welcome back to make workshop where we
check out tools toys and tech built for
makers today we're going to be engraving
in metal with a fiber laser
this is the mon por 20 watt fiber laser
this thing has a 20 watt fiber
laser
light engine
a 6 inch by 6 inch
operating area that it can engrave in
manual
z focus
and it gets down to 0.1
millimeters of accuracy the most
important thing though is that it can
engrave in metal and i mean actually
engraven metal not just mark it a little
bit or mark it if you put a special
paste on it it can actually
engrave metal
steel
brass aluminum titanium
the list goes on and on
these are really cool
first off monport did not sponsor the
video but they did supply the laser for
the video
let's talk a little bit about fiber
lasers
now you're probably wondering why is it
called a fiber laser well that's because
the actual laser is over here in this
box and the light is transferred over to
the
galvo over here through this cable
galvo is short for galvanometer and it's
basically just two mirrors or a single
mirror being moved two ways to take a
single point of light and draw with it
the cool thing about a galvo is that
it's fast it's super fast like check
this out
i don't fully understand all the science
behind it but the fiber optic cable that
the light goes through is actually
impregnated with a bunch of different
rare earth materials that somehow
magnify the light or something to make
it work so it goes into metal listen i
didn't research that part because that's
not what this video is about this video
is about
demoing this machine so you can see if
you want to go hunt one down and find it
or use it
showing off cool stuff just like the
other videos in this series
so a fiber laser how's it different from
a diode or a co2 laser well i've got a
video coming soon that really dives into
that but let's just say each one has
their uses um but
a fiber laser mainly is used for cutting
and engraving metal
that's something that the other two
really struggle with or can't do it all
in most cases
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when you're using a fiber laser you have
your
speed that the laser is moving and you
have your power that's pretty much all
you have on the others too
but then there's an additional thing in
this which is the the pulse of the laser
itself and different pulses have
different effects on metal
it doesn't just engrave on things like
titanium for example different
frequencies on the laser can color it
you can get blue and red
and
and orange i'll find a an example online
to show you because i didn't have any
titanium here to experiment with
um
a great resource for learning all the
intricacies of this stuff is the laser
everything youtube channel go check them
out using the machine is pretty simple
once you get your reference material
down um you know just guessing at the
frequency can be pretty rough you'd have
to do a lot of trial and error there are
some great options out there i mentioned
laser everything earlier i subscribed to
their patreon and got an entire chart of
different frequencies speeds and power
that work with different metals and it's
been immensely helpful i would
definitely recommend finding laser
everything
but it works with either vectors or
bitmaps it uses easy cad 2 as the
software if you've ever used ezcad on a
laser you're familiar with how that
works
you throw it in you set up your settings
but one thing that any galvo laser does
that's fantastic is you get a preview
especially if you're working in vector
you get a preview of exactly
where your stuff's going to happen and
what it's going to look like vaguely so
you can line stuff up perfectly check
out this preview here on this little
coin of a makey i'm doing
then once you have your preview and your
focus is set right you
hit go and it engraves that little galvo
goes nuts it shoots that laser all
different directions it's so cool to
watch
i freaking love this thing
prices for these have been dropping like
crazy for the last few years when i
first started looking at fiber lasers i
couldn't find them for under like
fifteen thousand dollars
this specific one like i said which is
kind of the entry level machine is just
under three thousand dollars so it's
actually cheaper than many of the co2
lasers you see
uh being used in your home of course
your envelope is smaller
we won't get into all those differences
right now but at just under three
thousand dollars it's a heck of a steal
get more information on this specific
one at mon port laser
i will have a link to them
down below
thanks for joining me today to play with
this laser a little bit uh you know be
sure to give us a thumbs up and
subscribe and let me know down below
what kind of gear or tools or toys you'd
like to see us explore next
i'll see you on the next video
you