Picked up the 10W laser module and have some completed some very brief testing on both units.
As expected you need to complete the standard calibration process on 1st fit for the 10W and then it’s just the usual calibration that needs to be completed whenever you fit a laser/cutter etc.
I re-used my 40W test card from 1st fit and the line width on the 10W version is definitely narrower.
Image quality wise it was default settings for both and the 10W is not as defined as the 40W but suspect this is due to power settings.
Going to give the same test a go on some white card stock to see how it comes out but there is clearly a line width difference between the 2 lasers which would result in more fine detail when etching using the 10W laser.
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Comparison on white card stock, business card using 10W only and a series of microscope images of each type of laser and the dual pass.
The 2 pass 10W despite having the 2nd pass does have cleaner lines compared to the 40W, it’s set to 90% power output by default and I could tweak the power output or speed to achieve the same result as 2 passes.
Business card was all stock settings only using the 10W laser, zoomed in shot is from a digital microscope. When scrolling through the larger images it is in the following sequence: 40W, 10W single pass and 10W dual pass.
Will do some more experiments with some cleaner images and try some black acrylic as that really shows the etching lines and should highlight the resolution difference between the 2 lasers.
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Thank you much for providing this.
As a 40w laser owner i was evaluating buying the 10w. The quality between the two is much closer then i would have thought.
Update as I used some black acrylic and the difference between the 2 is very noticeable. The 40w has crushed a lot of detail on both etched images, the hair grips are gone and the guitar neck has lost a lot of detail, zoomed in shots are from a microscope.
Same with the image and text on the bottom of the box, some of the detail is crushed.
Used the 10W for the whole job, it’s not done as good a job at cutting as the 40W, couple of distortions in the plastic where its got hot on the edges during cutting which were not there on the 40W.
I guess the issue with lasering images onto wood is there will be a bit of burn which makes the image larger - so the difference is less noticable.
On metals and acrylic you can really see where the 10w is a much more suitable tool.
Just need to work out how to get it all done including the laser swaps without having an alignment faff!
It’s a bit of art my niece did and I’ve yonked it to use on a watch box after refurbishing one for her 18th birthday.
