All the IRs above ~2W are never advertised as mountable to existing CNC machines, they all seemed to be designed around each manufacture’s machine (e.g. xtools, laserpecker). Anybody have experience with brands that work with existing hobbyist CNC machines? Like, perhaps, a Raycus RFL-P20QE? I can make a rigid mount no problem, but am I oversimplifying this?
CNC lasers are CNC machines (of course) that instead of a spindle have a laser head.
The problem is finding a CNC “gantry” controller with a firmware that can manage the different settings of a fiber laser.
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One thing to consider: laser machines run at much much higher speeds than CNC machines. Typical engraving speeds exceed 100 mm/s = 6000 mm/min, with galvo lasers using high-power fiber sources ticking along well above that.
Laser machines also have much higher accelerations than CNC machines, because they have lower moving masses and no cutting forces. If getting up to speed requires a foot of runway, the machine probably won’t be of much use.
If your CNC machine plays in that league, then conjuring a laser mount should be straightforward.
Assist air / fume exhaust / eye protection are left as exercises for the idle CNC operator. 
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Ah, okay that makes sense. I’m using a Shapeoko with a GRBL controller. Many people use the same setup with Lightburn, albeit with 405nm lasers for cutting wood and plastic. My max feed rate is ~10k mm/min xy, though I’ve never pushed anywhere that high.
Perfect! Makes sense. Thank you!
The RepRap calculator shows how speed & acceleration interact with distance:
Which explains why lasers char fine details: none of them ever reach the speed called for by the LightBurn layer parameters.
Happy lasering … show us pix of your results!