Old Question - New Twist

[CNC_Tools]

Hi Guys,

I see that the "how much power does it take" question is pretty beat to death here. Here's my version

I am looking to laser engrave mild and high carbon steel that has been black oxided and 7075 aluminum that has been black anodized.

Here's the twist!

These are Firearm parts and therefore need to be engraved a minimum of .003 deep to satisfy the ATF. I know a 60W or so CW CO2 laser will engrave the coatings, but will a 180 or 200W get me the .003 depth I need? I can multi-pass it if need be, I'm not looking for hi throughput so time is not an issue. I'm just tired of tying up a 100K machine tool to do a laser job.

I have seen some smaller Yags on Ebay, around 40-50W will these do the job? Just real leary about buying a used laser that I can't get service for.

Thanks for the help!

Chris R

[zax15uk]

Chris,

If I understand correctly the answer is no regarding CO2, what you will do is remove the coating but not engrave the base metal to any extent (certainly not 3 mils).

I'm not familiar with ATF requirements but I suspect they want the base metal engraved deep enough to prevent wear removal. In this case once the plating wears off you'll essentially lose the marking.

YAG would work and with a galvo system you'd have much better precision and speed too.

I use Rofin marking heads (Nd and Yb) which have proven to be very reliable, far exceeding the documented diode lifetime.

Zax.

[fullspeceng]

Low power Co2 won't work (just burns off the paint, no metal).

250W CO2 laser will work in carbon steel (not Al). See this video from Synrad:
Watch Synrad Lasers in Action!

YAG is old technology. There are 2 yags: flash lamp based (avoid these at all costs) and diode pumped (better but still not ideal).

Fiber laser is much better (100,000 hr diode life, runs off standard 110V 10Amp, all air cooling). 20W pulsed fiber has peak power of 10kW easily marking the materials you want.

Full Spectrum Laser is an authorized dealer for GCC Stellarmark Scanning Galvo and S290 Flying Gantry (watch their videos):
GCC LaserPro Laser Marking System, Laser Marker
GCC LaserPro Laser Marking System, Laser Marker

We can sell you all these models but these high end applications will run $30k+.

We will beat pricing on any new comparable laser.