Fiber vs. CO2 Lasers: Which One Should You Buy and Why?

Maintenance

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Fiber lasers have significantly lower maintenance requirements than their CO2 counterparts.  The main difference comes from the laser beam delivery system.

Fiber lasers have a monolithic configuration whereby the laser beam is delivered to the cutting head via a fiber optic cable.

This means that the optics path is completely protected from contaminants. The two main consumables of a fiber laser are the nozzle (the same applies for CO2 lasers) and the protective window.

CO2 lasers use bend mirrors contained within bellows (sometimes filled with nitrogen) to deliver the beam to the cutting head.

The mirrors and bellows will get dirty over time and will need cleaning/replacing regularly to prevent a decrease in the cutting performance. The repetitive movement of the machine produces holes in the bellows over time. 

Given the beam delivery system is more exposed to the environment (temperature, moisture etc.) than fiber lasers, CO2 lasers experience higher levels of variation in the quality and output of the laser.

The heat of the laser often causes the mirrors to distort, reducing the power supplied to the cutting head leading to the misalignment of the laser beam. This may require changes to the cutting parameters to counter this variation which can be a timely process.

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The main and most costly issue with CO2 lasers occurs when the laser beam is reflected back down the beam delivery system causing damage to the expensive oscillator.

Maintenance of a CO2 laser cutting head can take between 4-5 hours a week compared to less than half an hour a week for a fiber laser. 

The alignment of a laser beam is important to ensure an even cut finish on all sides of a profile (Image below demonstrates the effect of a misaligned beam).

The most common cause of misalignment is a collision between the cutting head and a tipped part and can happen for both CO2 and fiber laser systems.

Misalignment is both more complicated and time consuming to correct on CO2 lasers due to the nature of the beam delivery system which normally contains at least three mirrors.

For fiber lasers, only a single lens needs adjusting.

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