What is your max set in your software settings.
14mm per second is about what you would expect from a 150 watt tube on 6mm acrylic at between 75% and 90% power, the ability to cut deep is a product of the materials rather than the tubes output. Acrylic is one of the cases when fast air won't help and may actually be detrimental.
To see the benefit of the bigger tube you would need to go to a longer focal length lens, problem is that's going to drop the power density as well so you will be back to tail chasing.
What you are up against is the properties of the material and the gaussian nature of focussed laser beams and that 6mm materials on a DC tube is at the upper end of what they will cut reliably at any sort of speed. For a better example, get some 2mm thick material and run the same tests, if the machine is running right then the 2mm will cut a LOT faster with a 150 watt compared to an 80 watt
You did what !
60W, Boss Laser 1630
75W, Epilog Legend 24EX
Jet Left Tilting table saw and Jet 18" Band saw
Adobe Creative suite and Laserworks 8
Do you mean 100mm/m?
100mm/s is a very fast speed that translates into 6000mm/m
and 500mm/s is 30000mm/m
To be honest I do not believe that you can cut through 12mm thick plywood on a 150W machine. I have a 280W laser with UK tubes(2x140W) and I cannot even cut through 9mm plywood at any reasonable speed. To cut 16mm thick MDF I use about 500mm/m and 90-95% power and for 9mm MDF I use about 1350mm/m and the same power. So you would guess that speed between 500 and 1300 will be ok for softwood interior plywood but it is not. I believe the thick layer of glue between veneer sheets contributes to very bad quality edges and timber knots make it hard to cut through. 19mm thick solid pine though is cutting like a butter at 1000-1200mm/m and I barely see any knots problems with solid pine.
GCC Spirit GX Pro 100W(synrad)
Laserlife Ezlaser LCW 300W(Yongli DLT-300)
I've cut through 1/2" ply at 80W with no problem, even 3/4" oak. Recently I cut through 6mm marine ply, charred edge, but it worked. I can absolutely cut 12mm regular ply on my 130W machine.
Not being able to cut, and not being able to cut at "any reasonable speed" are very different. A reasonable speed for one person may not be for another. I consider the speed to be "reasonable" if it is faster than cutting with a jigsaw. For example, I recently cut parts for a 20ft boat out of 6mm marine ply. For the long strakes (8ft each) the cutting was too slow. Instead I just used the laser to mark the lines then I cut by hand. However for the frames it was faster to let the laser do the cutting - I just had to sand the charr off the edges.
Shenhui 1440x850, 130 Watt Reci Z6
Gerber Sabre 408
The thinnest I have is 4 mm ply, but should still work?
IMG_2070.jpgIMG_2071.jpg
Can you show us screen shots of your Cut settings and machine settings?
G. Weike LG900N 100W RECI RDWorks V8
Leiming LM2513FL 1kW Raycus fiber laser cutter
Wisely 50W Raycus engraver
on 4mm Ply 45mm per second and you are at the limit of what it will cut at on anything under a 200+ watt machine with fast air, 50mm per second is pretty fair for a 150 watt running normally at it's peak power
You did what !
I’ll make a table to map my actual amp readings to watt:
30mA = 150W
I didn’t take a reading on 45% so I have guesstimated it to 90W.
90% 30,6mA 153W 80% 30,1mA 150W 70% 26,9mA 135W 60% 23,6mA 118W 50% 19,8mA 99W 40% 15,7mA 78W
I stop seeing changes around 40-45, so 80-90W.
4mm plywood:
90W it cuts through at 50mm/s
150W it cuts through at 50mm/s
6mm plywood:
78W it cuts through at 20mm/s
150W it cuts through at 20mm/s
12mm plywood:
78W it cuts through at 4mm/s
150W it cuts through at 4mm/s
15mm plywood:
-
6mm acrylic
78W it cuts through at 16mm/s
150W it cuts through at 16mm/s
There’s no wood engraving differences between 78W and 150W.
So what’s the benefit/difference of having a 150W over an 80W?
You're not running your tube at 30ma are you? It will burn out much faster.
Most folks try to stay at 20% under max power and some say 30%
That's why a 150w over an 80w on a glass tube as far as power goes. The 150 will run a little more like 110w and stay at safe levels.
How hard were you running the tube before the amp meter ? Hopefully you didn't damage your tube prematurely.
I don't run my 130w over 24ma just to play it safe.
Last edited by Ron Gosnell; 04-04-2017 at 3:22 PM.
Thunder Laser MARS 90 (130 watt)
RD Works V8
1 Phillips Screwdriver
1 Straight Edge
1 Hammer
1 Dull Chisel
1 Pencil Sharpener (manually operated)
I was told by the guys that sell our laser that 95% of the max power is just fine on the Chinese machines with a glass tube. It's just that you don't want to run it at max power (or higher); but I was instructed that a 5% buffer was fine. On my 60 Watt it maxes around 22-23ma output.
Maybe it's a little different on the higher wattage tubes, but 20-30% seems excessive even as a conservative estimate.
60W, Boss Laser 1630
75W, Epilog Legend 24EX
Jet Left Tilting table saw and Jet 18" Band saw
Adobe Creative suite and Laserworks 8