I’m wondering if anyone has moved from a 20w diode to a 40w diode and found a significant time saving per job.
Due possibly to such as Cold, Moisture absorption and Bad fillers in sheets of ply I’ve found my cutting time increasing progressively from 6 to 14 passes which is using up a lot of time.
I’m wondering if anyone has increased their module wattage and found that projects for sales production become viable after doing so.
The level of detail is unimportant as these are simple novelty pieces, for eg 150mm x 130mm on 5mm birch ply with a slogan or image that is simple, cute and fun. These are for selling to other sellers as I will not have time for markets this year.
I am considering using hardwoods to get a nice apearance, finished with a coat of laqure and to avoid the inconsistancy of plywood which is rather wasteful and frequent.
The thing is, I was considering a 60/40/20w module on a much bigger machine and the price of the 40w alone is a good portion of the price of the bigger machine.
So, has anyone faced such a dilemma and figured it out successfully or have an opinion that they’d like to share.
I have a 40w/20w switched diode module. My experience has been, due to the 40w being spread out over a larger area (bigger dot), I get about a 50% increase in cutting performance on average at 40w.
My machine is indoors, but the indoor temp is about 2 degF cooler than in the summer. I have noticed what used to cut in 5 passes during the summer now takes 8 passes. I was surprised at how much the 2 degrees makes in the final result.
I noticed this week that some of the wild gorse plants were flowering and the temperatures were slightly better than the weeks before, mostly due to the absence of windchill. A couple of days ago I was cutting some lettering and was surprised to see an inner cut piece drop after what could have been no more than 4-5 passes. I thought it might be due to temps but also I had raised the cutting power to 95%/ speed reduced to 1100mm/min and that part of the sheet of ply seemed OK quality.
I have cut 4mm hardwood sheets and they cut good and quick with the 20w set to 1200mm/m and 90% power with 6 passes and that performance makes the piece’s I have in mind quite viable at 11mins each to produce and (possibly) sell…but if the 40w could reduce the overall time cutting 5 - 6mm hardwood sheets I’d feel a lot happier about the workflow…in a way the functionality of the system is more important than the money it may bring.
It may only be a fractional decrease in jobtime but the larger dot size also seems like a possible advantage when used in the right way especially for hatch/crosshatch filling.