What laser to cut 1/8 inch plywood?

[S55]

I am new to this field and would appreciate your feedback. What kind of laser and what power would be needed to cut up to 1/8 inch plywood or balsa?
Can it be much cheaper if I limit it to 1/16 inch?

Are there various tubes that can be used? What voltages and what currents are we talking about?

Thank you,
S55

[pyroplotter]

I do a lot of work with 1/8 plywood and for the most part get decent cuts with 10 watts, a a 2.5 inch FL lens and 9 psi air assist. Cutting speed is typically 30 ipm with 2 to 4 repeats. Edges are excellent! My experience with Balsa is a little different. I had to back off the power to under 5 watts and increase the speed because some balsa sheets I worked with ignited and the flame was self-sustaining !!!! Not good. I dropped working with balsa for the Xmas ornaments I do and stuck with just plywood and more power.

Just bought a T60 laser and will experiment with that and higher powers and gas pressures soon. I expect to do one pass work at 45 ipm with 30 psi air assist. ( This is what I was told by others who do what I'm doing ).

[S55]

Do you know what voltage is needed for your tube and what is the current it takes? For example when you say you need 10 Watts and you use 10 kV, does this mean the current is 1 mA?
How do you adjust the power? By simply adjusting the voltage?

Thank you,
S55

[pyroplotter]

Originally Posted by S55 Do you know what voltage is needed for your tube and what is the current it takes? For example when you say you need 10 Watts and you use 10 kV, does this mean the current is 1 mA? How do you adjust the power? By simply adjusting the voltage? Thank you, S55

When I say 10 watts I mean the full power output of my old laser, a Synrad J48-1 ( go to http://www.synrad.com ). This is an all-metal heat sinked assembly with built in driver electronics. You can adjust the power level from 0.5 Watts up to 9.9 watts with the UC2000 laser control module. I use a single beam bender and lens assembly and with that setup I can do good cutting of thinner woods. I have also successfully cut up to 1/2 inch cedar board but that is quite slow and it soon became obvious I needed more power. Still, 10 watts can do quite a lot. You can look at the old configuration at http://www.pyroplotter.com to get an idea.

My new setup uses a Synrad t60 and with a Cut Quality Enhancer and Collimator added for smallest spot size. I'll post pictures of that configuration towards end of July.