Is anyone interested in snapmaker developing an IR laser like Xtool?
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They could be but my question is which material do you want to engrave thats metal that you canât with a 40W diode?
To my knowledge, a blue diode is only really good for stainless steel and maybe tool steel bare. The IR can do pretty much all of them bare, stainless, gold, silver, copper, brass, etc, along with cleaner acrylic engraves. The XTool IR is also half the price of the Snapmaker 40W. You can even do rust/oxidization cleanup with the 1064nm IR if youâre into restoring coins and tools.
EDIT: Also if you want really fine details. The higher power blue diodes, the more you stack, the bigger the beam spot. Snapmakerâs 40W is 0.1x0.15mm vs Xtoolâs IR being 0.03x0.03mm. Which if youâre doing metals, youâre likely working on smaller parts, so the finer control helps a lot.
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the 2w ir module (like xtool has) is in development
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I would definitely be interested.
Yes !!! This would be what I have been waiting for.
Not for engraving but for cutting clear acrylic. The present lasers can only cut black acrylic (and do that very nicely) but canât work with clear acrylic. I need to cut cleat acrylic but do not want to buy a big bulky K40 CO2 laser that needs endless fiddling to perform.
A decent infrared laser unit for the Snapmaker 2.0 that can cut clear acrylic and is reasonable priced is my dream!
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It cannot cut clear acrylic. The depth of focus is too narrow, and while it seems to engrave a bit (in my testing with the acrylic I have) it cannot actually cut. Clear acrylic seems to still be mostly transparent to the 1065nm IR, only affecting it RIGHT at the focal point.
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Is there any release date yet?
Just got the pre-release âwishlist meâ email