The Best Laser Cutter for any Budget?

so if you're looking at laser engravers and laser cutters then you're probably seeing a bunch of different machines we're going to break down what you really need to know and i'll give you my top recommendations for what machines might work best for you so my name is brandon and welcome to the shop this is actually kind of the laser corner we have a few machines that we'll definitely talk about including the glow forge right there but actually first got started because i wanted just to laser engrave super simple stuff like this as well as cut out different shapes and parts for a bunch of different things so of all of the tools that i have in my shop i still think lasers are my favorite just because they're really easy to use for the most part and they're usually really quick to get you to your final part that you're working on so before we get into specific machines let's talk about the big differences between them all so the biggest difference is going to be in how the actual laser is made and we're going to talk about three main categories so first up are going to be diode lasers and this is the actual laser portion off of a diode laser and this literally moves along a gantry and this is what gives you your final product so the laser beam just comes out right down there now most of the time you're going to use diode lasers for engraving you're really not going to use them for cutting very much and the wattages are going to be pretty low so anywhere from one and a half watts up to maybe 5 to 10 watts depending on how it's made but this is a pretty good example of how most diode lasers will work it'll be on some type of gantry like this that can move this way as well as this way and that is how the laser actually will engrave your piece and the next step is going to be co2 lasers so these lasers have a big glass tube that is typically in the back of the machine the generates the actual laser beam and then a series of mirrors will flick the beam around the machine onto your actual work piece so the benefit of those is they're going to give you a lot more power really the lowest you're going to start out is 40 watts and those will go all the way up to like 150 or 200 watts and then just for a super general rule of thumb around 40 up to about 90 watts you're gonna be able to cut through a quarter inch piece of plywood in one pass the 90 watts up you can step that up to about a half inch and you can go even thicker as you go further up and the last type of laser that we're going to talk about are fiber lasers basically you'd use a fiber laser to do anything on metal and most fiber lasers will also use that same mirror system as a co2 laser but the actual mirror itself is going to adjust versus the co2 laser which will bounce the beam into a little lens that is again on a gantry so what that means is they are really really fast now another big difference between all of these different machines is going to be the actual work area so how big of something can you engrave or cut with the machine this is not only in like the x and the y but also how thick of material you can get inside of your machine and then another big difference is going to be software so some of these machines will come with software that is custom to that specific brand so glowforge they run their own software full spectrum runs their own software but a lot of them are more open and you can actually use a bunch of different software packages with them and if it's a laser that lets me pick the software i usually i'm gonna go with light burn just because i can use it with a diode lasers as well as the bigger dsp style machines that have controller units and the last major difference between all of these machines are just like your overall features for features like cameras or air assist or cooling or even general safety features like not letting you open a lid when the laser is running now when i first started researching lasers i actually made a spreadsheet that had all of the different machines then i had columns for all those different differences like work area power features and that was something i just used internally but i got enough questions about it that actually threw it up online so if you actually go to makerbreakshop.com ford slash laser we'll have a written review of all of these machines as well as all of them broken down the best that i can so you kind of compare the different machines and what they can do okay so let's actually talk about some specific machines so first off let's talk about diode lasers and again these are the ones that are typically really low power and most the time you're going to be doing engraving i have reviewed several ones from or tour in the past and then currently this is the one that i typically use this is the auteur laser master engraver 2 pro super long name but it does a really good job you can see actually has a pretty massive work area and so you can do some pretty big stuff with this machine but with pretty much any diode laser where they're going to be lacking is with safety features so there's no air assist which means there's no piece of compressed air that is putting out any fires the laser is gonna make pretty much all co2 lasers are gonna have that and then probably the most obvious is this is open so you're exposed to the laser beam um the pro has a little nice feature where it has this covered up so you don't have to look at it directly but because they have lower wattage and they don't have a lot of bells and whistles to them they typically are pretty cheap compared to the co2 lasers so there's even a smaller version of that auteur laser that is just a few hundred bucks the pro at the time of this recording is about 500 and the non-pro version of that machine is around 400 bucks now if you start looking for diode lasers you're going to find there are a bunch of different brands out there that pretty much are giving you the same type of machine i just have hands-on experience with auteur another brand you could check out is atom stack i actually have a machine coming from them pretty soon and what i'm really interested to see is they have a new laser module which basically is two diode lasers that have the beam come down to one spot meaning that you can have increased wattage you can cut through more stuff and you can run it quicker it's kind of like with the next wing with the lasers on the wings and it goes and it goes to the middle and blows up yeah yeah and then one other machine that isn't out yet is actually a pre-order is the make block d1 this is gonna be even more expensive than that pro unit but the overall build quality looks like it's gonna be higher as well because actually make block makes a pretty nice co2 unit that i've done a review of in the past it'll be pretty interesting to see how they translate some of the co2 features into the diode work and then the other category before we get to the big one is going to be fiber lasers now i've actually reviewed a unit from ohm tech and they're just really cool to use and they're really really fast so if you are wanting to engrave metal things specifically things that are pretty small omtek is probably going to be your cheapest option and then if you want to step it up in terms of bells and whistles then you can look at some of the units provided by full spectrum like their full spectrum pandora which is a fully enclosed unit as well as their full spectrum use galvo which i think is the pandora just it isn't closed in with as many of those features okay so now let's talk about the category that has lots of machines and companies inside of it and that is co2 machines in fact last year when i did this review that broke down all the different machines i think i only had three different categories but this time it's gonna be five first we're gonna talk about desktop then we'll talk about budget then mid-range then high-end and then finally pro okay so for desktop units they literally are the machines that will sit on a desk i've also kind of called these kickstarter units in the past these units typically are going to be small and wattage as well as small in work area but they're going to have a lot of features and bells and whistles built into them so the first one which is probably the most popular is the glow forge again i've done a full review on it if you want to check it out but the main takeaway for me was it's just really easy to use if you've never used a laser before the cooling system the air assist is all just built directly into the unit but the big drawback for a lot of people with glow forge is that it's a closed system you have to use their own software which is web-based and if you really like to get into the weeds and tinker with things you really can't do that with a machine like the glow forge and then pretty similar to that is the full spectrum muse it actually does look taller because i've got a riser that this is placed on top of but this is the typical unit right here again the full spectrum muse is going to have a lot of features similar to glowforge which is going to have cameras built in it's got autofocus but the big differences between the two is that the muse has their cooling and air compressor as a separate unit so that's something else that you'll have to place but then on the positive side they do have their own software but you don't have to be connected to wi-fi you can actually run that locally directly from a computer that's hooked up to it and another nice thing about full spectrum is this isn't the only machine that they make unlike glow forge basically they have three different versions of the same model the full spectrum actually has a full professional line and so they serve customers with a bunch of different needs what that really means for you is they have accessories that you probably can't get for glowforge like having a riser which raises the whole machine up they have a rotary on the inside if you're wanting to engrave tumblers or anything circular you're able to pull from other features they have on their higher end machines now the other one that i also have a hands-on review of is the make block laser box which is pretty similar to both of these in terms of features and power and carve ability and then really the final one in this category is the flux and i mention it because it's a lower wattage it's 30 watts but it also has a smaller footprint which also means it's not as expensive so if you really need something small but still something that has a lot of the nicer features like the integrated cameras and a lot of the safety features then could be a good option for you now even though we're starting with the desktop units we're definitely not starting on the low end of the budget because these have a lot more features and a lot more things directly built into them you're gonna be starting at at least two thousand dollars for these machines and most the time they're gonna fall into the three to four thousand dollar range and then it can go all the way up to over six thousand dollars for the glow forged pro as well as the full spectrum use 3d so when you're looking at these you're really comparing that price to ease of use especially if you're not having to cut out or engrave really large pieces of material which these aren't going to be able to handle okay so let's talk about a lot cheaper machines actually let's go as cheap as you can get on the co2 side of things we're going to talk about the k40 which is basically like a nickname that people give a 40 watt desktop unit that is imported from china now for those type units i'll talk about omtek they're a u.s supplier of those machines that also provides support so it's nice that you can actually get someone on the phone if you've got questions now their 40 watt desktop unit is around 500 bucks so a lot cheaper than even the base 2000 on those desktop machines and the big difference is you're not going to get any bells and whistles pretty much so no cameras there's going to be no air assist you're going to be a lot smaller in your work area even compared to these machines but on the pro side of things it's going to be cheaper and if you like to tinker you can really upgrade it there's a great community around the k40 specifically of lots of people adding upgrades to their unit actually i recently did a video that walked through how to upgrade a k40 to the type of features that you would get in our desktop units and then looking at the price comparison and the feature comparison and seeing if it's worth it now the other machine i'll include in the budget category which is going to be a 50 watt machine from omtek and this is actually the very first laser that i had in my shop and it's one that i straight up bought and it really opened me up to this crazy world of lasers now the big benefit of this 50 watt units is they have a better controller that's already built in you're not going to have to upgrade your 40 watt controller to do that so you can use software like light burn now not only are the brains nicer on that unit but then also you have a much bigger work area and actually for that 50 watt unit it's going to be bigger than these desktop units as well especially on the thickness it's just a good deal bigger machine and it's got higher wattage now those are like 1600 to 2000 so if you were to upgrade a 40 watt unit you're getting pretty close to that price point already so most of the time i recommend if you've got the budget for it and you're planning to do those upgrades anyway just go ahead and go with that 50 watt unit because you're also going to get a much much bigger work area built in with it so one of the drawbacks with using software like light burn is if you're not used to that type of software even like vector editors or laser control software it can be pretty confusing like what settings do i use how do i hook up my machine how do i control it and i'm actually in the process of putting together a full course that will walk you through that where you can be up and running and actually making things versus fiddling with the software i'm actually producing that course right now and i'm putting out new lessons on a weekly basis this really can take you from knowing nothing to actually having something made quick so there is a link down in the description with a discount if you want to check it out okay so now let's talk about our mid-range co2s now this mid-range is actually pretty similar in price to our desktop units so that three to six thousand dollars but they're going to be much more powerful machines and much bigger work area but they're not going to have as many bells and whistles as our desktop units and typically these are going gonna be machines that are imported from china and then rebranded so brands like laguna or boss do something similar and then the one we've already talked about is ohm tech and then omtek has recently kind of restructured how they do their machines where you basically can get any wattage in three different versions so you can get a manual focus you can get an automatic focus and then you can get a automatic z-axis meaning the floor can move up and down so really anything with an automatic focus or a movable z-axis i'll throw into this mid-range and again that wide edge will range from 60 all the way through and past 100 watts but then on the drawback you won't have the features like integrated cameras air assist and the water pump and chiller will be separate units sometimes you have to buy those separately with the machine and then it doesn't have integrated software which could be a pro or a con for you depending on what you want to look at so the high-end co2s is the category we really didn't have last year at least when i was doing this review and it kind of started with full spectrum they released their full spectrum muse titan which basically uses the same brains as this unit but it has a work area of two feet by four feet which is just massive but then i would put full spectrums pro series in this line as well and they basically are taking the nicer features of these desktop units and then throwing it into something the size of our mid-range co2s and then some newer companies at least to me are aeon thunder and ravit specifically the aeon mira series and then the thunder nova series those are still good size machines but from everything i've seen the quality of those are just a step up of that mid-range that you could get from ohm tech meaning they're going to have higher reliability you can run them faster and you're going to get a better final result and really where i see these machines sitting for you is if you're actually running a business so it's really more of an roi conversation versus just having a cool tool in your shop to make things on the weekends and then really running a business with a co2 laser brings us to our last category and these are going to be our pro machine so if you really are a professional these are the high-end lasers now these are basically machines where you can't find the price listed online unless you're like you get on the phone with someone so you know it's going to be expensive now most of these are going to be like ten thousand dollars and up for brands like epilogue universal and trotec shrektec i think i said that right but not only are the features and the build gonna be top notch but they're also gonna provide great documentation great support and great training now a few other oddballs i'll throw in here as well are going to be actual diode units you'll connect directly to a cnc router so something like the invincibles x-carve or carbide 3d and most the time you'll see these coming from jtech but then i've also seen nicer units from opt laser but opt laser those are like several hundred bucks and really if you're wanting to laser engrave at that point i would just get a standalone diode unit because they're super light really easy to work with and most of the times they can move a little bit quicker and then finally it's gonna be snapmaker and snapmaker 2 which is like a modular system so they'll give you like an x y and z gantry but then you can add a laser module or a spindle module or a 3d printer module and you can do a bunch of different things with that unit but what do i actually recommend so for the diode lasers i really like the auteur laser master engraver 2 and potentially the pro if you want to spend a little bit more money and get more features and then for the desktop units it still is really a toss-up between glowforge and full spectrum i've done full reviews on both of those and i break them down but if you really were going to press me i would probably lean a little bit towards glowforge the wi-fi lock-in isn't an issue for me but i definitely know that that software piece could be a big piece for you and then for the budget units i would get the 50 watt from ohm tech and that's the one that i have bought versus upgrading a k40 unless you just really like tinkering and you want to do that as a project and then for the mid-range i mean it really depends on your specific situation probably something like a 90 to 100 watt unit from ohmtech and then for the high-end co2s the aeon mira 5 for about 6000 really seems like a super nice machine in a pretty small package but has lots of capabilities and i've seen lots of people enjoy using that machine specifically and then finally on the top top end i would probably say epilogue just because i've seen their stuff more than the other companies really any company at that point is gonna be great for you so i've actually gotten hands-on with a lot of these machines and i put together a full playlist of all those different reviews right up there that you can dig into more details right now and let me know what i missed and what machine you have or would get right down in the comments below until next time go make or break something in your shop see you guys [Music]

Channel: Make or Break Shop

Views: 79,154

Rating: 4.9108219 out of 5

Keywords: best laser cutter projects, diy laser cutter machine kit, fiber laser, fiber laser engraver, co 2, glowforge, glowforge review, laser cutter, laser engraver, chinese laser cutter, laser engraving, laser cutting, full spectrum laser, k40, k40 laser cutter, laser engraving tumblers, omtech laser, ortur laser master 2, ortur laser master 2 pro, ortur laser, laser cut projects, laser engraving machine, diy 40w laser cutter, glowforge tutorials, laser cut wood, co2 laser cutter

Id: d8NuMq7nH7s

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021