Those of you that have experience with laser cutters, are there any advantages to the 40w blue laser over the 10w besides the thicker cutting ability?
40w will be optional and I also see the dot size is smaller on the 10w which might be better for fine engraving work, or is it better to have a larger dot for less lines on text for example?
Would a 40w be harder to use at low power percentage for things like leather cutting?
Higher power will cut thicker, but on thinner material it also cuts quicker. With lower laser power, you have to move slower to ensure you’re cutting all the way through. Or you have to make multiple passes. Both can cause a lot of charring along the cut line.
The advantage to LED lasers is that the power can be controlled very accurately because the LED can be modulated on/off at a high speed. CO2 lasers can’t do that.
Because they have good control over power, Laser Diodes can mark stainless steel in a fairly wide range of different colors (the metal actually changes color depending on how much it’s heated by the laser).
If you’re going to buy a H2D and you’re interested in the laser feature, but you haven’t used a laser before, buy the 10W and if you discover lots of things to do, upgrade to the 40W (I have to think BBL’s going to provide a path to upgrade from 10W to 40W).
Thanks for the info. Any downsides to the 40w with bigger dot size besides the price? Anything major you can do with a 40w besides cutting thicker?
There will be materials you can’t cut without setting on fire with 10W that’ll cut easy with 40W. Since a diode laser power is essentially continually variable, a 40W laser will operate at 10W if you want it to.
Shouldn’t be any difference in spot size from 10W to 40W. Only downside to higher power is higher price. But with laser cutters, as a general rule, more power is better, if you can afford it. 
I’d add that there’s a lot of stuff you can put in a laser cutter that produces toxic smoke. You don’t just need good ventilation, you need excellent ventilation. My 40W CO2 cutter exhausts outside through a 4" duct with a high speed fan drawing from the far end (if you push smoke from the cutter end of the duct, any leaks in the ducting will leak smoke). I’m waiting to see how BBL decided to deal with this.
You even have to be careful with otherwise innocuous stuff like plywood. Some adhesives produce chemicals like formaldehyde when they’re burned.
I’m guessing the reason they went from the CF rods to a linear bearing assembly is because the CF rods would quickly gum up in the smokey environment of a laser cutter chamber.
Here are the specs for the spot size:
10w: Laser Spot Dimension 0.03 mm * 0.14 mm
40w: Laser Spot Dimension 0.14 mm * 0.2 mm
Any advantage/disadvantage to larger/smaller spots? 40w is a 5x larger.
They will have an optional external air purifier to deal with the fumes.
Hmmm. OK. Call me surprised. Asymmetric spot sizes are a common “artifact” of the way laser diodes work (how the light emerges from the diode junction), but it’s not hard to correct with some simple optics.
I’d guess that the 40W spot is bigger because there are just more 10W diodes inside, arranged so their light emerges side-by-side.
The laser spot size is like the nozzle size for FDM, the smallest feature you can print/laze is limited by the diameter of the extruder/beam. But these spots sizes are not “round”, they’re described as rectangles but they’re actually going to be elliptical. The 40W spot size is bigger, but it’s also more symmetrical, which means it’d cut more evenly regardless of direction of motion.
With a laser cutter, material is removed from the cut, either burned or boiled off, leaving a gap called the “Kerf” (same name for the slot made when you cut some wood with a jigsaw). If you want to cut parts that fit together really, really well, you have to account for the kerf in the design of your parts (in an overly simplistic way, you make the parts bigger by 1/2 the kerf width so when the beam follows the outline, the inner edge of the cut which is half the beam width away is on the actual line you want it to be on).
Kerf can be a pain to deal with, and I’m not at all sure how I’d deal with a kerf that’s 0.03mm in one direction and 0.14mm in the other. So for that reason alone I’d be more inclined to choose the 40W.
Ive been doing research on the lasers. A few points to anyone thinking about one:
After all this my excitement about the laser has diminished. I think unless the 10w is only a few hundred more, I will skip the laser option altogether.
10 w gives more finer cuts and more detail engraving while 40 w can cut thicker materials
Desktop Co2 laser is meant for etching/cutting organic materials like wood, leather and etc. You need fiber laser to etch 3D printed parts, light color PLA can’t be etched as there isn’t enough color pigment to be removed.
For etching plastic, fiber laser is also about 100x faster than Co2. BTW, do not use Co2 laser to cut plastic without industrial grade exhaust system. Otherwise the odds of you getting cancer will be increased dramatically.
What type of laser is good for marking prints and how do you know that type of laser won’t be an option?
I think red laser and UV will work well on prints. Both the 10w and 40w are blue 455nm (from the leaked specs), they just melt the plastic. Maybe they will come out with one of those eventually but not tomorrow.
meaby they will sell small metal parts so we can engrave them or small plastic parts ? that we could just embed in the print then engrave on it ? who knows the wait is almost over i believe we will know tommorow
Could you achieve laser ironing?
I doubt it, its mainly for cutting and engraving. Blue laser will just melt plastic.
A fiber laser. There’s some videos out there, I think with the xtool F1 Ultra
As it says on the order page “Laser module(s) will be shipped in separate boxes.” Do i assume the 40W option comes with both 10W and 40W modules?
I don’t think it’d be both. You can just turn the 40w down to 10w.
The 10W has a smaller spot dimension, so does have it’s own benefits for fine work.
Reviewed all seemed to get both lasers, which is possibly for review, but why not just give them the 40W?
The price difference suggests you would (Should) get both:
UK:
10W = Base price +ÂŁ500
40W = Base Price + ÂŁ1100 (10W + ÂŁ600)
The software is worth looking into before you make an informded decision of which to purchase 10w or 40w wether you purchase it as an all in one or the installment version
calibration tab
did you see it?
