I have a couple of questions for you Galvo guys and Gals,
About how long does it take to engrave the average folding knife?
what wattage do you suggest for that purpose
Does power equate to faster burning times?
Is the extra cost of a MOPA worth it to a hobby/side hustle guy?
Thanks, I am new to the fiber world but have had a co2 for over 5 years.
Next month is my two year anniversary with my M60 JPT M7 MOPA fiber laser. I have four lenses. And can try and tell you my experience.
You need to think like a fiber works. A fiber is a pulse laser and your co2 is a continuous wave (cw) laser. The fiber is easier to understand if you think about it in pulses/mm, at least IMHO. Instead of thinking speeds and feeds, it more like pulses/mm and pulse width.
I’d take a lower powered MOPA compared to a higher powered non MOPA machine. It’s very nice to have a much wider range of adjustments, including a wider frequency range and q-pulse width.
I try to do a lot with larger pieces, such as 300x300mm, so needed that coverage. To get this you need a longer lens and it needs to be further away from the working table. The only smart approach I could think of was a long lens (F420mm) with a taller column (800mm).
Once you get to 100W or more, lens prices go up by 8 times. The same four lenses I have (~$60 USD each). Four of them cost about $250 USD. if my MOPA was 100W or greater that lens would cost me about 8 times as much or around $500 USD each… that’s $2000 USD the same focal length of lenses would have cost me.
I’d suggest staying under 100W, I’ve seen 90W machine, and the most populous seem to be 60W machines.
Although some say so, I’m not so sure having more power is a good thing here. I’ve throttled down my 60W because of the way the metals discolored or warped, so how much power you can put into a piece may vary greatly depending on the material and it’s dimensions.
I just say you might not be able to use all the power in a machine in some applications and I’ve been able to get what I want from my 60W machine.
Laser Everything is a good source of videos (and their site) and settings at least to start.
Hope this helps…
Good luck
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Thank you, It was very helpful.
This was a private email, so I thought others would be interested and I forgot to comment in the original reply.
I have found I don’t want to engrave some items, such as knives I don’t want an engraving. When you cut things, it sticks to engraving area as it’s uneven. Even using stainless steel.
I will look tomorrow for the file for this and let you know the running time. This is done on a kitchen knife from the dollar store. It’s oxidized/annealed, you can’t feel it. I’ve done it to my kitchen knives two years ago and it’s still there.
Good luck
Those look really nice
Try this for a start… I just re-installed everything, so don’t know if the timing is set correctly, but when I run this in the preview, it says about 3 minutes, each.
Seems to me it took longer, but what do I know 
celtic-cross-circles.lbrn2 (326.7 KB)
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