chinese Fibre laser

[Alexa Ristow]

fibre.jpgHi Creekers,
I have been taking a look at adding a Fibre laser to my setup. I cannot find any local suppliers of these devices, they only supply gantry machines.
Does anyone have any experience with Chines machines such as the one shown. I would like to go with a 20Watt system with an engrave area of 300 x 300 mm ( 12 inch x 12 inch). Prices hover around $ 12 000 to $ 15 000 before importing so I cannot get it wrong. We presently have a Rabbit 60 w 6090 machine and know the challenges of Chinese support. To a large degree, I have overcome that and have built up a list of local and Chinese suppliers that have allowed me to have 99.99% uptime over 5 years. If anyone with experience in these products can share some knowledge, brands or insights it would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,

Norman and Alexa.

[Zhiyue Sun]

For Fibre laser marking machine, fibre laser plays an important role for the machine, some factory use Germany fibre laser to make it. So it can work vey well and make the pattern clear even detail. If the price is around $12 000 to $15 000, the fibre laser is not from German, so the machine makes logo that is not clear.

I hope this machine will be helpful for you.

[Dan Hintz]

As with the CO2 systems, the vast majority of them are all based off of the same small line, just rebadged. The one you show has a manual Z-height table, but it looks like it could have an auto-Z height adjustment in the arm... tough to tell from the pic. If it's manual, expect to adjust a lot for focus... fiber doesn't have nearly the same depth of field as a CO2 system (1mm is typical). 20W will mark metal, but don't expect deep engraving without many hours working on a tiny area. The Chinese galvos are quite a bit slower than Western versions, typically 25-50% slower, so keep that in mind, too. Expect a lower beam quality. I would go for fiber over YAG, so make sure you're getting what you think you're getting... an end-firing system will have a better beam than a side-fire, so that's another thing to look for.

[Rodne Gold]

300 x 300 mm marking field for a galvo sounds pretty big - aren't their some compromises with a field that large?

[Dan Hintz]

300 x 300 mm marking field for a galvo sounds pretty big - aren't their some compromises with a field that large?

The bigger the field, the larger the beam (i.e., less power density = less engraving capabilities)... same as with longer focal length lenses on CO2 machines. Right now I'm spec'ing out a unit that would allow for up to 3x3 meters... they can get really big fields these days.

[Alexa Ristow]

HI Rodney,

Lenses seem to cater for 100 x 100, 180 x 180 and 300 x 300.
The last one would only be used for low detail cuts like wedding invites. Most engraving would happen with the 100 or 180 range.
How about you doing another China Trip with a data Recce on these Fibre's. Your info from your Shenhui trip was most useful.
I need to pop in and say hi in person. I work in Vanguard drive.

Cheers,

Norman

[Alexa Ristow]

Thanx Dan,,,,

Of course the youtube videos make it look like these things eat titanium Ore and spit out Hyperprecise engraving and cutouts.
Surprised they don't show oil tankers being assembled.

Cheers,,

[Rodne Gold]

What you going to use it for?
I saw a few in operation at shenhui , I was not that impressed , a 20w took quite a few passes to cut thru thin aluminium....
You more than welcome to come and visit - I'm in most days to 12 or 1 pm or so.

[Dave Sheldrake]

I have 2 small and one huge Fiber Galvo's. The 300 x 300 F-Theta systems tend to lose quite a bit of definition outside of the 200 x 200 square out to the 300 x 300. My Vytek is huge! but orders of magnitude more expensive to buy (and rarely gets used).
During the coming factory move I'll probably get rid of them rather than leave them as big boat anchors in the corner and replace them with RF Galvo's.

Chinese fibers aren't bad, just avoid any lamp pumped stuff.

cheers

Dave

[Joe Hillmann]

You say you want to do wedding invites. Depending on what you are planning, fiber probably isn't what you want. If you plan to do paper cutting fiber won't do it.

Also 20 watts over a 300 x 300 mm are wouldn't isn't very powerful. (that is assuming the 300 x300 area is all done with the lens and not a combination of the lens and a cnc xy table.