Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

Posted on August 20, 2017 by Erich Styger

The question has been: If I buy such a 50 Watt cheap laser cutter from China, how many
Watts does it really have? I have read all these stories that usually what is advertised is only
the theoretical maximum I could get, and will not be realistic at all. This article is about how I
tuned the machine and how much I got out of it.

— Different Laser Power

Outline

For a week I have now that laser cutter, and while I had to tweak things, that machine is so
far operating nicely. I actually did not really believe in that 50 Watt power, and even at the
university we do not have the equipment to measure the real output power. We can measure
up to a few Milli-Watts (say the level of laser pointers), but not to the amount of energy such
a ’50W’ machine can produce. Instead, I describe how I have tuned the machine so far and
what I’m able to get out of it.

Laser Beam Focus

Depending on the lens and the setup, the distance between the cutting head and the target
varies, and with the focal point there is a certain cutting length:

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

— Laser Lens and Beam (Source: YouTube video below)

The following video very well explains that topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg6THrEdleo&t=231s

I tested the machine with different distances to the engraving target to find the correct beam
focus point. Pieces with different sizes helped to set the machine to a given height above the
material:

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

— measurement tools

With this I found that the focus point is at 11 mm below the laser nozzle:

— Laser Focus Point Test

Test Sheet

Experimented with different materials, adjusting cutting/engraving speed and laser power.

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

The outcome is a ‘cheat’ sheet with good values for the materials like plywood or acrylic.
Below one of the cheat sheets in Inkscape: Black color gets raster engraved, blue vector
engraving and red vector cutting:

— Laser Test Sheet

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

— Engraving and cutting test

Laser Head Oscillations

One small problem I saw is that for vector engraving and cutting, when the laser had has to
do an abrupt turn, the head is oscillating, visible if the laser head is moving with 75 mm/sec,
when it was coming down and then had to turn 90°:

— Oscillating at 75 mm per second

Reducing the engraving/cutting speed to 25 mm/sec minimizes the effect. In the image below,
the laser was coming from the left and had to make a 90° turn. One marker on the scale is 1
mm:

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

— Small Laser Head Oscillation at 90° Turn

Usable Laser Power

Thinner material did cut well around 40 or 30% laser power.

— Front Panel with laser power percentage

With thicker materials (4 or 5 mm plywood or similar), I noticed that increasing laser power
above 70% did not help much. Instead, slowing down the moving of the laser head helped to
get through the material.

So I was wondering how much of the (percentage) laser power is really usable. RDWorks

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

published a nice video how to find this out. So I have used the same approach: cutting a
piece of acrylic with different power settings. I have used a 5 mm acrylic with 15mm/sec
cutting speed.

— Laser Cut Acrylic (click to enlarge)

From the picture above you can see the ‘V’ style of cut which is noticeable especially for
thicker material.

— Different Laser Power

In order not to cut through the material I increased the moving speed to 15 mm. This gave me
the following result, with the numbers indicating the laser power percentage (maximum I can
set is 99%) set on the machine panel.

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

— Laser Power Cut Depth (click to enlarge)

In essence, the cutting depth increases in a linear way with increasing the laser power, but
only up to around 85%: above that I don’t get more cutting even with increasing the laser
power percentage.

I conclude that if the laser tube has a nominal maximum power of 50 Watt, I really get 85%
out of it, or around 42.5 Watt. Or as a rule of thumb: I can expect effectively 40 Watt out of a
50 Watt laser tube. Or using the machine above 80% does not make sense and probably
only shortens the tube life time.

Summary

Knowing the correct focus point distance is essential to use a laser cutter and engraver.
Every material is different, but at least I have now some good ‘rule of thumb’ values
determined for my machine.

The small oscillation of the laser head is something I can reduce with slower speed settings.
Maybe I find a way to mechanically optimize this so I can run vector engraving with higher
speed.

The amount of laser power I really can use out of my machine is around 15% less than what
would be the theoretical maximum, and no surprise to me. So it does not make sense to use
the machine above that 80-85%. I keep the machine running below that percentage, and I
hope this will extend the tube lifetime too.

Happy Lasering

LINK S

RDWorks Learning Lab 22 The 50 watt fraud a lesson learned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQDCy-mPNqA
Getting Control over a 50 Watt CO2 Laser Cutter from China
Laser Engraving for a Card Box

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R E L AT E D

Getting Control over a 50 Upgrading a Laser Cutter 50W Laser Cutter

Watt CO2 Laser Cutter with Cohesion3D Mini and Upgrades
from China LCD

This entry was posted in Acrylic, Laser, Laser Cutter, Thoughts, Tips & Tricks, Wood
and tagged Acrylic, CO2, Cutter, Focal Point, Laser, Lens, Plywood, Power,
technology, Thoughts, Tips&Tricks by Erich Styger. Bookmark the permalink
[https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determining-the-
maximum-usable-laser-power/] .

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About Erich Styger

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7 THOUGHTS ON “TUNING A LASER CUTTER AND DETERMINE THE MAXIMUM USABLE LASER POWER”

marlanw
on August 20, 2017 at 20:21 said:

Nice article Erich. The same is true about WiFi too, isn’t it?

Erich Styger
on August 20, 2017 at 20:33 said:

I think a lot of claims are ‘to the edge’ and won’t pass a reality check: mileage
for a car, internet ISP bandwith, WiFi throughput (you name it), or even how
that hamburger looks on display

jonbuford
on August 21, 2017 at 06:57 said:

If you want to actually check it, you need a probe like this: http://www.2laser.com
/laser_power_meter_probe_and_laser_monitor You might be able to make one with a
block of aluminum treated with the right material and a thermocouple.

The wiggles you are getting are either due to belt tension or to stepper harmonics.
Most machines will gear the output between the stepper and drive belts with a pulley
assembly to move this out of the typical cutting speed range. The other part, the belts
vibrating, this also can be fixed with having a geared down assembly to reduce the
belt tension needed to keep it tight without skipping. I’m not sure about your specific
machine.

Erich Styger
on August 21, 2017 at 08:30 said:

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Tuning a Laser Cutter and Determine the Maximum Usable Laser Power... https://mcuoneclipse.com/2017/08/20/tuning-a-laser-cutter-and-determi...

Thank you for that link for a laser power meter probe!
And good hint about the belt tension or stepper harmonics, so I have to check
this out.

Pingback: Using a Laser Cutter and Engraver with Cellulose Acetate

Sheets | MCU on Eclipse

anonymousbrit
on June 7, 2018 at 17:09 said:

Hey,
I recently acquired a machine like yours and am currently getting to know it.
Therefore, It would be absolutely awesome if you could upload/share all ‘cheat’
sheets you made with us (inkscape-files would be best)!! That way I (and people like
me) would have a starting point for our experimentation and optimization.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
a British fan of yours

Erich Styger
on June 7, 2018 at 20:59 said:

Great, have fun with your machine! And good suggestion about making the
‘cheat’ sheets public: I have uploaded them (with other files) here:
https://github.com/ErichStyger/mcuoneclipse/tree/master/LaserCutter
/Inkscape
Enjoy!

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