Cutting Speeds and LASER Power
Posted: Sat May 14, 2011 11:27 pm
Greetings,
I found this site through 'MakerSlide'. I want to first thank all who got that project underway. I will be purchasing some long lengths and having them shipped to about 80 miles SW of Dallas if it is possible. If anyone in the "Fort Worth/Dallas" area wants some long lengths or, just wants to bundle shipping with my batch, let me know by PM and we shall make arrangements to achieve that goal.
I am primarily a woodworker. My present project is a series run of 22' John Hacker inspired runabouts. These will have a hull of 2 layers of 4mm marine plywood covered by a linear layer of "African Mahogany", also near 4mm. All of this will be vacuum laminated over forms using epoxy as the primary adhesive. I plan on CNC cutting all of the plywood and mahogany, at least on the first two.
I plan on building a 'better' router with the MakerSlide extrusions. While reading about the project, it occurred to my not so nimble brain if the wood were cut with a laser, all of the kerf would be smoke, rather than sawdust. I would not need to sweep the sawdust up or carry it out and dispose of it.
The question is how fast will a laser of "X" power cut wood of "Y" thickness. Is there a 'rule of thumb' one can use to determine what speeds might be possible? On this site I have seen things like % speed with apparently power pulsed at another rate. Both of these are near Greek at my present LASER education level. On commercial sites I have found rates of up to several meters a minute ..... but they seldom tell the power used. In my short amount of research I have found solid woods cut faster than laminated products and the mash of glue and cellulose they call MDF does not cut well at all.
So, what speeds can one expect with a 40W .... or even a 100W LASER and 4mm solid and ply? Do I need even more power? From what I read at times it will take several passes to cut thicker material. My level of ignorance tells me this must be from the smoke degrading the laser beam and/or the glue.
Thanks for your help,
Ron
I found this site through 'MakerSlide'. I want to first thank all who got that project underway. I will be purchasing some long lengths and having them shipped to about 80 miles SW of Dallas if it is possible. If anyone in the "Fort Worth/Dallas" area wants some long lengths or, just wants to bundle shipping with my batch, let me know by PM and we shall make arrangements to achieve that goal.
I am primarily a woodworker. My present project is a series run of 22' John Hacker inspired runabouts. These will have a hull of 2 layers of 4mm marine plywood covered by a linear layer of "African Mahogany", also near 4mm. All of this will be vacuum laminated over forms using epoxy as the primary adhesive. I plan on CNC cutting all of the plywood and mahogany, at least on the first two.
I plan on building a 'better' router with the MakerSlide extrusions. While reading about the project, it occurred to my not so nimble brain if the wood were cut with a laser, all of the kerf would be smoke, rather than sawdust. I would not need to sweep the sawdust up or carry it out and dispose of it.
The question is how fast will a laser of "X" power cut wood of "Y" thickness. Is there a 'rule of thumb' one can use to determine what speeds might be possible? On this site I have seen things like % speed with apparently power pulsed at another rate. Both of these are near Greek at my present LASER education level. On commercial sites I have found rates of up to several meters a minute ..... but they seldom tell the power used. In my short amount of research I have found solid woods cut faster than laminated products and the mash of glue and cellulose they call MDF does not cut well at all.
So, what speeds can one expect with a 40W .... or even a 100W LASER and 4mm solid and ply? Do I need even more power? From what I read at times it will take several passes to cut thicker material. My level of ignorance tells me this must be from the smoke degrading the laser beam and/or the glue.
Thanks for your help,
Ron