I can not wait for UV Galvo Support in Lightburn. I got my 5W UV machine earlier this year & will be taking it to some shows for live demos soon. My light source is a Photonics Industries. It's rock solid, but it's a bit annoying that I have to open the electronic shutter and enable the laser in a separate tool than EZCAD. Not sure yet if I'll still have to do that once Lightburn supports UV - or if it is even just a matter of a not-quite-complete hardware integration. The machine was not cheap - about $8K for the 5W UV. That said, my experience is the same - able to do some very nice work with it. I have two F-Theta lenses for it, the 110mm and the 400mm.
Interesting I've never heard of that company or that functional requirement. Sounds annoying for sure. Haven't seen anything about that in lightburn but apparently as of the most recent release it is in fact technically working with UV lasers, some of them at least. Exercise caution.
Also, one of my more surprising exeriments was cutting aluminum cans with the UV laser. Takes a few passes (but not long) and I cut out some shapes with the intent of using them for art work (flower petals on a 3d piece).
I am learning about these UV lasers. Nobody is explaining the Air Cooled vs Water Cooled. Does air cooled put machine at risk (5watt) or is it a different design that does not require water cooler like other units I see packaged with cooler. Thanks!
@@LaserEverything Oh. Bummer. Mine does have power selection. It seems to be effective. But with a 3W system, I don't tend to notice it as much. I have tested cutting circular disks from 20# bond at different power settings. It takes fewer passes to cut one at a high power setting than at low power. So I'm sure the power setting is having an effect.
Would you consider a Galvo-head a production device and Gantry as a universal pro-sumer device? I feel like the gantry can do more but just at a slower pace? What about a gantry Galvo head? I only bring these up because i am willing to spend the money for up front cost for deliverable/speed products but not at the expense of diversity. i am leaning towards UV with this in mind before i even watch your video. I will EDIT afterward with my thoughts
BTW Alex, I guess it could be possible to cut glass by using wobble with 1mm diameter and 0.025mm distance (fine tuning might be required). For small object is not advantageous, but for large objects it will be indeed- It would be great to see you testing my hypothesis 😉
Great video Alex, I have a question regarding cutting the hole in the glass (which was very cool btw). I'm just waiting on my ComMarker B4 30W (first fibre laser) arriving so my question probably shows my inexperience. Couldn't you just cut by marking the perimeter of the circle rather than hatching the full area?
I'd imagine that would be the spot size of your laser, which you could use to drill straight down. This will vary depending on the thickness of the material (the beam widens as it moves out of focus) and the lens you're using. There's quite a range.
@@LaserEverything Alex, what is the focal length of your UV laser? The longer the focal length, the less the ever increasing distance between the focusing lens and the target surface will diminish ablation of the glass as your workpiece' surface falls greadually away from the focal point. With a 3W UV laser and a focal length of 304mm, it took an hour to penetrate a test piece 1.8mm (on a 5mm dia hole). And the hole shape was noticably frustrum-like. It was fun watching it happen. The technique works best with thin material (like a microscope slide cover) and where tapered holes will serve the intended purpose. If straight holes are needed, 'old-school' milling using diamond powder core bits is the likely route - not nearly as FUN - but FUNctional.
We can't really get into it in the RUclips comments as it's not the best place for more intensive support threads but we do have a few options where you can get help. Either check out Discord Server or Facebook group - links in the description - or you can check out our new forum over at www.lasereverything.net/forum and I'm sure we can get you pointed in the right direction.
Hi Alex; I heard that UV cannot mark plastics made out of cellulose, like Cellidor(R) which is used by Victorinox for their swiss knives. Have you ever tried?? Thanks in advance!
I belive 3d print resin is cured using the same wavelength UV laser, so it should def. have some effect, but may embritle the area by overcuring?? using it to make textured glass fdm 3d print plates may actually be a good market, just saying. unless of course it adheres way to well!
Definitely not UV. You'll want to go with a medium to high power fiber laser, especially for copper. Copper is one of the most reflective metals and even the strongest beams can bounce right off of it. Check out the fiber laser buying guide here: ruclips.net/video/Y7tknUioLwY/видео.html
It should definitely be capable of this, may take a couple passes as I haven't tried it personally but it should be okay. Precision should be better than everything but a blade. Kerf on this unit would be less than a tenth of a millimeter if you keep burn away under control.
What’s benefit of uv vs fiber. And does it make dark marks on metal. Can you cut metal? I was saving for fiber laser but now not sure which one to get lol
Like the fiber it can make dark marks on metal depending on the metal. Aluminum is still white to gray. Steel still requires a slow z-mark style mark to get black. Some metals like brass and copper though I've been able to get considerably darker with the UV that I've been able to do with the fiber. No cutting or deep engraving with the UV however. UV really shines in its ability to mark just about everything. Organics, metals, synthetics, plastics. All can be marked with a UV. Just not going deep on most things.
Air cooled. Water cooled is far more efficient but you have to deal with chillers, water lines, mess, blah blah. I prefer the convenience of air cooling overall.
And for the 5mm hole through the pane of glass... what were the setting values? Congrats on that, BTW. Also, how thick is the glass pane you used? Is your Mactron UV a 5W unit? Is there any measurable difference between the diameter of the entrance and exit holes? In the segment where you burned the last piece of leather (about 1hr 4min into the vid), you mentioned having to talk to "Geo". Who are you referring to? Someone with Inngo? You were saying some pulse widths settings at certain frequencies weren't "behaving".
Same settings we used to mark the glass live, just repeated on a line instead of a hatch. 5w Mactron UV. I'd sa a fraction of a millimeter difference between the two but didn't take a lot of time to check. Geo is one of our volunteer staff members on the discord who knows a little bit more than me about pulse width.
@@LaserEverything I believe you were at 250/30/16 when "frost" marking the pane and 200/30/16 when drilling the hole. And yep, I can see EZCAD3 does not seem to give you power setting marking parameter adjustment option. One can only assume what power setting is. Max???
Not even close. The UV is great at marking almost anything you can think of and doing it very well, but it's deep engraving abilities, especially on metal are limited. Different tools for different jobs. If you want to ablate a ton of metal material you can not beat the fiber.
It can *mark* anything but not always a deep engraving. It could technically cut some things, for example glass, but galvo laser cutting performance is very poor in general and on top of that the UV lasers of this type are typically too low power to do it in a cost effective way even if you get it to work.
UV's have actually been coming down in price a bit, so it's likely cheaper now than it was even a year ago, but it will depend on options and what you want in terms of components and brand. We have links in the buying guide to it in the description. This isn't any more or less safe than a fiber, depending on the reflections of the beam emitted in your space, they all require proper safety protections to be used or they are all unsafe.
I do a lot of my UV marking at max power, especially on glass and acrylic. Around 30ns 33khz. For wood and lighter plastics I do reduce the pulse width to reduce impact on those materials.
Great video Alex. Very helpful in my decision on our next laser. Do you know who the manufacturer of the Laser Source is? We have JPT M7 Fibers so was looking at getting a JPT UV source. Not sure if we should go air or water yet...
Inngu is the source manufacturer for this one. It's worked flawlessly. They're nice cuz they go up to 5w air-cooled. Most JPT UV sources on the market are the 3w version and many of the 5w are water cooled. Some people like water cooling cuz it's quiet but the fans on my Inngu aren't any louder than the fiber so it works fine for me and one less chiller to worry about.
@@LaserEverything Thanks for the info. I'll do some research on the Inngu sources... In a future video, could you please do some samples with the UV on Bamboo. As you know Bamboo is not a great material to laser, but there are so many products made from it. If a UV laser can mark Bamboo better than CO2, it will open the door to many more products and ideas.
@@LaserEverything Sorry Laser Eveything, UV Laser sources have less life time than 1064 Fiber laser, UV lasers normally can work 10.000 to 25.000 hours it depends the brands. The Betters is JPT and Inngu.
Have you or do you intend trying to etch electronic PCB boards? I read that UV lasers produce the best results, but I'd like to know if 5W UV is enough for etching 35um(1oz) FR4 PCB.
My understanding is that they are powerful enough to etch if I want but not to cut and some people really want to be able to cut them in which case you would need more wattage. Just etching though they shouldn't have an issue. I haven't tried it yet but I'm very interested in doing something on that topic for the channel, though to be completely honest I'm not exactly sure where I would even get that or what I'm doing haha
@@LaserEverything The challenge is in cleanly etching only the copper layer, without burning the substrate, while at the same time maintaining consistent trace widths of 10 mils or less. Looking forward for your test!!!
Yea, that's a downside to essentially all UV lasers. Beam combiner lenses for the UV wavelength for a red dot have begun becoming more available, so hopefully we see that shift to the norm soon for ease of use and eye safety during alignment.
Shorter than fiber, you can eek out 5-10 years of pretty heavy use if you're taking extremely good care of it. #1 enemy of UV lasers is dust so make sure you're keeping your laser, your shop and most importantly your laser source itself extremely clean.
I haven't tested it on precious metals yet but I'm sure it would mark them. We'll have to try it to see what type of mark we will get but the UV will leave marks on just about everything.
All materials? Probably UV. The UV won't deep engrave metal like a MOPA fiber, but it will mark it. Everything else the UV is basically going to do a better job.
This is totally a joke thought, so don't anybody actually try this!!! But... Since UV light is also used to tan skin in tanning booths, I wonder if you could tan a design or logo on to your skin using that laser 😂
Ahoi, I really like your videos, they are filled with information BUT they are WAY to long and I am not interested in watching over an hour for just 5 minutes of knowledge
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
I just got my 10 watt UV water cool laser..We need more videos on UV !!! you are doing a great job !
I am looking at a 10W UV laser as well but trying to decide if I want to put down the additional money and get a 3D.
I can not wait for UV Galvo Support in Lightburn. I got my 5W UV machine earlier this year & will be taking it to some shows for live demos soon.
My light source is a Photonics Industries. It's rock solid, but it's a bit annoying that I have to open the electronic shutter and enable the laser in a separate tool than EZCAD. Not sure yet if I'll still have to do that once Lightburn supports UV - or if it is even just a matter of a not-quite-complete hardware integration.
The machine was not cheap - about $8K for the 5W UV. That said, my experience is the same - able to do some very nice work with it. I have two F-Theta lenses for it, the 110mm and the 400mm.
Interesting I've never heard of that company or that functional requirement. Sounds annoying for sure. Haven't seen anything about that in lightburn but apparently as of the most recent release it is in fact technically working with UV lasers, some of them at least. Exercise caution.
Also, one of my more surprising exeriments was cutting aluminum cans with the UV laser. Takes a few passes (but not long) and I cut out some shapes with the intent of using them for art work (flower petals on a 3d piece).
Very surprising for sure, I'll have to try this sometime. I've never thought about cutting anything with UV outside of glass.
How forgiving is the DOF on the UV lasers for curved surfaces like wine glasses, bottles etc?
Less forgiving than fiber. Definitely plan for shallow depth of field even on larger lenses.
Do you offer any material settings / libraries for your supporters of your website? Fiber settings have been very helpful, thank you.
I am learning about these UV lasers. Nobody is explaining the Air Cooled vs Water Cooled. Does air cooled put machine at risk (5watt) or is it a different design that does not require water cooler like other units I see packaged with cooler. Thanks!
At 22:00, you show wood extremely clean. Please tell me the settings - parm values for power, freq, etc...
UV doesn't have power. I believe it was 33khz 30ns pulse
@@LaserEverything Oh. Bummer. Mine does have power selection. It seems to be effective. But with a 3W system, I don't tend to notice it as much. I have tested cutting circular disks from 20# bond at different power settings. It takes fewer passes to cut one at a high power setting than at low power. So I'm sure the power setting is having an effect.
Hello friend. This laser has a power output of 5 watts? Will the 5 watt laser be able to cut 0.4mm thick glass? Thank you.
Hi, did you use the uv laser on white plexiglas? can you have black mark?
Would you consider a Galvo-head a production device and Gantry as a universal pro-sumer device?
I feel like the gantry can do more but just at a slower pace?
What about a gantry Galvo head?
I only bring these up because i am willing to spend the money for up front cost for deliverable/speed products but not at the expense of diversity. i am leaning towards UV with this in mind before i even watch your video.
I will EDIT afterward with my thoughts
BTW Alex, I guess it could be possible to cut glass by using wobble with 1mm diameter and 0.025mm distance (fine tuning might be required). For small object is not advantageous, but for large objects it will be indeed- It would be great to see you testing my hypothesis 😉
Definitely on my to-do list Francesco!
Great video Alex, I have a question regarding cutting the hole in the glass (which was very cool btw). I'm just waiting on my ComMarker B4 30W (first fibre laser) arriving so my question probably shows my inexperience. Couldn't you just cut by marking the perimeter of the circle rather than hatching the full area?
Any thoughts of adding a 3D UV?
This is interesting to see laser cutting of glass. Any idea of what is the smallest feature / hole diameter that you can drill with this?
I'd imagine that would be the spot size of your laser, which you could use to drill straight down. This will vary depending on the thickness of the material (the beam widens as it moves out of focus) and the lens you're using. There's quite a range.
@@LaserEverything Alex, what is the focal length of your UV laser? The longer the focal length, the less the ever increasing distance between the focusing lens and the target surface will diminish ablation of the glass as your workpiece' surface falls greadually away from the focal point. With a 3W UV laser and a focal length of 304mm, it took an hour to penetrate a test piece 1.8mm (on a 5mm dia hole). And the hole shape was noticably frustrum-like. It was fun watching it happen. The technique works best with thin material (like a microscope slide cover) and where tapered holes will serve the intended purpose. If straight holes are needed, 'old-school' milling using diamond powder core bits is the likely route - not nearly as FUN - but FUNctional.
Hi Alex, how to setup Dot pointer in Inngu UV laser(don´t have red dot light inside machine), with Ezcad 2, please.
We can't really get into it in the RUclips comments as it's not the best place for more intensive support threads but we do have a few options where you can get help. Either check out Discord Server or Facebook group - links in the description - or you can check out our new forum over at www.lasereverything.net/forum and I'm sure we can get you pointed in the right direction.
Hi Alex; I heard that UV cannot mark plastics made out of cellulose, like Cellidor(R) which is used by Victorinox for their swiss knives. Have you ever tried?? Thanks in advance!
I have no idea! Definitely something I want to get under the machine now though. I'll see what I can do about testing one.
I belive 3d print resin is cured using the same wavelength UV laser, so it should def. have some effect, but may embritle the area by overcuring?? using it to make textured glass fdm 3d print plates may actually be a good market, just saying. unless of course it adheres way to well!
We'll have to give it a try sometime!
I'm surprised you didn't try lasering foods. Sugar cookies, Twinkies, dog treats. Pumpkin pie works good in Co2 lasers.
Good call! Will definitely have to try that!
Сan you try treating quartz glass with it? I want to understand whether the power density is enough to process it.
I am certainly willing to do this when I have some time but I can virtually guarantee you it will process quartz fine based on my experience so far.
@@LaserEverything According to my calculations, everything should be fine. But there is one way to find out for sure.
What is your suggestion for cutting and engraving thin aluminum and copper?
Definitely not UV. You'll want to go with a medium to high power fiber laser, especially for copper. Copper is one of the most reflective metals and even the strongest beams can bounce right off of it. Check out the fiber laser buying guide here: ruclips.net/video/Y7tknUioLwY/видео.html
Hello ! Do you think this machine could cut out 0.6 mm brown paper ? with what precision ? Great channel I'm discovering here !
It should definitely be capable of this, may take a couple passes as I haven't tried it personally but it should be okay. Precision should be better than everything but a blade. Kerf on this unit would be less than a tenth of a millimeter if you keep burn away under control.
Yep. Likely 2 work just fine. (ruclips.net/video/TRpERi9WFEk/видео.html)
Can you put on your list of things to do with the UV laser marking on crystal? perhaps try a 3D pic? thanks
We can definitely try crystal and I expect good results, but 3D suspended engravings require a specialized green laser.
Interesting. I will have to experiment.
@@nickhardy7310 I just got my UV laser. can u post a pic or send pic of ur work that u mentioned ? would love to see that.
Now that LB for galvos has been released, will LB run a UV laser? 🤷🏻♂️
Still waiting for UV support. Hoping for an announcement.
im looking for a machine that can engrave copper images on to copper tube, up to now looks like a 50 watt JPT.
Have you tried to laser (holes) tempered glass?
What’s benefit of uv vs fiber. And does it make dark marks on metal. Can you cut metal?
I was saving for fiber laser but now not sure which one to get lol
Like the fiber it can make dark marks on metal depending on the metal. Aluminum is still white to gray. Steel still requires a slow z-mark style mark to get black. Some metals like brass and copper though I've been able to get considerably darker with the UV that I've been able to do with the fiber. No cutting or deep engraving with the UV however.
UV really shines in its ability to mark just about everything. Organics, metals, synthetics, plastics. All can be marked with a UV. Just not going deep on most things.
WHICH UV LASER IS BEST WATER COOL OR AIR COOL
Depends on who you ask. Water cooling is more efficient but inconvenient.
Is your UV laser water or air cooling? And what do you consider the main differences? What do you think is the best cooling system?
Air cooled. Water cooled is far more efficient but you have to deal with chillers, water lines, mess, blah blah. I prefer the convenience of air cooling overall.
And for the 5mm hole through the pane of glass... what were the setting values? Congrats on that, BTW.
Also, how thick is the glass pane you used? Is your Mactron UV a 5W unit? Is there any measurable difference between the diameter of the entrance and exit holes?
In the segment where you burned the last piece of leather (about 1hr 4min into the vid), you mentioned having to talk to "Geo". Who are you referring to? Someone with Inngo? You were saying some pulse widths settings at certain frequencies weren't "behaving".
Same settings we used to mark the glass live, just repeated on a line instead of a hatch. 5w Mactron UV. I'd sa a fraction of a millimeter difference between the two but didn't take a lot of time to check. Geo is one of our volunteer staff members on the discord who knows a little bit more than me about pulse width.
@@LaserEverything I believe you were at 250/30/16 when "frost" marking the pane and 200/30/16 when drilling the hole. And yep, I can see EZCAD3 does not seem to give you power setting marking parameter adjustment option. One can only assume what power setting is. Max???
Can you make deep engraving on metal with the uv compared with a 50w fiber laser??
Not even close. The UV is great at marking almost anything you can think of and doing it very well, but it's deep engraving abilities, especially on metal are limited. Different tools for different jobs. If you want to ablate a ton of metal material you can not beat the fiber.
So the uv laser can engrave anything but not cut anything right?
It can *mark* anything but not always a deep engraving. It could technically cut some things, for example glass, but galvo laser cutting performance is very poor in general and on top of that the UV lasers of this type are typically too low power to do it in a cost effective way even if you get it to work.
Bonjour le laser graveur UV 5W grave bien tous les métaux merci
How much for the laser all in? Is it safer than a fiber?
UV's have actually been coming down in price a bit, so it's likely cheaper now than it was even a year ago, but it will depend on options and what you want in terms of components and brand. We have links in the buying guide to it in the description. This isn't any more or less safe than a fiber, depending on the reflections of the beam emitted in your space, they all require proper safety protections to be used or they are all unsafe.
Just got a new 3D UV 5W and the manual is a bit meagre - do you have any data on power setting?
I do a lot of my UV marking at max power, especially on glass and acrylic. Around 30ns 33khz. For wood and lighter plastics I do reduce the pulse width to reduce impact on those materials.
Does Laserpeaker 2 uses UV laser source ?
No no, not at all. The laser pecker 2 is a 455nm galvo operated blue diode laser.
Could you try Optimazition hatch (blue uninterupted hatch) on transparent polycarbonate?
Sure thing, I'll try to get my hands on some.
@@LaserEverything ... Or transparent plexiglass would be Also worth to test
Great video Alex. Very helpful in my decision on our next laser. Do you know who the manufacturer of the Laser Source is? We have JPT M7 Fibers so was looking at getting a JPT UV source. Not sure if we should go air or water yet...
Inngu is the source manufacturer for this one. It's worked flawlessly. They're nice cuz they go up to 5w air-cooled. Most JPT UV sources on the market are the 3w version and many of the 5w are water cooled. Some people like water cooling cuz it's quiet but the fans on my Inngu aren't any louder than the fiber so it works fine for me and one less chiller to worry about.
@@LaserEverything Thanks for the info. I'll do some research on the Inngu sources... In a future video, could you please do some samples with the UV on Bamboo. As you know Bamboo is not a great material to laser, but there are so many products made from it. If a UV laser can mark Bamboo better than CO2, it will open the door to many more products and ideas.
Yes I have to find the best settings for it but the UV bamboo video is definitely planned
You can try to search Mactron UV laser machine.
@@LaserEverything He's right about that. I think my chiller would drown out a '69 VW bus engine.
How durable are UV lasers? Any parts need to be replaced regularly?
Nah, in general they seem good for 50k - 100k hours.
@@LaserEverything Sorry Laser Eveything, UV Laser sources have less life time than 1064 Fiber laser, UV lasers normally can work 10.000 to 25.000 hours it depends the brands. The Betters is JPT and Inngu.
Have you or do you intend trying to etch electronic PCB boards? I read that UV lasers produce the best results, but I'd like to know if 5W UV is enough for etching 35um(1oz) FR4 PCB.
My understanding is that they are powerful enough to etch if I want but not to cut and some people really want to be able to cut them in which case you would need more wattage. Just etching though they shouldn't have an issue. I haven't tried it yet but I'm very interested in doing something on that topic for the channel, though to be completely honest I'm not exactly sure where I would even get that or what I'm doing haha
@@LaserEverything The challenge is in cleanly etching only the copper layer, without burning the substrate, while at the same time maintaining consistent trace widths of 10 mils or less. Looking forward for your test!!!
It's definitely on my to-do list considering it's such a common usage of the machine!
Looks good mate!
Thanks, it's a BLAST to use!
Major downside that there is no red positioning light. Very difficult to center something accurately plus the danger from uv
Yea, that's a downside to essentially all UV lasers. Beam combiner lenses for the UV wavelength for a red dot have begun becoming more available, so hopefully we see that shift to the norm soon for ease of use and eye safety during alignment.
@@LaserEverything already saw suppliers offer that!
Salam . Congratulations bro alex . God bless you
Thank you nabil :D
What is the approximate price ?
6.5-10k
What kind of life expectancy are you looking at with a UV?
Shorter than fiber, you can eek out 5-10 years of pretty heavy use if you're taking extremely good care of it. #1 enemy of UV lasers is dust so make sure you're keeping your laser, your shop and most importantly your laser source itself extremely clean.
Can the uv laser mark jelwery gold silver etc
I haven't tested it on precious metals yet but I'm sure it would mark them. We'll have to try it to see what type of mark we will get but the UV will leave marks on just about everything.
@@LaserEverything also can you use rotary on uv laser like fiber ?
I think I might go with uv laser as my first fiber laser for more versatility
Yes you can, it's in the mail you'll see it soon on the channel.
Awesome!
Glad you think so! I've been having so. much. fun. It's a blast to use!
@@LaserEverything It was fun to watch Alex!
WHICH LASER IS BEST UV LASER OR MOPA LASER FOR ALL METRIALS
All materials? Probably UV.
The UV won't deep engrave metal like a MOPA fiber, but it will mark it.
Everything else the UV is basically going to do a better job.
HOW CAN L CHANGE THE LASER LIGHT ??
You have to buy a different machine.
@@LaserEverything I have 30 w laser
What's your laser source in the Mactron UV? Is it Raycus? JPT?
Inngu source, mactron machine, super high quality, would recommend. Link in the buying guide: www.lasereverything.net/buyingguide
Over 1,300 views and only 74 likes? Come on guys!
Reppin!
This is totally a joke thought, so don't anybody actually try this!!!
But... Since UV light is also used to tan skin in tanning booths, I wonder if you could tan a design or logo on to your skin using that laser 😂
Probably, and it would probably hurt, and I definitely would NOT do this lol
You are not really moving fast, but you think so. Get more prepared and transition. Get another camera for closeup’s
Been wanting a second camera for a long time...
Blasphemous "Holy Trinity"
Ahoi, I really like your videos, they are filled with information BUT they are WAY to long and I am not interested in watching over an hour for just 5 minutes of knowledge
Don't watch the livestreams. There's LOTS of other content on the channel that is of normal length.