Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
[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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