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As someone who had HS shop class & went to school for welding as a Millwright. You use Oxygen with Acetylene or Propane both are flameable gasses to create very high temperature when burning using a torch in order to braze or cut metal. But when welding or even Plasma cutting Oxygen is your ememy due to porocity. I would try CO2 or Argon or 75% CO2 & 25% Argon. CO2 is used for large production MIG welding on steel because it is very cheep but is harder to control porocity, Argon is used for most types of TIG welding as well as Aluminum & Stainless Steel MIG welding, but is much more expensive, 75% CO2 & 25% Argon make a better MIG weld on steel.

I agree that you need more psi. You need to stop buying those EXPENSIVE cylinders. I had one of those torches and I trashed it to get a mini style professional cutting/brazing/soldering set. I did mostly brazing and soldering, but it would cut too. I was going through 5-10 bottles per week sometimes. I bought a cheap acetylene torch with small (T sized) bottles. I saved the money back in a few months. If you go to your nearest Linde/Praxair store, you can buy/lease/rent a bottle of oxygen that they will refill. I lease the bottles for a low monthly payment. I'm sure they would rent you one for a week if you asked. Get an amazon grade regulator and off you go. One other suggestion, I use blended Nitrogen and Oxygen in my 2.5KW laser. I blend different levels of O2 in with the nitrogen depending on the job. Pure oxygen will work great on carbon steel, but I use an oxygen nitrogen blend for stainless steel. I have a liquid Nitrogen tank that is about 10 feet tall outside the building for my lasers but use the large (they are either size Q or K, I don't remember) sized bottles in a 16 bottle cradle for my Oxygen needs. You need velocity to make the cut work well. It should scream/whistle when cutting. On my laser the actual gas outlet is about .050 above the sheet I'm cutting and I can adjust the hole size based on the volume required. I would think a .02 or so hole would work. You need to keep the gas jet from diffusing and just "generally" melting the whole area. It blows straight through the cut at high speed, much like the blaster on a cutting torch. I would make an extender to get your nozzle real close to the work and I think the system will probably burn thicker than 20 gauge in carbon steel. You may need to drill a start hole on even thicker stuff, but once you initiate the cut it should maintain it. Hope this helps. Dave Vogel

Highly entertaining. Loved it.

Oh, and try this with a co2 laser. Industrial metal laser cutters use 100w-150w co2 lasers with high pressure air or oxygen assist to cut thick metal. Same concepts apply, get the gas close to the cut area but get the laser focus in the center of the material.

Love the infographic in the top. Nicely done.

veri nice experiment!

The air blast is removing the smoke which absorbs laser energy, that is why it cuts better with the airblast. The oxygen is combusting with the metal, which releases a ton of heat. Trimix may insulate the cut and put more energy into the cut, but I am not sure.

Consider combining the best of both worlds. Use high pressure air with added oxygen. The high pressure air is ‘blowing away’ the burned metal allowing the laser to do more useful work. The oxygen is causing the metal to burn better, but that burn is creating a much larger ‘kerf’. If you use both you likely can be sparing with the oxygen because you want to help the burn, but not blow out the kerf like you are now. The high pressure air will help by blowing away what’s burned letting the oxygen work on the next layer of metal. Also, you get better penetration when you move the laser closer for 2 reasons. Yes, the oxygen is getting closer to the material burning. But when doing thick materials moving the laser closer so the focal point is in the middle of the material instead of at the top uses the laser power more effectively. You may want to investigate using a longer tip on the air assist. That way you can move the air/oxygen mix closer to the point the burn is happening in the material while keeping the focal length correct. The extended tip of course must be concentric with the laser beam, but ideally is also as small as possible to keep the air/oxygen mix really ‘focused’ where the burn is so you again avoid having a huge kerf.

In laser cutting of metal with oxygen, the laser must be capable or causing the metal to reach ignition temperature with the addition of oxygen. For thin metals, oxygen pressures can typically be as high as 300 psi. The higher pressure shears off the molten material cleanly when the pressure and speed are correct . Inert is gas such as Nitrogen can be used to laser cut metal, but will not increase the temp of the metal like oxygen does once ignition temp of the oxy and metal is reached. In other words, the laser is doing all the cutting work, and the nitrogen is merely removing the molten metal.

the metal acts as the fire source, and when it gets 600 degree it hot enough for fire ( this is why ovens only go to 550), and the oxygen is just FUELING the heat melts the metal. thats my guess sticking to it

Awesome experiment! Could you maybe try softer metals aluminum, brass, copper etc?

I commend you on your tenacity. Personally, I think you need a much higher psi. That will slow thermal buildup and force oxygen away from the cutting surface. A vacuum under the table may help to 'guide' oxygen in a straight path as well as get it away from the cutting surface. Ideas to throw around anyways. Super interested in your results!

you need a bigger 02 tank Like welding, for example, then it will also be cheaper

With the thicker material, try using smaller pieces so that heat has nowhere to go!

Thicker metal will act as a better radiator, preventing the metal from getting hot enough. You may want to read about oxyacetylene cutting to get further insights on the process.

Kinda curious to see what what welding gas(straight argon, co2 or mix gas) would do, it would certainly be cheaper as well as safer and removing oxygen from the equation would also remove charring of the material from the equation, which might make material removal cleaner and more efficient by making the laser do nothing beyond evaporating the metal.....

It would be great if you could see if it does anything with a copper sheet if you revisit this. Thanks!

Fun experiment.

interesting video - but I suppose you realize that you're basically enriching the 'air' that surrounds the laser cut. when cutting with an oxyacetylene cutting torch, the cutting is done with a jet of high pressure oxygen. low pressure won't cut it. Also, the regulator you're using lowers the gas pressure.

Very entertaining test, but I'd abandon oxy-cutting because it is expensive, imprecise, and a bit dangerous. I'd like to see your 40W air assist take a stab at 26 or 28 gauge steel and 0.2 mm aluminum flashing. If you use galvanized steel, don't inhale the zinc oxide smoke (see metal-fume fever).

FYI - You are setting the metal on fire. Iron is flammable in a high oxygen environment. You could cut like this, but you just aren't going to have clean cuts. I suspect higher pressure O2 is going to result in a larger iron fire and a messier cut.

FWIW Buster Beagle did a review of the Roly 10W. Before you engrave stainless you change the pulse frequency of the laser

One tip, although oxygen isn’t flammable alone remember it makes everything else more flammable in your shop including wood!

Air assist. And 40W. Seems like a better Idea.

🔥🔥🔥

I see several ways of potentially improving the result, however none of them involve oxygen. Just doesn't make sense to me. I'm thinking pre heat assist and solid metal bed with good contact for even heat transfer. I'm also curious if pre cooling might make a difference. Lastly there's of course the option of painting the surface. Also have anyone ever attempted to laser cut in a near vacuum? Would it even be possible? Yes, it is true, I literally have no knowledge of these things, at all.

There's a fine line between brave and stupid, and I appreciate you're trying to find it! (Just kidding!)

Chad do you use the diode laser more now than your rmlaser co2

Out of curiosity, have you tried it on softer metals?

Can you mix oxygen with the air from compressor?

Isn't oxygen your enemy in these thin metals? You're melting the metal in order to cut through it, and to do that the metals need to be liquid hot, and now you're probably in the danger zone of the fire triangle. You have a fuel (yes, metals can be fuels), you have an oxidizer (pure oxygen) and you have heat (melted metal).

I could be wrong I trusted chat GPT a little bit more than I should have on this. If you're using an electrolysis unit you'd probably be spending about 50cent per liter of oxygen at STP in electricity. That works out to about $15 for the same oxygen you get out of a bernzomatic tank. That's not counting the compression afterwards. You might want to look into larger cylinders of oxygen if you want to save some money.

Try argon

oxy cutting is burning through the steel. its a matter of matching fuel to oxidiser... the steel being the fuel.the laser just gets the hot spot to start the combustion. needs to dwell on startup. only works on steel. no stainless, ali, cast iron, etc. stainless makes a refractory layer, and cast just doesnt melt right. too much carbon. and other metals dont burn like steel. cutting/welding tips are polished, reamed... and pretty freaking small. you would have to adapt one somehow. not very easy. possible. not easy. LAMINAR FLOW! its not about the pressure, its about how well that beam of oxygen stays as a beam... the higher you push it, the worse the turbulence... and the pressure at the regulator is dictated by the NOZZLE size. can crank it wide open, if the nozzle is bigger than the lines say, you aint going to read any pressure except line restriction... thickest ive cut is 2'... 600mm. and you dont need that much pressure to do it. when everythings tuned right its freaking awesome. get a real bottle if youre going to persist. can empty an F in a few minutes on big cuts. wait til you gotta manifold a rack of 6...

How about trying argon!