - they will however allow you to engrave onto wood
eta overlapped with SkinnyB's comment...
you can pick up much cheaper ones (like the NEJE brand) which are not going to laser through the workshop wall and take out small children in the primary school down the road - they will however allow you to engrave onto wood
eta overlapped with SkinnyB's comment...
sure - they range in price and size:
mine is only 170mm x 170mm and that is surprisingly useful:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NEJE-Engraving-Engraver-Unfinished-Lightburn
go bigger (460x810mm):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NEJE-Master-2s-Professional-Engraving-Motherboard
I bought mine from a UK supplier for a bit more support but have needed no support - it just works and works well - esp. with lightburn which is c. £40 and then an annual fee if you want updates
mine is only 170mm x 170mm and that is surprisingly useful:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NEJE-Engraving-Engraver-Unfinished-Lightburn
go bigger (460x810mm):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/NEJE-Master-2s-Professional-Engraving-Motherboard
I bought mine from a UK supplier for a bit more support but have needed no support - it just works and works well - esp. with lightburn which is c. £40 and then an annual fee if you want updates
This seems to do what I want,
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3018-Pro...p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0
How do I get the design into the machine.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3018-Pro...p2349624.m46890.l6249&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0
How do I get the design into the machine.
no idea with that one - but may also work with Lightburn which is very good third party software...
in its absence, most of these come with simple cheap bluetooth apps for your phone or similar - maybe PC software - certainly for the NEJE machines their software is worlds behind the lightburn option...
Also - be aware that different power lasers etc. will give different outcomes across various woods / cutting / engraving / etc.
As for the CNC side - I assume different software, but have no experience of CNC
in its absence, most of these come with simple cheap bluetooth apps for your phone or similar - maybe PC software - certainly for the NEJE machines their software is worlds behind the lightburn option...
Also - be aware that different power lasers etc. will give different outcomes across various woods / cutting / engraving / etc.
As for the CNC side - I assume different software, but have no experience of CNC
I would recommend looking at the Neje offerings as they are very widely used and offer good compatibility with 3rd party SW and their support is good for a Chinese company. A lot that you but on-line leave you sorting everything out yourself.
SkinnyB
Established Member
SkinnyB
Established Member
I would go away and do some research on youtube on how to set these types of machines up. A video will show you exactly what to do and most of the processes are very similar across different machines. It will be a lot easier to understand than us trying to explain via text.
Key words:
Diode laser
Lightburn
How to use a laser engraver
