Chinese Fiber Engraver?

[Peter Meacham]

Does anyone know if the Chinese are marketing a fiber (metal marking) laser?

[matthew knott]

Loads of them, they dont make the laser these are normally made by IPG, as far as i know there's no chinese maker of the laser source, They simply buy a fibre laser and attach a scan head to it. I have yet to see a chinese machine thats in the style of the epilog or trotech (large format xy moving optics) but i bet someone is making them as it would be very simple to change from a co2 tube to a fibre laser, it would only mean changing the optics and lid to the correct wavelength, but it would be a slow machine, we have just brought a epilog ext36 and i cant beleive how slow it is compared to a galvo machine.

[Rodne Gold]

I saw a few At Shenui laser when I was there in May , $20k for a 20w Fibre Galvo.

[Jiten Patel]

Matthew, But bet you love the detail you can achieve! I am working towards having both, Galvo for mass production and the flatbed for some bespoke work which warrants the price-tag.

[matthew knott]

Hi Jit, hopefully the detail will be good, we only have a dirty damaged lens and all the other optics are knakerd and the laser is low on power but the overall size we can mark is great, we havent got a job for it yet mind you. If only you could get a galvo system to give the same spot size as a xy system! that would be ace.

[Jiten Patel]

Hell yes, thats the holy grail of lasers I think! Maybe in 10 years hey! 3 axis galvos have decent spot sizes and marking area, but still colossus compared to an xy!Where do you pick up these semi working lasers from?

[matthew knott]

Probably never get there, laws of physics gets in the way !!! We source from all over the place, ebay is a good start, but google is the best place, we paid 4k for the epilog ext36 with a rotary, i know i can get a tube fixed and regassed for less than 2k so it was a simular price to a chinese machine but with a better engraving spec and it was deliverd FOC and within 3 days of paying so we took a punt on it. We have purchased galvo yag machines fully working for less than £2k, we normally clean them up, tune then, replace what needs fixing and use them for a bit then sell them on but you are always taking a chance, we overpaid for a laser we knew nothing about, left it in a shed for 4 years then sold it for scrap so we learnt a lesson from that.