I have a Creality Falcon 2 12W laser. This may be a dumb question, but is there any way to change the dimensions of the laser spot? The laser spot on this model is .06mm by .08mm. This means that the cut kerf is wider in the horizontal axis than the vertical one.
This may not seem like much, but in the world of designing HO scale buildings, precision counts and that .02mm difference can play havoc with things like window mullions. The horizontal ones end up thinner than the vertical ones due to the extra kerf width on the horizontal ones. If that makes sense.
Any thoughts, or do I need to adjust the design manually to account for the kerf difference?
That’s kind of what I figured, but hope springs. Do you have any suggestions for lasers that have round spots? I like the one I have, but Creality’s tech support hasn’t been very helpful.
… they won’t be able to help you either. @Dskall is right in what he writes, it’s a diode typical problem. The problem also becomes more visible with a stronger diode, but even my 5.5W diode is not round in laser spot and only a little smaller in the measured.
If you work a lot with your HO models there is no way around a CO2 laser, you can’t design yourself out of this problem.
When you only work with thin material or balsa wood and similar soft materials, a 40 watt CO2 laser will be fine to go for. If you need a little more, then a 50-60 watt laser should be bought, the advantage here is also that machine beds are larger. I personally want to skip a K40 laser today, with the experiences I have gained, the K40 is a fantastic starter CO2 but machine bed becomes very fast too small to be able to work seriously. My last machine is a 600x400 60watt OMTlaser, this machine has run many hours and earned itself in several times.
I also have made models with this machine
Not round, but square: take a look at the Sculpfun S9 / S30 or S30 Pro modules. Those produce nearly perfectly square laser spots. These are the only ones I know of. You can only check out the 5W or 10W range of modules, above that power, to my knowledge there is no diode laser module available with a non-rectangular shape (due to the physics of aligning the beams).
By the way, do an interval test because I doubt that your laser head is 0.06x0.08mm in size (it’s just an advertisement). You can only achieve this with 5W laser modules or less power. In reality, yours will be around 0.09 to 0.1.
One workaround that I have seen for the rectangular spot is to run your designs at a 45 degree angle. Your kerf will need to be adjusted again. Give it a try.
“Hobo with Wood” on YouTube has a video describing this in detail. I’m not able to search for it at the moment. Search his name and kerf.
None of this really solves the problem unless all of your artwork is in one orientated to the axes, which is unlikely for a cutout.
What makes lasers useful is the lens. The spot is made with a lens, the lens focuses what it sees (input) into a smaller or spot version of what it sees. If the source is rectangular, the lens, like your camera lens, it will focus it like a rectangle.
Unless you change the source, you’re not going anywhere.
Thanks for all your responses. They’re very helpful. It’s really not that big a deal, and it only affects very narrow pieces, like the aforementioned window mullions, pipe fences, steel billboard framework, things like that.
I mainly cut 1/16"-1/8" MDF and plywood, various laserboards, basswood, etc. Nothing very thick or dense, so the 12 watt laser I have does the job pretty well.
I suppose the best thing to do is just adjust the designs a bit to compensate for the difference in kerfs. No big deal, just looking for an easier (lazier) way to accomplish it.
I have this one, and I get a lot of "no, you didn’t’ responses when I share my wins.
This works because the rectangle has the same kerf going 90 degrees to the other path. However…
If an image, you can set the scan at 45 degrees.
If a vector, like a cutout, you need to rotate the part program 45 degrees in the workspace. This gives X +45 and Y -45 (or whatever) so X/Y travel are at 90 degrees to each other.
When Kerf is my priority I rotate job 45 degrees (last thing I do before sending job ) so you effectively go from .08 x .06 to .099 x .099, and when cutting I also rotate my material 45 degrees on the work bed if I need to use minimal material.
Ich möchte meinen Vor-Schreibern einmal widersprechen. Sie müssen sich keinen CO2-Laser kaufen. Es gibt durch aus auch im Dioden-Bereich Geräte mit Quadratischem Fokus. Ein gutes Beispiel ist der “IKIER K1 12W”. Der hat laut Hersteller einen Fokus von 0,06x0,06 mm. Damit könnten sie ihre Probleme lösen.
I would like to contradict my pre-writers. You don’t have to buy a CO2 laser. There are also devices with square focus in the diode range. A good example is the “IKIER K1 12W”. According to the manufacturer, it has a focus of 0.06x0.06 mm. This would allow them to solve their problems.
This is not true according to my experience. There is no diode laser in the 10W range that has a real-world focus below 0.08 mm. Those are just advertisement numbers. 3W and 5W laser might reach values around 0.06, but I’d really like to see a 12W module with that size. I guess the 12W Ikier has about 0.1 real size.
I had same problem so changed to Laser tree head, twice as powerful, square spot, so light focused in a smaller area, win win!
Not to expensive either.
