UV laser from Rayfinetech

[Neville Stewart]

Heard a lot of good things from you all about Rayfine. Bought a UV 5 watt galvo from them. It’s quite amazing once you get the hang of it. Another few months of learning no doubt but it’s quite a system and process on many materials. Middle pic shows UV beside co2. 479537479538479536

[Bert McMahan]

Interesting, I was just looking at UV lasers. Mind sharing a ballpark cost? Also just curious, why'd you go with UV over a more traditional fiber? I had been looking at it for processing some specialty engineering materials, not cosmetic engravings.

[Neville Stewart]

For flat work, youd get a decent one for 10k, this is 3d and is about 15. it marks what fiber or CO2 wont and does a way better job on most materials that CO2 will mark. Cold laser its known as. I have fiber/1064 lasers also. Fiber will tear up Pewter eg, but UV does a great job.

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[Kev Williams]

I've always been interested in 'cold' lasers, especially considering what 400-500 mW machines can do... 5 watts doesn't sound like much but it's 10x the power of 1/2 watt machine! :D

--too bad I don't really have a use for a cold laser...

[Joe Adams]

Heard a lot of good things from you all about Rayfine. Bought a UV 5 watt galvo from them. It’s quite amazing once you get the hang of it. Another few months of learning no doubt but it’s quite a system and process on many materials. Middle pic shows UV beside co2.

Very impressive. I love following your work on Facebook's Trotec group. I'm in Houston, by the way.

Joe

[Bert McMahan]

Thanks for the info Neville. Sent you a PM with a couple questions.

Just wondering, is there anything a regular fiber will do that the UV won't?

[Kev Williams]

the materials that lasers designed for engraving, marking and cutting will actually engrave, mark and cut, is dependent on the wavelength of the laser. Like, a C02 laser's 10,640nm wavelength beam will microfracture glass when the beam hits it, but a fiber laser's 1,064nm wavelength will generally just pass right thru glass. And a C02's laser will create a 'controlled absorption' burn which allows clean engraving and cutting of woods, but a fiber's beam creates UNcontrolled absorbtion into wood, and rather than cleanly engraving or cutting it, it simply gets wood blazing hot, plenty hot enough to start wood on fire! A few years ago a customer wanted me to laser cut gaskets from very thin Myler sheet, which I was able to do with my C02 lasers, but a result of the cut was that heat caused the cut edge to expand thicker, making them useless as gaskets. I learned from our Creeker expert Dave Sheldrake that a lower wavelength UV laser such as Neville's would very cleanly cut Mylar...

I don't pretend to know much else about how lasers do their thing or understand why really, but man are these things fascinating! :D

[Bert McMahan]

Oh I'm well aware of the different uses between a CO2 and a standard fiber. I'm just wondering what the differences are between a UV and a standard fiber. Can it, for example, engrave black serial numbers on metals like aluminum/steel/titanium? Obviously it seems to do great with Pewter.

[Neville Stewart]

Thank you Joe. Hope it’s inspiring if even of suggestions for improvement.

[Chase Williams]

I just got a sales pitch from Keyence on their UV. They had explained that UV should be able to do nearly anything that a Fiber can do, plus items such as precious metals and plastics such as flexible clear tubing that would normally distort with heat. The downside of the UV is that it costs more (for machine) and takes longer for the same job than fiber.

[Neville Stewart]

UV can do lots of other materials though and speed isn’t that far behind but if you’re masking, lasering & sand etching a dozen/hundred glasses. UV will blow that process away with about the same result.