Yes! Personalization and customization of products is in high demand. Adding a laser engraving service to your current operation is an excellent way to reach possible new customers as well as offer a valued service to your current client base. If you have any doubts about the profitability of owning a CO2 laser system, visit our Applications page or read our many Customer Success Stories.
For some insight into the profitability of laser engraved products, take a look at the website for JDS Industries, a supplier of laserable materials. There you will find purchase prices for raw laserable materials and suggested retail prices for those same products once they have been laser engraved.
Also check out our new Guidebook to Starting Your Own Engraving & Cutting Business to see the ins and outs of starting a new laser business.
If you know how to use graphic design software, you can be up and running in minutes! There is no proprietary software to learn so you can use the programs that you are already familiar with to make the transition into laser engraving as smooth as possible.
It will take a bit of trial and error to learn what speed and power settings to use with different materials, but we include a comprehensive guide with your system that has recommended speed and power settings for various materials with which you will be working.
You can engrave scanned photos, logos, bitmaps, other images, text, and AutoCAD files. Essentially, if you can print it, you can engrave it.
To cut, you will need a vector based graphic, such as an .eps or Illustrator file.
Keep in mind the higher the quality of the graphic you're working with, the better your engraving results.
Yes. Our fiber laser systems are capable of permanently marking nearly all types of bare metal. The fiber laser line was designed with a combination of affordability and high quality results in mind. The Fusion M2 series features a 32" x 20" (812 x 508 mm) or 40" x 28" (1016 x 711 mm) work area. The flat-bed, flying-optic design of the Fusion M2 is revolutionary for a fiber laser system and will mark metals over a large work area in a short amount of time.
And, though our CO2 laser systems are mainly designed to engrave and cut non-metallic materials, they can also be used to mark on metal with the aid of metal-marking compound. Download our PDF to learn more about marking metal with a CO2 laser system.
Since we use low power CO2 (30 to 120 watts) and fiber lasers (10 to 50 watts) the beam will clearly mark on coated and raw metal but our systems are not ideally suited for metal-cutting applications. Our fiber laser systems may be compatible for cutting some thin metals as we have seen success cutting thin foils, up to .012", with our fiber lasers.
Please contact our Applications Lab to discuss your metal-cutting applications and see if they can work with our systems!
Yes, the laser is completely safe to operate. It is a Class 2 laser - 1mW CW Maximum 600-700 nm, which means that the laser is secured with interlock devices so it will not run with the doors of the system open. No special safety gear is required to run the laser.
No, one laser does it all! Our CO2 laser systems will engrave and cut most non-metallic materials, as well as engrave coated metals. For information on what materials you can engrave and cut, visit our Materials page.
The laser can be set to engrave only (Raster Mode), cut only (Vector Mode), or can complete both operations in Combined Mode. The laser knows what portions to engrave and what portions to cut based on line width, which is easily set in your graphic design software.
Investing in a new computer is a great way to make sure you’re getting the most out of your new laser equipment. Why? Because today’s software requires a lot of computer processing speed and memory to function properly. A good computer won’t make a huge difference in how your laser runs, but when compared to a slow computer it will save untold amounts of time and frustration setting up the artwork that you “print” to the laser. Many users do not purchase new computers for use with their new laser because their current computers are perfectly adequate. There’s no magical cut-off that makes a computer too slow. If you’re comfortable with the performance and speed of your current computer, there’s probably no reason to purchase another one. The following recommendations are just options to consider if a new computer is necessary.
A new computer doesn’t have to be expensive to work well! Even many of today’s lower-cost computers work well for laser applications. As long as you don’t buy the cheapest computer you can find you should be fine. One thing to avoid is the Intel Celeron processor – while they are good processors, and will work with the laser, they don’t process graphics with the speed most laser users desire.
Our laser systems work through a print driver, so you can design your files in many different graphic software packages including CorelDraw, Illustrator, Photoshop, AutoCAD, and much more. CorelDraw is the most commonly used software, but the laser works with many different packages.
Zing 16/24 - Static Table Weight: 50 lbs (22.7 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 25 lbs (11.5 kg)
Mini 18/24 - Static Table Weight: 50 lbs (22.7 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 25 lbs (11.5 kg)
Helix 24 - Static Table Weight: 70 lbs (32 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 30 lbs (14 kg)
Fusion 32/Fusion M2 40/FiberMark Fusion - Static Table Weight: 200 lbs (90 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 100 lbs (46 kg)
FiberMark - Static Table Weight: 200 lbs (90.7 kg) | Lifting Table weight: 80 lbs (36.3 kg)
Fusion Pro - Static Table Weight: 150 lbs (68 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 85 lbs (39 kg)
Fusion Edge - Static Table Weight: 40 lbs (18.1 kg) | Lifting Table Weight: 25 lbs (11.4 kg)
+/- 0.0005" (0.0127 mm)
+/- .01" (.254 mm) over the entire table.
CO2: 10.6 microns
Fiber: 1064 nanometers
Cutting: Thin sheets of polycarbonate can be cut with our CO2 laser systems, but the material tends to discolor when heated by the laser beam. The thinner the sheet you are cutting, the better the cutting results you will obtain. If you would like us to test your sheet of polycarbonate, please contact our Applications Lab.
Engraving: Most colored polycarbonates can be marked with our FiberMark metal and plastic marking system. To test your material, please contact our Applications Lab.
Hydrogen Chloride and Vinyl Chloride (mostly found in PVC and other man made materials) are hazardous to the life of your laser system. Engraving and cutting these materials can cause irreversible damage to your machine, so determining the components of your cutting and engraving materials is extremely important. Materials, such as Kydex, contain PVC.
Material Safety Data Sheet
A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is designed to provide you the proper procedures for handling or working with a particular substrate. These documents contain the elements used to make up the material and will indicate whether or not it contains elements that are potentially harmful to your engraving system.
The advanced version of PLP includes two features that are not available in the standard version:
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