4.2W laser capabilities

[aj]

I am thinking about purchasing the 4.2W laser for an AR6 V5.
I am wondering if this laser is capable of delivering the following results:
 1. Letter etching about .0625" into hardwoods such as cherry, walnut, hard maple? If so, is the run time excruciatingly long ?
 2. Can it letter etch into clear acrylic ?
 

Anyone have experience in these areas?

Thanks,
Andy

[aluomala]

I would recommend NOT getting a bolt-on laser attachment, especially a low wattage like 4.2W (I think they go up to about 7W, but I haven't looked lately).

It WOULD be able to etch into hardwoods like you mention, and if it's not a lot of text, it wouldn't take too long. It will NOT etch clear acrylic if it's a blue diode laser (which most are I believe). It has to do with wave lengths, physics, magic (j/k), and the like.

I bought a bolt-on 20W kit (2x 10W lasers (converged into one point)) from an off-shore company, and long story short, it sucks. Really badly. Never got it to work properly, and gave up (after investing $1000CDN+). Bought an XTools X1 10W laser for about the same price, and it's OK (basically a toy/hobby laser, but people try to run them like they are industrial lasers... they aren't).

The bolt-on lasers sound good (on paper/in theory) but the amount of time getting them mounted/dismounted (you are NOT going to leave the laser mounted when doing heavy milling/roughing with your router), and getting them offset to match the CNC (so you can switch from router -> laser, and vice versa) is a headache. The mounts are usually 3D printed (or you can mill/3D print your own, as the files are readily available) but they aren't very rigid and prone to mis-alignment, so the accuracy you want won't be there. Also, due to the way that the Axiom handles the laser attachment (it is wired into the controller in place of the spindle on/off functionality), so it's an on/off type of affair, so no grey-scale engraving (ie pictures) is going to happen.

I'm sure many people have had moderate success with them, but I can't see I've seen a whole lot of success stories out there. The ROI on an investment like that seems pretty dismal, and you can easily purchase a stand-alone laser (with rotary) with 40W (and higher) for less than the cost of the bolt-ons. Using LightBurn (laser software) and a camera (simple web camera) and you would be able to take a piece from the CNC router and laser engrave it with your stand-alone laser with reasonable accuracy. Lightburn has a pretty cool functionality where you select control points on your project, and it aligns the toolpaths within the software so it takes into account if you don't have the piece perfectly square on the laser bed (similar to how Cricut cutters work when you print something on your laser/inkjet printer, and it aligns the cutter toolpaths to match). LightBurn software is reasonably priced ($60 for lower end (GRBL based) controllers, and about $150 for galvo and CO2 controllers) and easy to learn. Do NOT buy the laser module for Vectric software. It's like MS Paint compared to Photoshop. 

My advice: look at fibre lasers or CO2 lasers, as CO2 lasers can do clear acrylic (different wavelengths, physics, magic  ). You can get a decent offshore laser for under $3000US (likely cheaper if you look around), and then you can use the laser at the same time as you are running your CNC.

Allan

[grossmsj]

On the other hand, I took out the RichAuto controller in January and put in a Centroid Acorn controller. This gives you proper pulsed width modulation that isn't available on the stock Pro V5. I have three Opt lasers and they work really well. I do dozens of bamboo cutting boards for a friend and have already paid down the costs of the lasers. The last order I filled was 110 boards and every one turned out fine. I don't think it's the diode lasers that are limiting, but I don't disagree with Aluomala that implementation on the stock Pro V5 is more difficult.
I also agree with Aluomala that there are a lot of attractive stand alone units (CO2 and diode) that might make a lot of sense if you have the space.

[grossmsj]

I went back to files I used to engrave cutting boards when I used the JTech 4.2W laser with the 'stock' Axiom ProV5.

The feedrates using Vectric's Quick Engrave mode varied between 35 and 65 inches per minute using a stepover of 0.01 inches. The ProV5/Vectric setup treats the laser like it is a very small end mill, and the slower it goes the darker it burns. You can use those general parameters to estimate engrave times.

I engraved 4 bamboo cutting boards that I laid out with a jig. Using the array function (which is very useful) the laser would engrave all four boards in a run. The estimated run time was about 3 hours and the actual run time was about an hour longer. I found this setup to be very reliable and dependable.

If I compared engraved quality from boards I did then (ProV5 and Jtech Laser) to boards I do now (Opt XF+ and Centroid Acorn controller) I'd say there isn't any meaningful difference and the engrave times were only somewhat faster with the Opt XF+ 6W laser. The Opt XT-50 gives an exquisitely fine etch that the JTech can't match. It's actually such a narrow beam you need to somewhat defocus it for 'regular' larger text engraving. Because the Centroid Acorn controller has PWM, you can do grayscale engraving which can be very fine. This is something just not possible with how the ProV5 runs the laser.

As far as mounting/dismounting, there are ways to make it easy. If you have the Axiom Basic/Pro/Elite UltraVac Dust Eater Model 4.0 dust boot (from OneGuyInAShop on Etsy), he also sells a mount for the JTech Laser (photo below). Then it's just a matter of sliding off the dust boot and sliding on the laser and plugging it in. It literally takes a minute. You can read reviews about this awesome dust boot elsewhere in the Forum.

[aluomala]

Aug 11, 2023 20:23:52 GMT -5 grossmsj said:

On the other hand, I took out the RichAuto controller in January and put in a Centroid Acorn controller. This gives you proper pulsed width modulation that isn't available on the stock Pro V5. I have three Opt lasers and they work really well. I do dozens of bamboo cutting boards for a friend and have already paid down the costs of the lasers. The last order I filled was 110 boards and every one turned out fine. I don't think it's the diode lasers that are limiting, but I don't disagree with Aluomala that implementation on the stock Pro V5 is more difficult.
I also agree with Aluomala that there are a lot of attractive stand alone units (CO2 and diode) that might make a lot of sense if you have the space.

I am curious why you replaced the RichAuto controller, and how much it cost. Did you replace it simply for the PWM functionality? 

I would like to make use of the 20W laser I bought, but the factors I mentioned before (lack of PWM functionality on stock system; mounting bracket "sloppiness" (which would translate to a lot of movement when doing rapid moves when burning at a lower power output); having to remove dust shoe to mount laser, and then re-mount to use router) are preventing me from investigating this further (I have an AR8 that I use for day-to-day, and an AR4 that I had been planning on using for ancillary work (laser, rotary, diamond drag, etc). 

Allan

[grossmsj]

Allan,
I PM'd you with details.
Scott