Lazer cutting

[woodartist]

Is anyone using a lazer cutter to make parts? What equipment are you using? What software are you using? Any recommendations?

[sheepsail]

Check out my 'Forester' log.  I am using a large format engraver in the local Makerspace.

 

I use lightburn and DELFTship.  There is stuff on this in the 3D forums.

 

BYTW: I think lazar was a now extinct plant used for food in ancient Rome, till it was all eaten.  Laser is Light Amplitude Stimulus Energy Radiation.

 

[Tossedman]

I had a Trotec Speedy 300 at work but have recently retired. Our local maker space has the same machine so I need to check them out. I've used Adobe Illustrator to great success over the past 10 years or so. The only thing I've used it for so far for model ships was for carronade carriages. Works a treat. 

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

Edited Tuesday at 08:26 PM by Tossedman

[woodartist]

thanks I will research further on the machines, software and 3D forum

[sheepsail]

A few other note about the machines.  

 

For the most part these are industrial machines.  They require an industrial space, with active ventilation flues.  Why most of them are placed in shared workspaces or libraries.   It takes a fairly powerful laser to cut through 1/4 inch of wood.  In addition to the ventilation, there is active cooling involved.

 

Even after cutting the parts tend to outgass from the burned edges.   The stuff I cut last night smells a bit like toasted Christmas trees this morning. 

 

I have been typically spending 3 or so hours per session.  Of this the actual cutting is perhap 10 to 15 minutes.  The rest is prep and set up.   It probably took a month or so to create the base drawings in lightburn.   When actually cutting one has to plan how it fits onto the material.  There is also time needed for cleanup.

 

Be ware of the smaller machines.  The ones what use small diode lasers and DVD type mechanisms. Even these have large heat sinks.  I have a few of these that were popular a decade or so back.   Typically they only have about 2x2 inch work area.   Sometimes these diode lasers are installed on 3D printer frames. Some of these only will move the laser head in a raster pattern.  The resulting accuracy is only as good as the lead screw or syncro/servo belting.

 

-julie

[baribeaujm]

Please note that LASER stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. Nothing to do with energy or amplitude. 

 

[sheepsail]

Thanks for the correction.  I could not remember all of the acronym.  I posted this yesterday when working with the machine, and did not bother to look it up.

 

Here is a link to the extinct Mediterranean plant.  It is quite fascinating   Must have tasted good, as it was eaten into extinction.  In the end it was worth more than gold.   

 

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I have an Elegoo Phecda 20watt diode laser. I bought it on impulse via a kickstarter deal as I just wanted to get stuck in and get learning. I too use Lightburn as the cutting software; it’s brilliant and quite well priced.

 

A few lessons;

- decent fume extraction is simply essential. I use the machine in my garage workshop and had to put in a 150mm inline extractor fan and ductwork to vent outside, fixed to the laser enclosure

- the machine takes up a lot of space! The footprint is 600mm square and about 300mm high. But you also need space either side for long material.

- It was my plan to make veneer decks etc to sell. The cutting area is 400 square but this is not big enough. I realised almost immediately that I needed a 600mm long cutting area.

- a 20 watt diode will give a fairly good finish on 5mm plywood in three passes but the more passes, the more the cut flares out.

- on my diode module, the beam is oblong rather than round. This is a real nuisance because everything I make uses very precise dimensions with tolerances of 0.15mm being typical. I can achieve that with the laser, but with difficulty.

- laser cutting is a very easy thing to learn, there are loads of good videos on YouTube.

 

Overall, my advice would be to see if there is any way at all to first use a machine in a maker space / school / college, if only to quickly understand what you are getting into. Then, figure out what you want to use it for and buy a machine accordingly. If I was doing this all over again I’d be looking at an xtool machine as these have extension kits, but I’d also be thinking seriously about a co2 machine in order to be able to cut and engrave a wider range of materials. Don’t get me wrong, the Phecda is good at what it does and a 400mm work area is more than big enough for cutting bulkheads and frames, but there are some unexpected limitations.

 

ps. Almost forgot: my main process is resin printing and I use highly flammable isopropyl alcohol for print washing. Having this running in the same space as lasering would be plain dangerous and part of the reason my laser machine sits unused for 99% of the time is because I have to shut down printing and make the space safe for lasering. I mention this just in case you also need to consider that.

Edited 20 hours ago by Kevin-the-lubber
Add info

[Gregory]

On 9/2/2025 at 12:49 PM, woodartist said:

Is anyone using a lazer cutter to make parts? What equipment are you using? What software are you using? Any recommendations?

I'm using an Xtool D1 Pro 20W with Lightburn software.

Ventilation is a must with a laser.

 

If I were buying today I would get one of the Xtool S1 machines.  Probably a 20W.

 

If you skim through my Resolution and Rattlesnake builds you can see how I have put it to use.

Edited 19 hours ago by Gregory

[Cleat]

I use a 5.5 W laser for etching, it won't cut much.  I use a device with 2 computer fans with a charcoal filter and it does a pretty good job, a smoke detector is 12 feet away and I haven't tripped it yet.  My hobby machine lets me change the laser to a spindle and I've cut parts and routed jigs with that configuration.  

Edited 17 hours ago by Cleat

[Kevin-the-lubber]

8 hours ago, Gregory said:

If I were buying today I would get one of the Xtool S1 machines.  Probably a 20W

Good shout, but it also illustrates the issue for me: here, that would set me back around £2000; the Phecda cost about £400.

[Gregory]

8 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Good shout, but it also illustrates the issue for me: here, that would set me back around £2000; the Phecda cost about £400.

I can certainly appreciate the price limitations. 

Do you have air asist?  It makes  a big difference in  cutting power.

Multiple passes should not make the kerf larger.

I can cut 5mm plywood in one pass with speed at 5mm/second and about 90% power. 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

1 hour ago, Gregory said:

Do you have air asist?

Yes, the Phecda package I chose came with air assist, a roller attachment, a honeycomb and an enclosure. I kind of mis-described the multi-pass flaring issue. It's more that the thicker the material the more likely that you'll have to tolerate a bit of flaring. This is down to beam focus i.e. if you try to cut 10mm ply using several passes, by the time it's cutting beyond, say, 5mm or 6mm deep, the beam is well out of focus and diffused, so you get a wider kerf. Obviously you can mitigate to some extent by adjusting the height. Your 20w head must be better than mine. I can cut 5mm in 3 passes at 8mm/second at 100% power.

 

In fact, if I was buying again I'd do my homework and watch eBay. There are a lot of very good professional machines that come up for sale and I'm sure I could get something much better than any hobbyist machines, for much the same cost. But I guess to do that you need to have first learned what you can and can't do for £2000.