Shenhui Fiber Lasers

[Ken Smith Jr]

Hi all,
I'm looking into possibly buying a Shenui Fiber laser and was curious of what model I should or shouldn't be looking at, I figured this would be a great place to get any information good or bad in regards to Shenui Fiber lasers. Thank you!!

[Rodne Gold]

For what its worth .. bearing in mind that time has passed , I saw some 2 years ago when I was there at their factory .. I kinda expected more .. a bit of a fudged demo .. their yags seemed better at 1/2 the price

[matthew knott]

Shenui wont be making the fibre or probably any of the bits in the system, they simply assemble all the bits together, (much the same as the co2's they make) nothing wrong with that at all & from what I have seen of the parts the chinese fibre lasers are made from they are pretty good. They all tend to use similar software, also this is good, not at all chinese and very feature rich. Worries would be lack of support, email support is frustrating and slow, cant beat talking to someone on a phone, plus be aware customs are more likely to be picky about this type of laser coming in, make sure the CDRH files and everything is sorted, odds are you will have no issues but its always a worry. Also picking the right power, focus lens and system are important depending on what you are trying to achive, its a bit more complex than buying a chinese co2 so its a good idea to do your homework first.

[Lucy Lee]

@Ken Smith Jr,Usally fiber laser machine , is samll power one, 10w or 20w ,we called fiber marking machine ,for the shape ,there is stand one and portable type. if high powe ,500w or bigger fiber machine ,most Chinese company don't have

Any others feel free to ask me
Best Regards

[Ken Smith Jr]

Yes I noticed 10-20W, to me that doesn't sound like a lot of power or because it's fiber it is a lot?? I think I have one of the owners talked into getting something new as my YAGs are older than dirt (I'd be embarrassed to even mention them) They work for most of what I do, but compared to new I figured I'd try and go fiber.
I bought a new Shenui 80 watt CO2 (and other than the rotary fixture problem) I am pretty impressed with it so far. What would the benefits be between a Yag vs fiber laser? Would anyone suggest maybe another Chinese laser company? Thank you everyone for you're input and information!!!

[Bruce Boone]

A 20 watt fiber is surprisingly powerful. A YAG and fiber wavelength are very close to each other. They mark metals and anodized surfaces extremely well. They will not work on wood at all. I looked at both types of lasers and currently had a YAG engraver. I wanted to do deep engraving and cutting as well. It turns out that the Q switched pulses of a YAG do better for deep engraving, as the pulses can pack many thousands of watts and vaporize the surface. The fibers don't use a Q switch as such, so for deep engraving in metal, there was a molten metal issue to deal with. It has a gas assist, so the trick was to engrave in such a way to keep the last cut from blowing molten metal on a previously cut pass and making it look rough. I use my fiber mostly for cutting stuff, but I can also weld or engrave with it with the right settings. I was fairly set on getting a Chinese YAG machine to do my metal cutting due to the price per performance, but at the last minute saw that the power required was 30 kilowatts! I thought that had to be some sort of error, but they do eat that much power with the water cooling and inefficient flash lamp. This was a show stopper for me, as I couldn't supply that much power. The fibers turn out to be crazy efficient just due to their thin fiber and the total internal reflection of the exciting LED light, which is tuned exactly to the right frequency. It even has no mirrors, as the beam gets reflected at the end of the fiber by a trick of optics called a Bragg grating. This means I can cut 8mm of titanium, all while using just 6 amps of power, and the thing is air cooled!

When I first saw a fiber, it was probably a 10 or 15 watt machine. It was used to engrave jewelry. It did a deep enough burn that I was seriously impressed. I had to go home and learn about what I had just seen.

[matthew knott]

A 20 watt fiber will do (in most cases) the work of a 90 watt yag lasers, they are smaller, use less electric, (much less) and only need air cooling. In many ways more reliable as there is nothing to service, don't believe the statements that they last for 100'000 hours, they might go that long in theory but many many wont as a single component failure will stop it working, if it stops it has to go back to the factory for repair, thats why you only get 1-2 year warranty. Marking quality is great, but get comparable quotes from US supported lasers, you might not have to pay much more to get a proper US or at least supported machine, I can recommend a few companys (I worked installing yag laser all over the states for a few years) and might be able to get you a discount, but get specs from china first as its a good stick to beat the competition with.
Cheers
Matt
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