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| [Recommendations]How much power do I need to laser cut copper |
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| blueskull:
I am looking for a laser solution to cut copper up to 4 mils. Any suggestions? I do not care about wavelength, but for the sake of efficiency, no CO2 laser. I do not have too much funding, so Q switched is not practical. It has to be mounted on a robotic arm, so bulky solutions (cylindrical lens+diode bar) are not preferred, unless packaged in a sturdy, neat package. Fiber solutions, if affordable, will be very appreciated. I see there are cheap up to 10W fiber collimators on eBay. Used devices are fine, eBay devices are fine. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. |
| rdl:
You might look for videos on youtube. I know there's one where a pcb is etched with a blue ray laser diode, but that's less than 1.5 mils. |
| KL27x:
--- Quote ---I do not care about wavelength, but for the sake of efficiency, no CO2 laser. --- End quote --- I think you need to care about wavelength for the sake of efficiency. And I believe a CO2 laser has the proper wavelength for cutting copper. And I think you'll need around 30W, at least. There's a reason we don't cut pcb's with lasers. Copper is highly thermally conductive and reflective. Good luck. You might have a better success by putting the copper an oven to oxidize and preheat the copper and target the continually forming surface layer of copper oxide. |
| matseng:
--- Quote from: KL27x on February 10, 2016, 05:27:37 am ---I think you need to care about wavelength for the sake of efficiency. And I believe a CO2 laser has the proper wavelength for cutting copper. And I think you'll need around 30W, at least. There's a reason we don't cut pcb's with lasers. --- End quote --- Ehhhh... I was under the impression that copper is highly reflective in the 10um band, thus making a CO2 laser virtually useless for cutting copper unless "industrial" power ratings of the laser is used. |
| KL27x:
Yes, you are right. |O I'm wrong. This topic comes up every few years on another forum I frequent, and misremembered like exactly wrong. So maybe what I misremembered is that industrial power CO2 is still the most practical laser to cut copper, despite it being inefficient? :-// :-// :-// A guy built a CO2 laser and posted some nice pics, and one of the things he wanted to do is cut copper. Thread kinda died years ago. Maybe he gave up. |
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