I’ve been pondering getting a fibre laser to go along with my CO2. I’ve seen a lot of really cheap fibre lasers on AliExpress, and comparing them to the offerings from more ‘known’ brands like Cloudray… Specifically I’m seeing loads of split systems with JPT MOPA sources around 100W (and even 200W) machines for under £5k GBP. But comparable offerings from Cloudray or OMTech are closer to £7-8k. The specs seem the same or similar…
There are many.
Can anyone comment on why these seem so much cheaper? Is it a different, lower quality laser source than what the other brands are using? (i.e. a lower grade JPT source) Are they mis-selling them as is often done with CO2 lasers (i.e. selling a 60 watt laser as a 100w)? or is the workmanship / materials on the overall construction or galvo particularly poor?
The advertisement is so confusing and it is (for me) unclear what I am buying. When the price is only a fraction of what a similar product otherwise costs, my alarm lights flash. A 100 Watt fiber laser with all accessories for half the cost of my OMT60Watt CO2 laser…it will be fantastic.
It’s very common on Ali Express to have a single advert for multiple configurations / options and to show the most expensive of these in all the pictures and on the ad heading, but the default price shown is the cheapest option… which implies things like $500 for the whole laser when in fact that’s just the rotary… You need to go into the options and select…
There are literally hundreds of these for sale on there. I guess no one here has put their money on the line to try one… My guess is that they’re mis-badging them… Selling a 30 Watt laser source as a 100 Watt.
I did see something on you-tube about the laser sources being a ‘lower grade’… I don’t remember where I saw this but I believe he said that the laser sources come in grades A, B, and C… I’m not sure if that makes any sense or not. In the world of something like LCDs a lower grade means that it doesn’t meet the quality control specs in terms of number of dead pixels or backlight brightness or something so they sell it cheaper to people who are willing to accept the defects… But I don’t know what that would mean in terms of a laser source. If they build a laser source designed for 100W and it only produces 60 watts I don’t think they could get away with selling it as anything other than a 60 watt source…
Nope, that dud will be sold as a 120 W tube for a really good price, because that technique works.
For example, my OMTech has a tube designed to produce a nominal 50 W output, but it was advertised as a 60 W machine. Apparently the words “peak” and “maximum” fell off somewhere along the way.
It’s just like the (possibly apocryphal) mini-lathe factory with zero quality-control dropouts: nothing was rejected. They realized somebody will buy terrible machines at the right price, even the junk normally clanging into the scrap bin.
It’s always been that way, but we notice it more nowadays.
I know this is completely erroneous - unfortunately, it’s what most people expect. They do it and get away with it all the time…
Almost all of these co2 hobby lasers are advertised at power levels that are not possible, but we take the low cost machine and live with it… since few of us can actually test power levels they easily get away with doing this.
My OMTech 50W China Blue had a 880mm tube in it producing about 43W… to be 50W it needs to be just over 1000mm in length… which won’t fit in the existing case.
I’ve seen RECI 80W tubes sold new, when the user gets them, the tube is marked 75W… Clearly a RECI reject known as a grade b part.
RECI and all manufactures that make parts/units have manufacturing anomalies, some don’t make the grade. These are sold as a grade b to unscrupulous vendors who state, quite correctly, it’s a new 80W tube… they just leave off the fact that RECI rejected it and sold it at a lower cost to to them who can then sell it at a lower cost to us.
I’m sure the same thing happens with fiber sources or whatever…
If it’s too good to be true, it likely isn’t …
@ednisley how long is your tube, do you have a wattmeter?
You need to really read the Aliexpress ads very carefully, common problems are they show a pic of an item, BUT list the price of a cheaper Item/add on that is avail for that ite3 OR on more expensive items they show a DEPOSIT as the price.
Well, I might need to take the plunge and buy the ‘200w’ fibre laser… open it up, and see what guts are inside… I do have a basic cheap watt meter for my CO2 laser… I would think that should work at the wavelength of the fibre…
But… probably not this month… or next… I need to accumulate some more pay-days before taking the plunge… But if they’re charging £5000 for a ‘200’ watt laser - and I think you can normally get at least a 60w for that price, so if it’s at least 60w then I suppose it’ll be worth the money.
Check lens prices… When I hunted around a new lens for <100W machines was about $60 USD, once I crossed the 100W threshold, lenses jumped 8 times… The $60 lens became closer to $500 for the same focal length…
My set of 4 lenses went from $240 to close to $2000
If you need the power, that’s understandable… just understand the costs
The worst I have seen on AliExpress (or was it Alibaba? Same…) was a very cheap price for an expensive tool (plasma cutter, IIRC). I make up prices, but that’s the order of magnitude: something like 500 € for the device. BUT, 14 000 € for the shipping!
There are two JPT sources (ay least fornthe 50w and under. One just has wide frequency adjustment. But the other parts can be really cheap. There is a difference in the actual heads where the mirrors are located.some cheap junk out there with short life. And the next issue is taxes, ali isnt covering any US tarriffs. And probabky no shipoing. stay away. Buy from known entity
In our company we purchased fiber laser from Alibaba.com, and it is running every single day for 2 years strong already. Of course, split system. With 2 lenses (150x150mm and 300x300mm), much longer arm (we required possibility to mark much longer items from the end). The manufacturer company we went with was OV Laser. Generally to talk about prices, shipping, details, modifications to laser - there is some bit of lengthy process of getting called “friend” 3 million times while doing the RFQ’s while you decide to whom to go with and how your final product should look like. I would highly recommend knowing what “insides” you specifically want for your laser. Of course, the price that you can see right away on the Alibaba site might not be the one you will end up paying, that is where RFQ and adjusting specifics comes in. Also always need to request shipping costs (from the seller), and have to be at least slightly familiar with import procedures - but thats not a rocket science. My main suggestion - do not give out email address, contact details, do not move communication to WhatsApp - keep it all on Alibaba. Chinese are not the best when it comes to data safety. Also payments - try to process it via Alibaba (I even kicked in PayPal in between), to have some extra layers of protection for your money in case something comes in defective and you want to deal with somebody else than China to resolve hard cases.
When talking about price - the same (insert your desired “known brand”) or other brands is basically the same laser from one of Chinese companies(at least most critical components), where simply (insert your desired brand) has put togehter package that they feel comfortable with, slapped their logo on, and taken on extra customer support locally. If you are willing to pay 3x as much to have logo and local support - its up to you. Is there a chance of a f**kup by taking Chinese laser directly from China - sure, but that is why you never leave Alibaba, and in case something goes wrong and things can not be resolved as easily with the seller direct, do the chargeback with your bank and make it Alibabas problem to resolve it with supplier.
Once our laser came in, it was all calibrated and squared - I did not have to deal with all of the nonsense I have seen with “cheap chineese lasers” on Youtube (I was ready to deal with it). I had a few questions about using it - the customer support was excellent. There were some issues with how the program was set up - something was mirrored - I explained what are the issues on Alibaba site - and got a file with fixed configuration and extremely detailed explanation how to fix it withing the same day.
Overall - I am looking to buy CO2 laser now, and 100% I will go with shipping it from China directly again - I am not ready to pay 3x-4x more for the same exact hardware, especially if I kind of know what I am doing, and if all goes bad, I can buy another one, and still save money (and have 2 lasers).
P.S. the laser came in plywood box 2 weeks from the day we processed payment. It was in perfect condition.
– Good thinking…
