Thanks for the compliments

There are many factors when printing wood that come into play. The density of the wood is one, but also how moist the wood is, makes a big difference. plywood from my warm room cuts way better, then the same plywood from the shed, where the humidity is much bigger. I make tests before I start cutting to test for the best speed and power settings.

Thanks for the compliment. :-)

There are special Collimation lenses that can be used, however that requires to not only add that lens, but also open the housing of the laser and align the diode to be perfect with the lens. This should only be done if you are comfortable working with lasers, and know how to do it the safe way.

Your Welcome

Your Welcome :-)

I hope so, but untill now, Neje didn't react to my requests.

Thanks for your compliment.

Can you tell me,how far should the lens barrel screw into the ortur factory holder please

Thank you.

My previous air assist (type 1) was a pipe with an opening on the top were the laser light came from the same pipe as the air. Yet, this was way less effective as this air assist is. I have made 8 itterations to test different types of air assists, and this (up until now) was the best. But, I am not finished yet, as I am renewing my desing from time to time.

Your Welcome

Lol, thanks for sharing that. I heard from the people from Ortur that occasionally, they receive machines because of this complaint.

Thanks. Yes there is... Buy a CO2 laser, and the problem is gone :-) Maar zonder gekheid, nee... helaas niet. Dit is een eigenschap van een diode laser.

@@3dPrintCreator Bedankt , For the other readers too in English. Do you know something about the real lifetime of power diode lasers and the effect of temperature that has on it. I read things around 10.000 hr but is that real?

There is no real data for that. Running a diode laser on maximum power, means you have to cool down the laser better, than when running on, for example, 75% power. I do have a lot of lasers here, and in a few years time, I only had one diode laser head replaced, because it burned, yet this was the direct result of a wiring problem, where I made a mistake. When you search on Facebook groups, or forums, you will find people that burned their lasers too, yet I don't know what they did to make it happen. I only know I melted one of my lasers because I made a stupid mistake cutting out the cooling fan.

Most cheap engravers don't have a Z adjustment but the software I am using is capable of controlling the Z height. I have yet, not seen any Chinese laser engraver that can work with these commands from the software.

I mounted a diode laser to my cnc machine which is also a router. I have an adjustable z axis so theoretically I can do subsequent passes at lower levels. Just like a router.

That will give you so much more options to cut deeper. :-) Only know that because of the shape of the kerf, the depth won't ever be deeper than about 5mm on harder materials, and 10mm on soft foam etc.

@@3dPrintCreator Yeah, your explanation of the kerf shape explains why I couldn't cut out cardboard shapes for custom boxes. It makes perfect sense now! (I make custom boxes for my signs out of recycled sheets/boxes from appliances, furniture etc)

A lot of cnc’s now have a laser option. But most I’ve seen start at $700.

Totally true :-)

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I don't have that file anymore. I made it specifically for this video. Sorry.

There isn't for this particular laser, but there are other lasers out there that have square beams. When you look at a laser, always look at the dot size. if the two given numbers are the same, the beams is square.

Not that I know. In the latest lasers, this is not an issue anymore. They generate a square beam.

Hi, Of course I don't know how well your air assist works, but the difference between working with or without an airassist should be about 20% depth in a material like wood. The question is, is your airflow straight down, or does it spread, and also, howe much air are you using, what is the presure you are using? If your airflow and presure are good, then you could try lowering your power and try using a higher speed. This sound strange, I know, Yet now you can make more passes and your airflow will be more sufficient in blowing away the ashes, so that the laser burns fresh and clean wood, instead of it strugling with the ashes on top of the wood. Also, where do you ficus your laser? The best place to ficus the laser is in the middel of your material. if set correctly, you should be able to cut the back of the material almost as easy as the top of the material. Of course there are limits to what you can cut, but with these tricks (if you didn't already uise them) you can cut a bit deeper into the wood. Good luck, and let me know if it helped.

@@3dPrintCreator Im using the official Sculpfun s9 kit and full blow. It mught have made a 20% difference in depth, but i was expecting it to give me lightly browned edges and they still turn to charcoal. My point was more that it wasnt the miracle cure. Im brand new to this. Going to limit myself to 3mm max thickness and then learn the machine.

I don't have any experience with the 40Watt (or 30Watt) lasers yet, but knowing what is possible with the 15 and 20Watt versions, and comparing them to the 7 Watt machine, I would go for power in this particular case. As long as the cuts are good looking and nice, it's doesn't really matter how big the kerf is.

I can't say anything about that specific laser as I never tried it. I hear good things about it though.

I recently got a NEJE 3MAX with a 40640 laser diode! I use it to cut leather mainly! I use 3mm veg tanned leather. Cut perfect in one direction but not in the other! I also use air assist, but the problem remains!

It's a hardware problem, that can't be corrected in software. Only another lens for the laser can correct this.

No, and at this time there are lasers that are made like that. Ortur has the Laser Master 2 Pro, that uses a laser like that, but also other brands now are doing this.

The total input on the machine was like 3 Amp, but the output power of the laser is about 5 Watt.

More power doesn't only mean more thickness when cutting. It also means more speed when engraving, or in some materials even cleaner cuts.

Not really, As the focal point is the only point where there is real energy to burn the material, as you get deeper into the material, the V shaped beam will hit the surface of the material out of focus, so less energy is reaching the depth where you want to have the energy. Also, there is ashes and coal there where the laser has already burned, and there you would need airflow and even more laser power. As a diode laser always works with a light beam with a focus, it will never be perfect for multi layer cutting with variable Z height. Therefore you will need a CO2 laser.

@@3dPrintCreator Oh I agree that CO2 lasers are much better, what I was saying is that by altering the z axis height you are altering the height in the material where the laser is focused, now I fully agree that this would only have a very limited effect and without blowing out the ash from previous cuts it's almost useless, but let us take the following example, lets say the laser head is 20mm above the work surface and in sharp focus and that it cuts 0.5mm deep per pass, let us also assume you have a directed air blast clearing the ash, the potentially with each pass you could lower the laser by 0.5mm and do another cut at optimum focus, the beam to the focus point is a V shape so your limit on depth will be the point at which the beam is wider than the slot it's cutting OR the point at which the air blast no longer clears the ash of the previous cut, I suspect economically it's not worth doing, you'd probably only gain a few mm extra depth of cut, but maybe as a modification even manually winding down the laser head using a head in a dovetail slot wound down by a calibrated screw thread it's perhaps the sort of thing a hobbyist could do, you'd need to pause the laser at the end of each pass in order to wind the head down, but for some people a few mm extra depth of cut might be all they need ?

I found this idea interesting enough to do some testing with my laser. I tried many different things to optimize my airflow and focal point, yet the best result I got, gained not more than 0.9 millimeter more depth in soft balsawood, and even less in plywood. Therefore, I decided not to make a video about this, but I wanted to let you know this result, because I liked the idea. Thanks.

Quite true of course. Energy can never arise from nothing, and never be lost in nothing. The term wasted is used incorrectly.

@@3dPrintCreator Strangely enough, there may be exceptions to that law.

It cant be wasted from a conservation of energy point of view, but it is most certainly wasted from work done in cutting point of view. The wasted energy, wile not "lost" is most certainly wasted (going where you don't want it or need it to be) and not doing what you would have liked it to do.

Correct, and you don't need just a planar convection lens, but one that is made specifically for this approximately 5x1 ratio, and we still need to be able to focus it. Not worth the effort for a cheap laser like this. All in all, a cheap CO2 laser will be much cheaper.

@@3dPrintCreator Right but this methode you can focus beam into smal point only in focal length, so this is good enoughth for engraving, where depth of focus i relatively smal - maby 0.2mm. When you have colimated and square shape beam u can focus it with lens with big focal point, maby 2", there you get a long and thin beam, good for cutting. Most important problem is remove smoke or molted material form thin gap. If cuts id depper the gap must be wider so laser power density will drop. There is limit for small power laser system.

If the build quality of the laser versus the lens would have been better, yes that would be easy. Now it is only possible if you open the housing of the laser and align the diode yourself in the correct orientation so it lines up with the collimation lens. There are people on KZfaq who have done this.

@@3dPrintCreator interesting, I bought the neje master 2s plus with the dual laser module and I got through 12mm ply, but the last 2mm took more passes than the whole first half. Not bad though, and I keep the laser on 80% Max. Got any links or search queries? I may look into Thus.

@@adrianscarlett I myself try to stay away from facebook (although I do have an account). There you will find some groups that have posts about collimation lenses, and I have once seen a detailed instruction on how to replace the lens and align the laser diode for an Ortur Laser Master 2 machine. But, if you have the dual laser module, you should not have this problem, as one laser is horizontally and the other vertically aligned. In fact, on a dual laser module, you can't use a collimation lens at all.

@@3dPrintCreator interesting, I never thought about there being issues with collimation of a dual laser. I'm the same with facebook, I created an account when it first appeared, and until I was forced to use it with my oculus quest 2, I'd logged in maybe 3 or 4 times

Yes, it will for sure.

Light burn allows a Z step for each pass. For instance, on my Endurance Laser, I set the step to 0.5mm per pass. It does help.

You are completely right here. In fact, this is done with the new versions of lasers that are now hitting the market. In my video about the Aufero laser, I explain that people can make their choice between 3 types of lasers, one of them being a Long Focus laser (LF) that uses multiple lenses to make a more compressed spot at a longer focal distance. With that laser, that has the same optical power as the laser in this video, the cut can be almost 3 times as deep.

@@3dPrintCreator I will have to look that video up. I would think that a larger focal would maybe be better for cutting as it would keep the two halves from being so close. But also not impede the laser as it digs deeper. Whats your opinion on the neje 80w laser? Seems to be most powerful at 7.5w x 2laser =15w.

@@turboflush from what I have seen, the NeJe is really good, but they don't work with me, so it's not possible for me to test their lasers. I don't know if they have the most powerful laser at the moment, I think the Skulpfun S9 is even more capable to cut thick materials. My latest knowledge about NeJe is outdated as this was my very first laser I bought and I had many problems with that machine. They have improved a lot since I tested a NeJe machine, but I never had one after my first test.

It's won't cut deep because after only a few millimeters, the beam is out of focus. If only the machine had a moving Z axis, then it would be able to cut deep.

For sure. Focussing in the middle of the object is always the best choice.

@@3dPrintCreator Sorry, I meant cutting a layer, refocusing the laser, cutting another layer, refocusing the laser (or changing the z-height - depending on laser) and so repeat. Or would refocusing the laser miss-align the beam?

@@martinlaak Yes, that's a good way of getting more depth in the cut. There are lasers now that have this auto sinking function, like the Ikier and the Atezr models.

Great video btw 👌 Subscribed 😀

There is no answer to this question. For a nice and clean cut, I would say 4mm. For a dirty hole in a piece of wood... maybe 5cm? Depending on the type of wood and when it catches fire.

One problem is that would distort the design. Let's say that you want to make a 10 mm cut at 45 degrees, at a speed of one 1 mm per second, so it will take 10 seconds to make that cut. The only way to do that would be to move the x and y directions the same amount in those 10 seconds. If you slow the movement in the y direction down by 30%, then the laser will cover 30% less distance on the y-axis than in de x-axis. That means that, in those 10 seconds, the laser will have moved some distance in the x-axis, but only 0.7 times that distance in the y-axis, so you would not get a 45 degree angle. And if you tried to cut a 10 x 10 square, you would end up with a 10 x 7 rectangle, since the height will be reduced by 30%. So you can't arbitrarily slow down in only one of the directions, the "Cartesian mechanism" that the machine uses would distort the image. But the real problem is that the laser doesn't cut better in the x direction than y direction. Best cutting effenciency is achieved when all the light is focused in the smallest possible dot right at the surface of the material. If it's not properly focused at that particular distance, the light is spread out (in this case in the shape of a square, because that's the shape of the light emitting semi-conductor inside, I think) but it's equally spread out in the x-axis as it is in the y-axis. So it "loses effenciency " at the "same rate" in both axes. Hope that makes sense.

@@SatumangoTheGreat I said slow down the movement, not move less. As in, increase the time between stepper motor pulses, not decrease the amount of stepper motor pulses.

@@andrewwatts1997 I know, but the direction the laser is going depends on the relative speeds of the two motors. If the y-axis moves at a certain speed and the speed on the x-axis is zero, the laser cuts a vertical line. If the x-axis moves at a certain speed, but the speed on the y-axis is zero, the laser cuts horizontally. If the x- and y-axis move at the same speed, the laser cuts diagonally at an angle of 45 degrees. If you slow the y-axis to half the speed of the x-axis, the laser cuts diagonally at an angle of 22.5 degrees. That laser is going somewhere, cutting all the time. If you change the speed of that laser on one of the axes, it is going to veer off course. What you could do is change both speeds at the same time, keeping the laser on its correct course but moving slower, thus giving it more time to burn trough the material. Or repeat the path of the laser several times, burning away a layer of the material at each pass. That is wat he is doing in the video btw.

Why? What do you want to change about the fact that a laser burns material, that a saw shatters material, and that a shovel makes a trench? The fact that tools lose some material when dividing an object and two parts remain is simply a fact. The only thing you can do about it is to take it into account, nothing more.

Just a hobby user, no job involved.

In fact it's not that expensive, yet it is very difficult. Every 3D-Printer has a Z axis with one, and sometimes, two motors for the height adjustment. The problem is that the first cut is the deepest as there is no ashes to block the light. After that, the next passes are less effective and also the KERF is getting in the way. Going deeper also means that the top of the material will be hit by a wider beam of light, therefore blocking the light. This means that less light will get to the correct focal point, and therefore it will be less effective.

Huh? How come you think there is a problem. This is how Diode lasers work, it works like it should.

@@3dPrintCreator well after I notice one side was cutting with a fine line and the other side had a broader cut which didn’t go through, just like yours. So I thought I wasn’t focusing it right, I did some research and I saw some people had the same issue. I emailed ortur and I had to run some tests they sent. I dunno, maybe I’m wrong and my problem is different 🤷🏽‍♂️🥺

How does that workout when cutting a circular shape?

@@3dPrintCreatorNot really on the circumference. This works well with lines located on the X or Y axes, any oblique lines start to work worse due to the fact that the beam configuration is not a point and not a square, but a rectangle. And when the feed comes from the long side, the power applied to one point is less than when feeding from the short side.

@@Maksim_Luchikhin Sorry, but then you really misunderstood the explanation. In the X axis, the rectangular shape of the projection benefits the user because the slice is at its thinnest. In the Y axis, the user has the greatest disadvantage, because the cut is then at its thickest. All of course in relation to time, because the laser moves at a certain speed over the surface of the object to be engraved or cut. So X is maximum profit, Y is minimum profit, and in the oblique lines, depending on the angle, it is somewhere in between.

An update is in the making. And Thanks, it's Dutch :-)

Let me know if it was good. I'm really interested in it, even if i have a 1390 150 watts CO2 machine, loooooooool :-)

@@ACNNOMOREBLUFF Hi sooo I got it about 4 days ago did not have too much time to play with it and I does not have air assist yet STILL it cuts 5mm plywood beautifully which is over my expectations with very minimal conusing.. it takes time no question about it but it cuts 5mm normal plywood. What it does not cut is anything which is over 10-12 mm but I still have to play with it.. I cuts foam like nothing but when I tried 20mm foam it only could go down about to the half of the material and it stopped even I gave it 50 runs the laser light just evaporates or something like that. I tried 16mm light wood and it cannot do that either. So the max height of any material could be about 10-12mm and that is it. The square light beam is not really true it is probably better than before but it still cuts vertically better than horizontally. I think it is a great machine for the minimal price it costs. I am about to make some bed of nails for it (from gluing pushpins to a plywood) because raising the material is very good for cutting, and I will make a box with ventilation ands also think about air support that helps a lot as others said... ) I hope I could help... rockjano

@@bacsijancsi Yep, i confirm the air assist will change it fully. I have an old model with 15Kw blue beam laser, and i added the air assist a year ago. Now, it cuts up to 20 mm wood plates. So keep going ;-)

@@ACNNOMOREBLUFF Whoaaaa.. that is crazy :-) is it somehow blows the smoke out of the cutted material??? The 15Kw real cutting is something like 4 watt no??? Mine is theoretically 40W (really it is 20W) but that is the power consumption and the real power with mine is about 5-5,5 W which is still a far cray from any CO2 laser but a lot less hustle...

@@ACNNOMOREBLUFF One question how much constant air do you need??? A read something like 1 bar...

The S6 and S9 are very good machines. They have a very condensed spot, good for detailed cutting. I don't know what the settings are for cutting veneer, I have never done that. Generally speaking, get a high power module for cutting, that always works best as you don't need to operate it at high power.

No, unless you burn a V slot, so the kerf won't hit the sides of the material. Otherwise you won't get enough energy down to where you need it when going deeper.

I cut 3mm ply with 200mm per sec, speed 100% power, 3 passes with 0.3 mm z depth per pass. And cuts are 99% perfect.. That's with the sainsmart 5.5w laser

@@3dPrintCreator That's why I said accept a large Kerf.

@@nigelmorris4769 how do you adjust the z depth automatically?

@@psysxet I use lightburn. In settings enable z axis and then in the layer cut panel I put below number of passes I put 0.3 in z depth per pass

At the time I made the video, 5 Watt was good. The other lasers were only 0.5 or 1.2 Watt optical out. At this moment, I run up to 60Watt diode lasers, yet the more power they have, the more the KERF is important. And that, my friend, was what the video is about. The kerf, not how thick it can cut.