The Laser Thread

J. Hoffman said:
I'm getting to the point where I need more etching stencils and I'm considering a fiber laser instead. I see some machines appear to be one piece and others appear to be two piece. Is there an advantage/disadvantage to either? Assuming both are 60 Watt.
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I have 60W MOPA Haotian in two pieces. With the two piece unit, they are connected by a permanent fiberoptic cable. It is not a plugin cable. It makes moving, setup more challenging as you also don't want to bend it very much as it is fiberoptic cable. A single unit is naturally heavier by itself, vs separating the weight into two parts.

For those take their laser on the road to craftshows, doing stuff live onsite, a one piece makes more sense.

I think an advantage of the two pieces is range of how high you an set the lens. This probably isn't a big deal for knives and the typical lens you'd be working with like a 100 or 200. But if you stick a rotary on there for tumblers that make the work taller, then a big lens, you might be running out of vertical space on the tower.
 
ashwinearl said:
I have 60W MOPA Haotian in two pieces. With the two piece unit, they are connected by a permanent fiberoptic cable. It is not a plugin cable. It makes moving, setup more challenging as you also don't want to bend it very much as it is fiberoptic cable. A single unit is naturally heavier by itself, vs separating the weight into two parts.

For those take their laser on the road to craftshows, doing stuff live onsite, a one piece makes more sense.

I think an advantage of the two pieces is range of how high you an set the lens. This probably isn't a big deal for knives and the typical lens you'd be working with like a 100 or 200. But if you stick a rotary on there for tumblers that make the work taller, then a big lens, you might be running out of vertical space on the tower.
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That's the exact laser I'm looking at. Do you like it?
 
Got my mega enclosure set up finally and moved the laser and CNC to the garage! Now the fun really begins!
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J. Hoffman said:


Neither of the ones I'm looking at are enclosed. Both have the same work area and power, just set up differently. I'm not sure if there are advantages I'm not seeing.
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I bought one of the integrated Monport lasers similar to the one pictured. The price difference to get a two piece was just way more than I wanted to spend at the time. So far, I haven't really noticed any issues, though I did custom drill and tap a couple of holes closer to the edge of my base plate so that I could get a little more clearance for my rotary. I also milled some different slots in the base of my rotary so it could hang off the side a little more, and make it easier to center larger tumblers and such. I suppose it might make as much sense to get a larger auxiliary plate that I could mount to the existing base, but this was the cheaper way for me to do it.
I will add that I opted to buy a rotary off of eBay instead of through Monport and just wire my own aviation connector to it. I don't remember what I paid, but I wanna say it ended up being less than half the cost of what Monport wanted for basically the same rotary. As far as the price of the laser (which I bought during a sale), they were very competitive, especially when bundling Lightburn with my laser for an additional discount.
 
I'm researching buying a lazer now, and damn it's kind of confusing. I'm looking to keep the price at $2000.00 or less, for right now I'm thinking a quality 40 watt diode. I was looking at the XTOOL S1
bundle package and when I read reviews most are great, some aren't. it's a pricey one for sure but I like what I researched about it. when I look at other makers models that are similar but lower priced I see the same in reviews, mostly good and some bad...real bad. does anybody here have the XTOOl S1 ?
I plan on using it mostly for engraving holsters and sheaths and maybe marking my knives. I like the idea of a 40 watt if I start doing wood projects and who knows what else.

I'm going to keep looking around and probably get one around black Friday or Christmas if I can catch a sale.
 
With a $2K budget you can get a nice laser for sure. what's driving your thinking about a diode laser vs a fiber laser? For engraving metal fiber is best by far over diode. I've got a OLM3 10 watt diode that I've used for a couple yr, and a few months ago got a 30 watt fiber. No comparison for metal. If you're more looking at leather, wood, etc - then it's diode all the way. Jewelry it is fiber.
 
Hey Ken, let me start by admitting I don’t know much about lazers so what I say may sound stupid or plain out wrong so that’s why I jumped into this thread, hopefully to learn more. Just about every YouTube video I’ve watched, the reviewer was given a free lazer or is being paid. That’s why I’m proceeding with caution here. From what I’ve gathered is diode lasers cut wood and other stuff but only mark or etch metal, an infrared will do the same but also lightly engrave or etch deeper into metal and a fiber will “engrave” metal. I looked at fibers but compared to the diode it’s well over a thousand more, and I really don’t anticipate wanting to do deep engravings on metal. Xtool does have an optional infrared that will fit on their S1 so I could get that in the future or as part of a bundle if they do a holiday sale on them coming up. I’m pretty much set on getting something, just have to figure out what it’s going to be. :D
 
I don't think any of the <$2500 lasers will cut blade stock - not even thin stuff. It takes some power - here is something I found (note the 500 watt or higher):
"
  • Check laser specifications:
    Before purchasing a laser, confirm its cutting capabilities. Some 100W lasers are designed for engraving or marking and are not powerful enough to cut metal.

  • Consider a higher-power laser:
    For faster and cleaner cuts, especially on thicker metals, a higher-power laser (e.g., 500W or higher) is recommended.
"
 
bladegrinder said:
Hey Ken, let me start by admitting I don’t know much about lazers so what I say may sound stupid or plain out wrong so that’s why I jumped into this thread, hopefully to learn more. Just about every YouTube video I’ve watched, the reviewer was given a free lazer or is being paid. That’s why I’m proceeding with caution here. From what I’ve gathered is diode lasers cut wood and other stuff but only mark or etch metal, an infrared will do the same but also lightly engrave or etch deeper into metal and a fiber will “engrave” metal. I looked at fibers but compared to the diode it’s well over a thousand more, and I really don’t anticipate wanting to do deep engravings on metal. Xtool does have an optional infrared that will fit on their S1 so I could get that in the future or as part of a bundle if they do a holiday sale on them coming up. I’m pretty much set on getting something, just have to figure out what it’s going to be. :D
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You mentioned a $2K budget, and the GWEIKE G2 Pro 30W Fiber Laser Engraver with 3D & Deep Engraving for $1800 is what I ordered last March. So far I've been happy with it. It won't do cutting, and doesn't really work much on wood or leather, but for metals (gold, silver, aluminum, brass, steel) it does a good job. The ORTUR Laser Master 3 for $400 is the 10 watt diode I've got, and for $100 more the 20 watt is available. I sure paid more than that - seems like it ws $700 or $800 I paid a few yr back.
 
Still researching, so today I learned the lazer spot on a 20 watt is smaller then on a 40 watt, I thought the dot was the same size just different power levels. So I'm going to be looking at both and see how much of a difference that will make on engraving fine details.
 
The smaller spot means finer detail, and perhaps just as (more?) important, the small spot has more energy. A overly simplistic way of saying this is if a 20 watt spot is 1 diameter of area, and the 40 watt is 2 diameter of area, then the power for engraving or burning is the same.
 
Places are making portable "cubes" where it's a smaller work area and has a diode laser and an IR laser, usually 10W diode and 2W IR. This is actually a Galvo set up as well:

Screenshot 2025-10-27 012837.jpg

Sculpfun has this one now, too. 20W Fiber and 40W diode on a gantry, so it's a bigger workspace:
Screenshot 2025-10-27 012655.jpg


It really depends on what you want to do and the size capability you want. My 2W IR does nicely for logos, steel info, etc on blades. 100% power, 500mm/min, 1 pass, .030" interval gives me a nice deep etch that takes several passes with a 120 grit belt to remove. I found that out this weekend. When I set up my laser in the garage, I forgot to put the rubber feet back on, so it shifted a bit and the logos were very crooked. I had to fully regrind both blades.

I can use my diodes to cut/engrave wood, leather, do painted tumblers, etc. The IR can engrave tags, knives, etc, but I wouldn't want to do 3d engraving with it or try to cut or go super deep.

Most 2w IR modules for gantries are around 4-600, plus the cost of a gantry set up to run it, but they also come with a diode laser usually, too.

I want to be able to cut leather sheath/welt/belt loop patterns, so I went with one with a larger work area, almost 24" x 24".
 
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Thanks Taz. I have some time to research and try to figure this stuff out. I’m still leaning towards the 40 watt so far but that might change. I’m hoping Xtool has a sale around Thanksgiving with different options available as a bundle purchase. I should be pretty set in what I want by then.
 
I ordered an Xtool S1 40 watt diode Tuesday an it showed up yesterday :D. Yee ha! It came by Amazon delivery which can be sketchy because I live out in the woods on dirt roads and I always kind of keep my fingers crossed on delivery's. so late in the day I had GPS tracking show up on my phone, oh yea, here they come!
so I'm there at my gate to meet them, two nice guys in a pretty big box truck. they unloaded it and placed it in the back of my Polaris ranger. I thanked them and headed back to the house.

I was excited, it showed up, no apparent damage...oh yea! but it was about to get more exciting!
as I got back to the house I heard a backing up alarm at my gate and thought, what the heck are they doing? so I run back up there and the guy's trying to turn around but can't, just as I get to the gate he straightens out and goes.
OK I figure, all's good........nope.

I get back to the house and hear the back up alarms again...what the hell?
So I go back up again and look down the road, I couldn't believe my eyes, this guy ran clear off the road into the ditch.

I've always told my wife to be careful on these roads, you run off in the ditch and your screwed! and the county just did their annual ditch dragging a few weeks ago so they're deep.

So I run up there and asked what happened? he said he was trying to turn around. I said there's a paved road half a mile up if you kept going. so I go back and get my truck and a tow strap.....no go.
then a neighbor came by that has a septic business so we tried that, the strap broke. I went back to my shop and got a chain. after pulling from the front the guy turned his wheel the wrong way and dug in worse.
so then we tried pulling from the back, oh oh, this thing looks like it's ready to flip over!

So I go back to my place and get my tractor, I dug out some road and kind of made a ramp in front of the truck and filled the ditch in front of it. it finally came out.
I'm going back up there tomorrow with the tractor to smooth the road out.

Anyways...got the laser set up and after figuring out a few things got some practice burns, I'll post pics next week. :D

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has anyone used HDPE for making sheaths? Wondering because cutting it with a laser isn't toxic and corrosive like cutting Kydex is haha
 
REK Knives said:
has anyone used HDPE for making sheaths? Wondering because cutting it with a laser isn't toxic and corrosive like cutting Kydex is haha
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I haven't tried HDPE for sheaths (other than as molds for my vacuum press to form my kydex sheaths with), but I did recently use my fiber laser to mark my maker mark into some kydex sheaths. It actually worked pretty well, though I did make sure I had plenty of ventilation (My laser is in my garage with a pretty decent exhaust fan that's ported directly outside. There was just a little bit of scorching, but it wiped off pretty easily and overall left a pretty clean mark. I haven't tried cutting all the way through a piece though.
 
Older related thread:
Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.

Thread 'Using UHMWPE or HDPE/ cutting board plastic as kydex alternative.'

Since I've become a full time maker I'm alot more cautious about exposure to chemicals and vapors. I'm taking steps to reduce the amount of dust in my shop and have continual clean airflow through a positive pressure system but the one thing that I am really worried about in terms of longterm exposure is kydex.

Kydex is great but it's vapors and dust are carcinogenic and I am trying to get away from using it due to the health risks. Even with a massive high volume fan blowing on the oven and the door open, the fumes still permeate the the shop. Kydex dust is also extremely difficult to...
 
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