The Laser Thread

Jesse Latham said:
Ricky, please email me a picture of your test grid. curiousjess@use.startmail.com
Do the IR 2w laser work on carbon steel?
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I just sent two photos to you, one with 1 and 2 passes, and one with 4 and 8 passes. I have only tried this on AEB-L, but see no reason why it wouldn't work on carbon steel (though the settings might be different). I do believe others on this forum, with a LOT more knife-making experience than me, have used it with carbon steel (I'm a novice knife-maker and have only used AEB-L, so I don't have any carbon steel lying around to test).
 
Ken H> said:
I'll bet you're cutting the leather sheaths out? My OLM3 10 watt diode laser does a GREAT job of that. The leather does smoke some when burning. I've got an exhaust fan running pulling the exhaust thru a charcoal filter so I can barely smell the leather when the enclosure is fully enclosed with fan running.
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Yes, I finally caught up (somewhat) with the program’s abilities and cut all my sheaths, customize wood saya’s for kitchen knives and engrave my maker’s mark with it now.
I vent the enclosure outside, but can still smell the residual charred smell in the laser room.
 
I am trying to see which one is 3 pin and compatible with my CNC board and ships from the US to avoid crazy high tariffs! So the Sculpfun may be what I go with since the Laser Tree may be shipping from China with the tariffs. Both of those are 3 pin I believe.

I see no mention of air assist on any of the IR lasers; I am assuming that it's built in somehow or to use another stand alone air assist device? I am still researching about this.
 
Lots of good information already.... here's my two cents when learning lasers.

- Dial in your own settings..... its the only way to get a premium mark.
- IMO all marks should have at least 4 separate things the laser does.... Fill, Trace, Clean, Trace Clean
- Black Marks will take some time on the laser.... If its brownish it means your rusting the blade.
- You don't actually need much wattage for blades.... a 30W fiber will basically do it all.
- MOPA lasers are not worth it..... because you can't color mark heat treated stainless. The free carbides are no longer free and blades wont take color.
- Make sure the work piece is clean and free of finger oil
- Pay for the setup/training..... and at a minimum have a professional verify your initial setup.

70mm lenses = Very small spot size, good at deep engraving and high detail work, small work envelope..... gives a low watt laser a lot more oomph
150mm lenses = good all around... usually what's on my laser.
300mm lenses = Very large spot size, lower detail.... large work envelope..... Avoid using it if you can.

I'm not going to win any brass coin competitions... but that's how they come out of the laser prior to tumbling and finishing..... 256 passes.
 

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StonerCNC said:
Lots of good information already.... here's my two cents when learning lasers.

- Dial in your own settings..... its the only way to get a premium mark.
- IMO all marks should have at least 4 separate things the laser does.... Fill, Trace, Clean, Trace Clean
- Black Marks will take some time on the laser.... If its brownish it means your rusting the blade.
- You don't actually need much wattage for blades.... a 30W fiber will basically do it all.
- MOPA lasers are not worth it..... because you can't color mark heat treated stainless. The free carbides are no longer free and blades wont take color.
- Make sure the work piece is clean and free of finger oil
- Pay for the setup/training..... and at a minimum have a professional verify your initial setup.

70mm lenses = Very small spot size, good at deep engraving and high detail work, small work envelope..... gives a low watt laser a lot more oomph
150mm lenses = good all around... usually what's on my laser.
300mm lenses = Very large spot size, lower detail.... large work envelope..... Avoid using it if you can.

I'm not going to win any brass coin competitions... but that's how they come out of the laser prior to tumbling and finishing..... 256 passes.
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Now when you say "Clean" and "Trace Clean", are you just doing the trace and fill passes at a different speed and/or power setting? Or is there a specific setting/profile in lightburn? Thanks.
 
Drew Riley said:
Now when you say "Clean" and "Trace Clean", are you just doing the trace and fill passes at a different speed and/or power setting? Or is there a specific setting/profile in lightburn? Thanks.
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Its pretty much just the power settings and number of passes. In this case you want to enable "multi-pass" (attached image)

Now you can stack up multiple operations on the same logo and get really good results.

For example Fill, 50 power% Trace 50%.... Clean 20% with 4 passes, Trace 20% with 4 passes.

Multi-passes pretty much work for all materials and will get you better results but you got to play around it with. There is no silver bullet.
 

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first steel marked since I got Lightburn and holy shit I can't believe how much easier it is to use than the program I was using. Like different universe easier.

these are all high frequency, lower power at 3-4000mm/s, 2 passes. I think another pass would've been good, but I'm satisfied enough with the result.

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I saw one of the 20W diode was on sale for under $200, so I grabbed the AENBUSLM 20W (4 5 W diodes stacked) with built in air assist. I had to swap 2 wires on the 3 pin, but it powers up and the air assist runs. I gotta get it mounted to the router plate and get lightburn. I wanted to be able to cut wood and acrylic stuff with it for my wife and engrave wood, so I went with the diode one first to get my feet wet and let the IR's be out a bit longer. I may get a dedicated IR setup for makers mark and stuff and use the CNC Router/laser for other stuff.
 
Lorien said:
first steel marked since I got Lightburn and holy shit I can't believe how much easier it is to use than the program I was using. Like different universe easier.

these are all high frequency, lower power at 3-4000mm/s, 2 passes. I think another pass would've been good, but I'm satisfied enough with the result.
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When you say "high frequency, lower power", what are the numbers? Is this for a fiber laser? What wattage?
 
I have a 20w unit and I used high 70s and 10% or less power
 
Laser is Fiber? CO2? It wouldn't be diode since you mention freq as a setting. I think both fiber and CO2 have freq settings.
 
I got the laser hooked up to the CNC machine and tried it out a bit yesterday for my makers mark. I tried using CriCut Vinyl, but it kept leaving a residue that I couldn't electro etch through, then I saw that you shouldn't laser cut vinyl because it can release nasty gases! Yikes!

So I stole some of my wife's nail polish and used that as a resist. It worked well as a resist, lasered off pretty well, but when I went to DC/AC etch it, the DC made the nail polish gummy with the electrolyte solution and got some bleed through. I will get some UV curing nail polish gel and try that (nail polish may not have been fully set up/cured) and also try lower power settings on my DC etcher. The AC blackened it well, but the DC made the nail polish gummy, which effected the felt. I guess shorter bursts, less power on the DC may work better. More experimenting tonight!

But I may spring for the 2W IR laser soon....I want to be able to etch names into damascus or Mokume pendants and stuff, too.

2.5mm on the magnacut font

PXL_20250531_211003238~2.jpgPXL_20250601_002518811~2.jpg
3mm on the magnacut font, came out a little better. but some bleed through and not much depth to the electro etch due to the nail polish melting
 
StonerCNC said:
Lots of good information already.... here's my two cents when learning lasers.

- Dial in your own settings..... its the only way to get a premium mark.
- IMO all marks should have at least 4 separate things the laser does.... Fill, Trace, Clean, Trace Clean
- Black Marks will take some time on the laser.... If its brownish it means your rusting the blade.
- You don't actually need much wattage for blades.... a 30W fiber will basically do it all.
- MOPA lasers are not worth it..... because you can't color mark heat treated stainless. The free carbides are no longer free and blades wont take color.
- Make sure the work piece is clean and free of finger oil
- Pay for the setup/training..... and at a minimum have a professional verify your initial setup.

70mm lenses = Very small spot size, good at deep engraving and high detail work, small work envelope..... gives a low watt laser a lot more oomph
150mm lenses = good all around... usually what's on my laser.
300mm lenses = Very large spot size, lower detail.... large work envelope..... Avoid using it if you can.

I'm not going to win any brass coin competitions... but that's how they come out of the laser prior to tumbling and finishing..... 256 passes.
Click to expand...
You can certainly get color on heat treated stainless.... I can get some vibrant blues on s35vn
 
REK Knives said:
You can certainly get color on heat treated stainless.... I can get some vibrant blues on s35vn
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I got this nice, almost hologram looking pale blue when I was messing around. Super subtle, it would be great for something like a serial number or to mark steel type. No idea what the settings were, but if I stumbled across it before, I'll stumble across it again!
 
With a fiber laser, it's also possible to create colors on brass and copper. It takes some time to dial in the settings, and the time required to produce each color varies. Some colors take just a few minutes, while other colors may take significantly longer. In the end, it's pretty amazing what you can do with a fiber laser.

The links below will take you to some of the coins I did for the Laser Everything monthly coin challenge.
Back To the Future Coin
Iron Maiden Coin
90s Horror Coin

I've also been experimenting with engraving the pattern of my knives into the steel, including cutting 1 mm holes for pins. While the holes aren’t very deep, they’re deep enough to help guide a drill bit. Additionally, I’ve been using the laser to create jimping.
 
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