Fiber laser engraver recommendations

[Steve Utick]

Been lurking here for a bit. I've seen it come up numerous times where people have said you can get a fairly decent Chinese fiber laser for around $5000 delivered to the U.S. However, I've never seen anything about a vendor name related to that. Any recommendations of a vendor to speak to if I'd like to add a fiber laser to my set of tools?

Thanks!

[John Lifer]

Base màchine is about that. Plus customs and fees. And add if you want a rotary and other lens. Ray fine. Give Blanca a shout and she will give you as good a quote as you can get. Satisfied customer. I've a CO2 laser from them and a 20watt fiber hopefully shipping this next week.
Web: www.rayfinetech.com
Email​​​:​ yanblanca@yahoo.com

[Rodne Gold]

I got mine from Longtai liaocheng lasers
https://longtailaser.en.alibaba.com/
Speak to Yarde Feng there
Skype yardefeng
Excellent machine ..20w .. if you can spring a little more , try for a 30w

[David Somers]

I would also recommend Ray Fine and Blanca. I have a CO2 laser and a CNC from them and am very pleased with both the machines and with Blanca as a sales person and also a quasi tech person. I do not have one of their fiber's though.

Let us know who you finally choose and how you like the machine once you have one.

BTW. I assume you are aware of the various kinds of fibers available and their strengths and weaknesses depending on the work you want them to do and materials you want them to work on?

Dave

[Steve Utick]

I would also recommend Ray Fine and Blanca. I have a CO2 laser and a CNC from them and am very pleased with both the machines and with Blanca as a sales person and also a quasi tech person. I do not have one of their fiber's though.

Let us know who you finally choose and how you like the machine once you have one.

BTW. I assume you are aware of the various kinds of fibers available and their strengths and weaknesses depending on the work you want them to do and materials you want them to work on?

Dave

We've had numerous customers contact us about Stainless stuff, plus have some of our own projects with Stainless that are obviously easier on a fiber laser than messing with cermark. The main thing is to have more metal capabilities than we have now.

I've been reading up some on the Fibers, but obviously don't know everything. Would you be able to expand on the different models, capabilities, etc?

Thanks.

[David Somers]

Steve,

Without direct Fiber experience on my part I won't attempt to answer that. But there are lots of folks here with fibers of various sorts who should be able to help.

Mainly I wanted to be sure you realized there were various flavors of fibers in case you hadn't gotten that far yet.

[Kev Williams]

We've had numerous customers contact us about Stainless stuff, plus have some of our own projects with Stainless that are obviously easier on a fiber laser than messing with cermark.
Thanks.

Forgive me for being blunt, but in a word: NOPE. If you're expecting a fiber to replace Cermark, you will be more than a little disappointed. What it CAN replace, to some extent, is rotary tool engraving. And if you want to do "bright" engraving on metals, it's the bomb! However, I've had my fiber for 8 months and it hasn't replaced one bit of Cermark engraving. And as expensive at it may seem, after doing some quick math, I find that around 80 cents worth of Cermark generates $100 in sales.

Rowmark's not even close to that cheap!

[Mike Null]

+1 on the ROI on Cermark. It's the most profitable material I use.

When I was in the process of buying my Trotec I made a matrix listing brands features, etc., etc. I recommend you do the same. Besides providing a logical selection method it serves as a good self training tool. The file below will give you a start if you're interested in this project

.Fiber matrix.cdr

[Julian Ashcroft]

I got my fiber laser from a company called 'Sign-In-China' it's a 20watt model and was delivered in about 10 days of placing the order, it worked straight out of the box. I have been using it mostly to mark cutlery.

[Steve Utick]

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback.

[Don Fey]

Been lurking here for a bit. I've seen it come up numerous times where people have said you can get a fairly decent Chinese fiber laser for around $5000 delivered to the U.S. However, I've never seen anything about a vendor name related to that. Any recommendations of a vendor to speak to if I'd like to add a fiber laser to my set of tools?

Thanks!

I can tell you one to stay away from- Ocean Link Technologies. Sent out a factory reject Max painted over with a spray can in place of a Raycus. Most importantly- you must have a secure payment method to buy safely from China, and Alibaba's Trade Assurance program is NOT safe. You may have to do a lot of negotiating, but insist on a third-party escrow that allows you to inspect the machine on receipt before seller can get your money. Look at the ocean Link scam at laserscams.com before you risk your money on the usual China terms of payment- (cash in advance, and pray we don't cheat you)

[mike wallis]

Forgive me for being blunt, but in a word: NOPE. If you're expecting a fiber to replace Cermark, you will be more than a little disappointed. What it CAN replace, to some extent, is rotary tool engraving. And if you want to do "bright" engraving on metals, it's the bomb! However, I've had my fiber for 8 months and it hasn't replaced one bit of Cermark engraving. And as expensive at it may seem, after doing some quick math, I find that around 80 cents worth of Cermark generates $100 in sales.

Rowmark's not even close to that cheap!

Hello Kev,
We are considering going to a fiber to phase out the Thermark. Two main reasons is it's time consuming, messy and toxic when sprayed. We use Thermark on stainless steel and brass (1/16" thick) for sizes from 1x3" to 18x24". What are you main disappointments using the fiber compared to the Cermark?

[Jacob John]

Hello Kev,
We are considering going to a fiber to phase out the Thermark. Two main reasons is it's time consuming, messy and toxic when sprayed. We use Thermark on stainless steel and brass (1/16" thick) for sizes from 1x3" to 18x24". What are you main disappointments using the fiber compared to the Cermark?

BUMP to see if Kev can respond. That's a fairly pointed statement that he made. The companies that market fiber lasers seem to subtly suggest that their fibers can all but replace the need for Cermark.

[Tim Bateson]

...The companies that market fiber lasers seem to subtly suggest that their fibers can all but replace the need for Cermark.

If you think CerMark is slow, wait until you try it without CerMark on a Fiber. Beautiful mark, but very, very slow.

[Scott Shepherd]

Hello Kev,
We are considering going to a fiber to phase out the Thermark. Two main reasons is it's time consuming, messy and toxic when sprayed. We use Thermark on stainless steel and brass (1/16" thick) for sizes from 1x3" to 18x24". What are you main disappointments using the fiber compared to the Cermark?

If you have any plans to do anything productive with a fiber on 18" x 24" pieces, you're mistaken. A fiber won't begin to compete with Cermark on pieces that size. We have a fiber and I'd agree with Kev's assessment completely. I had a customer bring in some 4" x 6" stainless plates for a piece of equipment that produce. The part was done on a fiber. We replicated what they had. The pieces took 45 minutes each and I wasn't happy with them, but they matched what they had (the most important thing for them). Cermark would have done that same job with a better result in 1/3 the time if not less.

Brass? Don't get me started. Some brass marks, some doesn't with the fiber. You'll figure out which ones won't mark when you take a job on for a customer and they supply you with boxes of parts you can't mark.

The fiber is by no means the holy grail of metal marking that some people want you to believe it is. The larger the item, the worse it is for the fiber. You don't get to mark parts with a fiber with 1 pass for the most part. You'll have to take lots of passes and the larger the graphic gets, the quicker that time clock goes up exponentially.