When is the 7 watt laser coming out?

Snapmaker 2.0
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It probably wouldn’t be horrible, but I hate messing with mirrors and the upkeep associated with them.

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Lastly i was in a conversation with Staff, this was the answer about the new Laser:

High power laser including other addons are on our internal roadmap, and they will be in development soon

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That sounds like it’s a long way off.
If they don’t even say it’s in development.
I’d guess that we won’t hear about it until fall and see it until Christmas.
And I think I’m being overly optimistic. That would be best case scenario.
-S

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Ditto, there are other add-ons that were promised a year ago and have not seen the light of day. I expect the HP laser about the time SM 3.0 comes out.

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Share! Share! Share :smile:
I have seen one DIY laser/CNC machine that looks good, but was a bit technical. In the past, I have off-shored my tech work to my son. That is not so much an option anymore.

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@Travis I could but I don’t think it will help you much, I don’t own a SM anymore so all my projects are for another machine :slight_smile: I hang around to help out when I can. So if you want to take on the project, I would be happy to answer any questions you have. And help if you run into any problems.

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What laser are you taking about? It can be off topic.

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honestly i have been trying to figure what my next laser project will be. i was hoping for something high power but it seems that nothing is quit fitting my bill. at first i was hoping to use a fiber laser like the one i posted earlier in the thread. but those are really only good for cutting metals (like 4" thick steel XD), and i use mostly wood so i decided it wasn’t worth the price and time. then i thought about doing CO2. While my new machine has a very short Z axis that i could lock in place to use with a standard k40 CO2 laser, i don’t want to have to mess with optics every time i want to cut something, especial not in a dirty milling environment. so i started looking for fiber coupled CO2 lasers, unfortunately other then some super expensive medical equipment, that tech hasn’t progressed much over the last 4 or 5 years :(. next i decided to look into other wavelengths that are good for cutting wood, turns out that 355nm(UV) is great for cutting wood, so i started looking at that. unfortunately not a lot of high powered lasers at 355nm, the largest retail model i could find was a 10W and cost $30K. this lead me back to a standard 7W DIY laser diode… but that has been done time and time again so not sure its worth posting a build thread for it.

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Is this roadmap still there, it looks like is was either changed to private or deleted. Has anyone an idea how to get access to it?

Thanks in advance.

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Hi Atom,

I also did some research for a different laser head as I find the included 1.6W module to be way too weak for my needs. It turns out that the you can get the best value by either buying a K40 variant or some 40W diode laser head (~15W optical output) both starting at around 400€ as complete set. Note that diode lasers with more than 6W optical output usually consist of multiple diodes optically combined.
I would prefer seeing a solution integrated into my Snapmaker 2.0 A350 but I hesitate to buy one if there is only like 8W optical output and missing air assist (which should be G-Code controllable).
Here are some options I found so far:

Some of those look really nice but exceed my budget and do not really fit into a Snapmaker. Fiber lasers are nice at first glance but have a poor power efficiency and are very cost intensive (e.g. see laser source and laser head). These are usually made for systems with some hundred Watts optical output power.
For now the best option for me would be an easily extensible Snapmaker module for diode laser heads like the NEJE module, that I can simple modify to match one found in the market at the time. Sadly, I have absolutely no time to create my own custom Snapmaker module for this :frowning_face:…

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A k40 variant would be a co2 laser with mirrors, you would find it nearly impossible to put a mirrored laser onto a machine with a movable z axis (mirror alignment is a pain when you have 3 moving axis)

The 40W NEJE lasers are not 15W output, they are ~7W at least from everything I have seen and read including several first hand reports by people who own them.

Some places (like endurance) do make multi diode lasers that are joined like you are suggesting (most fiber lasers also use multiple “pumping” diodes but that is different) but they are not worth the added expense. The issue is that there is no way for them to keep the optical output round when the two lasers are joined. Because of the inherent elliptical shape you can’t get as fine of a focus witch means less optical density and less effective cutting power. So a 10W duel diode laser head will cut just about as well as a 7.5W single diode laser head.

I have seen some proven 8W laser head, but I don’t trust them to last because it’s using a 6W diode and increasing optical output by more than 30% has to have a negative impact on usable life.

As for fiber, I wasn’t able to find any good fiber options for wood. Most fiber lasers use a wavelength that excells on metals but does not cut wood (it just starts on fire). You can couple a co2 laser to a fiber optic cable. But I could not find any fiber optic cables that would transmit the proper wavelength and power for a 40W+ co2 laser. If you have please share!

I often run into this problem. So many dreams so little time :slight_smile:

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Yes, the endurance lasers seem to use a single diode to get a continues optical output of ~8W.

That also explains why the description of the 40W NEJE differs to that of the PLH3D-15W, which also claims to deliver an optical output power 15W (using 3 diodes). However, that price already exceeds that of a Snapmaker 2.0 A350, therefore, out of my small hobby budget.
As for the CO2 fiber laser coupling you can actually find some companies for that (see 1, 2, 3) but those are made for scientific or medical use and most likely way too expensive.
The best value for cost is probably a K40 variant. For the diode laser heads its probably an endurance laser because I doubt the Chinese variants will last that long.

Btw. the most promising Chinese laser heads I found are (just for reference):

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The k40 lasers are designed around a co2 laser tube and reflective mirrors to deliver that laser from the tube to the focusing optics inside the laser head. It’s a good design (used all the way up to several undred watt industrial machines) but only if the cutting head can only move in a single plane (x,y) even the slightest z change of the cutting head will throw the whole system out of wack. This makes it extremely difficult to mount to a machine like the SM. you could mount the tube on the head but it is very fragile and bulky so doing so would force you to slow your speed way down.

That is what I found as well. most seemed to require cooling of the fiber and as you said well outside my hobby budget.

The “unknown” I would not trust at all
NEJE is a good reliable brand (though documentation is poor)
The last one on your list is suspicious to me. I can not think of how they would get a 25W optical output with such a small dot size and a greater than 50% efficiency. Just goes against what I have learned of lasers. That said I know nothing about them so maybe they have done somthing innovative.

If your looking for a cheap ready to burn laser I would recommend Barnett Unlimited
They have a good reputation in the laser community and are affordable and offer 7W output ready to burn lasers (as well as diy laser equipment).

Edit: also a great thing about Barnett is they specify the laser diode used, so you know what your buying and can fact check it. Unlike most of the Chinese companies that you simply have to take at their word.

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I know very little about co2 lasers so forgive me if this is a dumb solution.

Could you mount the tube to the back of the x-axis linear module then have 4 mirrors directing the laser around the module to one of the sides on the front? This way everything moves with the z-axis and the tube is securely mounted?

There is the matter of if the vibrations of the unit moving will throw off the mirrors, but are there any other issues with that approach?

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Well, I meant that you are probably better off buying a ready to use K40 laser cutter than trying to add a CO2 laser to your Snapmaker.

Thank you for that hint. I will keep that in mind.

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The issue would be size, stability and cooling. the 40W co2 tubes are fragile but somewhat large (700mm x 50mm for just the tube itself). So to mount it on the x rail would be possible but it would be bulky. Then comes stability, the tube is very fragile so you don’t want to have it jumping around but you could engineer a solution to that. Lastly is cooling, they are water cooled, so you would have to find a good way to route cooling lines to the tube that won’t get kinked or broken.

Add all of this together and what you get is a lot of weight and complexity with a lot that could go wrong. The weight would be your biggest enemy as the more weight the slower you have to move the machine run and lasers are loved for their speed.

So in summery, yes, you could do it. The same way you could take a semitruck’s diesel engine and put it on a motorcycle. And I’m sure people have (done both of these things), But doing so just doesn’t make good sense for most people in most applications.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to mention that you would want to be very sure about that mounting as tubes cost over $100 so running it into one of your z rails or having it slip loose and fall or overheat and burn up would not be a cheap mistake.

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Sorry I misunderstood, I agree with you on that 100%. if you want to be serious about lasering and you need more than the ~7w diodes. that would be your best option.

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I agree with all the points made so far.

I’ll just refine your last point, Adam, a little further: if you want to be serious about laser cutting. If you like variable darkness art drawn on wood, diode lasers are preferred. CO2 lasers don’t do very good shading.

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You are correct 100% 7W is more than enough for most applications except cutting wood >1/8" or cutting/engraving metal (actual engraving, an 8w laser can remove oxide coatings and mark metal with proper setup) Thanks for clarifying that Brent!

Edit: and I will add that the wavelength of a Blue diode laser also gives better sharpness to images than a co2

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