20 or 30w Fiber Laser Recommendation (Oh no, not another china fiber thread!)

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

Hi there!

I am Roger from Quebec, Canada, and I am looking at getting a small fiber laser. I have read a lot of thread here on the entry level fiber by people asking for advice, sadly most of them never post back to what they finally bought and how they like it.

I already have a Redsail 100w CO2 laser and I am now looking at a 20/30w fiber. I own a machine shop and makes all kind of product mostly in aluminum that I anodize. I got my C02 laser to engrave my logo on my product but so far I have never been satisfied of the quality in scan mode. Just once with a 1" focal lens was it acceptable, but so long to get done. So now it's the wife using it most of the time, and I am using it in cut mode with low power setting to etch my parts.

Now I am going into a new market soon and I will need to mark the surface of stainless steel and anodized push button. Marking area will never really exceed 1" x 1" but the level of detail is sometimes high. This is an example of what I will be doing; https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51LCYNFWr5L._SY463_.jpg

I have already started to receive quote from Rayfine and a few other china based manufacturer. Price are hovering around 4300$ for a 20W to my door, just shy of 5k for a 30w.

Obviously I am a CNC guy with little knowledge on these but I am a fast learner. If anyone has an advice for me before I pull the trigger on a machine I'd really appreciate!

[Bill George]

Ray Fine in a 30W, very long learning curve and different from a co2. Learning start here, Search and read Every post on Galvo Fiber lasers. Trial and error, keep a detailed Log Book on materials and settings you learned with your machine.

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

Thanks Bill.

I am really looking to mark on the two material I mentioned. I also understand that getting a dark mark on Stainless will be my biggest chalenge here. I happen to have a lot of scrap parts that I can do my test on so yes I will have a lot of fun learning this new machine.

What would I get more with the 30w vs the 20w for my current need? From my reading the 30w won't get much darker but will be able to get deeper at a faster rate.

As far as details is concerned Kev Williams said in another thread that unless you are going for colored marking with a mopa, the quality difference in the marking is barely unnoticeable with Q-switched laser. So it kind of rule out the mopa line of laser as I don't think I would benefit from it.

[Bill George]

I have a 20 watt and very happy with it. Your mark on SS will vary from brown, to dark brown to maybe black sometimes depending on the material. All are permanent and will not wipe or wear off in normal use.

[Kev Williams]

couple of things: for one, beware of the tariffs, they may or may not add to the 'to your door' price..

As for black marking stainless, aka annealing, my settings on my 30w machine are approximately this:

I run a single hatch at .001 to .0025mm spacing-- not a typo. You're oxidizing the carbon at the surface of the metal, and to do this requires a ton of heat while at the same time not removing any metal, this requires a crapload of laser overlap...

Speed in the 100's, power in the 30's, frequency in the 70's. I've found frequency to be quite critical, 1kH can make a noticeable difference. Also, many like to anneal out of focus slightly, but I have no issues with dead-on focus, and especially when using my 220mm lens. With the combination of very tight hatch-fill and slow speeds, it's not a quick process...

How dark the mark depends on basically 2 things (in my experience): how much carbon is in the material, and it's ability to dissipate heat; the thicker the material the darker the mark tends to be.

As an alternative to black, fibers are great for bright etching---
(back of an SS license plate frame, fiber's don't like sticker glue ;) )
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-depending on the material, bright etching can be more visible...

Anyway, this is all to point out that successful annealing takes much less than my available power, so a 20w machine would be more than adequate :) -It's also plenty adequate for marking anodized aluminum or any bright etching. But if you expect to venture out into deeper engraving, definitely give the 30w machine some thought. I'm considering a 50 to 100w machine because half of my work lately is deep engraving. Only thing stopping me, see my first statement above :(

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

Hi Kev,

Thanks for chimming in. I actually tried to send you a private message to no avail because a lot of thread I read you gave lots of interesting information. Yes I am aware of the side cost, I actually have 3 C02 laser that just got in from Redsail last week that I had to go through brokerage and such (not all mine tho!). Seems like it's much more appealing with the door to door service as I don't have to deal with third party business, let alone wait a month for boat+train.

I'm glad you shared your setting. Since it's a business purchase (how fun is that) the import fee is almost fully reimbursed by my government and I can easily justify paying 500$ more for a 30w. It's just mopa laser that kinda get me out of my comfortable zone. 6k usd for a 20w is gonna be close if not a hair over 10k Canadian with exchange and import fee.

I am starting to lean seriously toward the rayfine laser. If I can fix my cnc machine I should be able to fix these too or at least be able to replace faulty part.

[Tim Bateson]

I have a 20 watt and very happy with it. Your mark on SS will vary from brown, to dark brown to maybe black sometimes depending on the material. All are permanent and will not wipe or wear off in normal use.

On some metals, I have found a 2nd and on rare occasions a 3rd pass produces a nice Black marking. That's with my 30w gantry. The 50w galvo, I haven't yet got dialed into a repeatable setting.

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

Blanca from Ray Fine quoted me a 30w system with extra 250x250 lens, safety google x3 and XY table to my door for 5k usd. So far this is the most appealing quote I have had and Blanca was super quick to get back to all of my email.

Scott from HG Laser sent me some documentation on their LSF-M laser and I got to say the PDF they send if full of engraved example that look really nice. I am giving myself a few day to make a final decision and place my order.

Can all galvo fiber can do 3d engraving on round object without deformation?

[Kev Williams]

The 'extra 250x250' lens and "XY" table has my wheels spinning; 'XY table' is akin to 'gantry' and '250 lens' is akin to 'galvo' ...

As to 3D engraving, I took this screenshot from HGLaser's '3D Dynamic Laser Marking Machine's page...
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IMO, these parts have been engraved in a way to automatically compensate for laser focus to different part heights, but I don't consider it "3D" engraving... when engraving a 'static' part (doesn't move), this type of engraving is limited to the slope or radius of any sides- such as, you can't engrave the side of a cube, and you can only engrave so far down the slope of a cylinder or sphere before you run out of cylinder or sphere. This is just my opinion, and may be technically wrong, but "3D" engraving in these situations is a misnomer, not unlike the Glowforge being a '3D laser printer'-- "extended", "dynamic 2D" or "dynamic focus" engraving is a more accurate description IMO...

Otherwise, it's fascinating stuff, I could make great use of such a machine!

[Bert McMahan]

If you want to do actual focal point changes during glavo sweeps, Keyence makes galvo fiber lasers with auto-adjusting Z axes.

And Kev, I think the XY table means it has an XY positioning table under the galvo. That way you can set up multiple parts across the table or move to different parts of larger pieces. I don't think it uses the XY table for actual engraving, just aligning parts under the laser head.

[Bill George]

They Ray Fine also offers a camera option, its auto aligning and I wonder if it can do auto focus also?? You might ask.

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

The 'extra 250x250' lens and "XY" table has my wheels spinning; 'XY table' is akin to 'gantry' and '250 lens' is akin to 'galvo' ...

As to 3D engraving, I took this screenshot from HGLaser's '3D Dynamic Laser Marking Machine's page...
391972

IMO, these parts have been engraved in a way to automatically compensate for laser focus to different part heights, but I don't consider it "3D" engraving... when engraving a 'static' part (doesn't move), this type of engraving is limited to the slope or radius of any sides- such as, you can't engrave the side of a cube, and you can only engrave so far down the slope of a cylinder or sphere before you run out of cylinder or sphere. This is just my opinion, and may be technically wrong, but "3D" engraving in these situations is a misnomer, not unlike the Glowforge being a '3D laser printer'-- "extended", "dynamic 2D" or "dynamic focus" engraving is a more accurate description IMO...

Otherwise, it's fascinating stuff, I could make great use of such a machine!

Haha did I word something wrong? English is not my first language :P I took the table for precise positionning. This machine wil be dedicated to a single job and it has to be perfectly centered every time. As for the extra lens I think the price vs the total price of the machine makes it a really affordable upgrade. I hate when a year later I need to upgrade my machine and I pay more in shipping than the actual part.

I know that out of the focal point the laser can't do much, I just wondered how far down on a cylinder it can go and more specificly if the software adjust for the radius so the engraving doesn't get too distorted.


If you want to do actual focal point changes during glavo sweeps, Keyence makes galvo fiber lasers with auto-adjusting Z axes.

And Kev, I think the XY table means it has an XY positioning table under the galvo. That way you can set up multiple parts across the table or move to different parts of larger pieces. I don't think it uses the XY table for actual engraving, just aligning parts under the laser head.

The leveling during engraving must be really smooth for not inducing too much vibration!


They Ray Fine also offers a camera option, its auto aligning and I wonder if it can do auto focus also?? You might ask.

Yes at 1500$ it's 30% of machine price so I did not look further into it. One could rig an autofocus with proximity sensor and if the I/O card of the laser has output left they could maybe be used to drive a stepper driver which would drive the head up and down. Sort of.

[Roger-Denis Tardif]

So I finally received my 30w Ray Fine laser last week! Installed it on the same day and having a blast learning a new machine.

With Kev setting for stainless I was able to get a really nice dark mark on stainless which is exactly what I was looking for. Anodized aluminum took about an hour to get the setting right for both text and graphic. I found out I was not able to process image easily as I couldn't adjust the hatch setting and it just blew the anodizing layer off, like using a line gap way smaller than I do for anodized aluminum. Working with some vector file that I can hatch in EzCad has made it so much easier and the result I have are already extremely satisfying.

Just thought I'd share back to let you guys know I appreciate the time you took to help me and the knowledge you shared. The machine is no longer on my garage concrete floor ;)
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[Julian Ashcroft]

I convert all images to vectors before I import them into EZCAD, it gives you much more control over the settings.