I just use my CO2 & Fiber for side hustle stuff, especially with the CO2. I saw this over the weekend, and it made me think. If I had MORE AIR, do I get cleaner cuts? Talk to me like I’m 3. I can take it.
Hi @SayCheeze
More air assist can make the cuts cleaner sometimes… or less clean sometimes… but so can a well-aligned CO2 laser cutter, a good quality lens, making sure you have the focus just so, and a balance of speed and power.
Tell us what materials you are working with and what you are currently doing with your cutter to make the cuts cleaner. Maybe a photo of your cuts?
Are the screen captures on your post your machine? Those cuts look pretty clean.
Hello D..
The next time I use it, I’ll post some images. I used it last week to engrave some Faux Leather Keychains. It looked good.
My wood stuff so so… Bass wood, etc…
Hi @SayCheeze
Its fairly doubtful that more air assist will clean your engravings. With engraving you’re removing material by ablation, you’re literally vaporizing the wood into smoke and particulate. That material has to go somewhere.
send some photos and I can make some suggestions.
A couple things are going on here. During any machining operation it will work over a very wide range of speeds/feeds (power and head speed), but there is a sweet spot, a certain speed/feed that it does the best. I think this is one of the things @Dominic advised.
It’s hard to know if more air would be useful if you don’t know what air system you’re using. If you’re using 60psi, then I doubt 80psi would make much difference.
Generally speaking, I think it’s really the material followed by the lens length. Some types of materials, especially different types of plywood, have some strange ways they cut. I always do a test piece or two and find what air assist works best for that material.
Some of my plywood cuts pretty easily with only low pressure (~5lbs), other types may need 40psi.
Mine is connected to my 20G stand alone air compressor that can run up to 175lbs. I use it for air tools also… 
I’ve tried up to about 60lbs and find I rarely need anything that high.
Russ Sadler has a video on this, don’t know where it is off hand, but it’s likely at his Youtube site.
This is an almost stock machine, only the head mechanism has been changed. Stock air pump, exhaust fan and top completely open. In this short video, I’m cutting 5mm sub flooring 11mm/s@45% using a 43W tube.
Hope this helps, but I’m not sure exactly what you’re after.
More air assist is mostly a benefit when cutting. Just enough air to keep gunk out of the nozzle should be enough for engraving.
To help move the smoke away from the work, I have 3 each 1” fans at the front of the honeycomb.
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I’m still waiting on OPs images, but @MikeyH is right and what a spoiler! I was going to say that extraction and extraction direction play as big a part as air assist in trying to keep the material clean.
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Hello all. Sorry for the delay getting back. Been feeling kind of funky lately, but I’ BACK.
lol
Anyhoooo, I’m going to give it my best shot to engrave & cut some Bass wood today for giggles and testing.
My lens is a stock lens with the Monoport 50w CO2. Not sure what size that is, but that’s the only one I have. Air Assist? Stock fish tank bubbler…