What is the difference between a CO2 laser cutter and a fiber laser cutter?

Have you ever learn some theory or knowledge of laser cutting machine?

This text may need 10 minutes to read, and you will know the basic difference between a CO2 laser cutter and a fiber laser cutter.

CO2 laser cutter relies on the air generator to stimulate the laser, and its wavelength is 10.6μm, while the fiber laser cutter is stimulated by the solid laser generator, its wavelength is 1.08μm. Thanks to the wavelength of 1.08μm, fiber laser cutter could spread from the long distance, and the laser generator could serve longer than CO2 laser tube.

In addition, the propagation of these two machines are totally different. On the one hand, CO2 laser generator relies on the reflector to transmit the laser from the oscillator to the processing point. It is necessary to keep cleaning of the reflector and regularly change this kind of wearing parts. While an optical fiber is the factor that the fiber laser cutter play the role of light resource. In this way, there’s only a bit of loss produced by a fiber laser cutter.

On the other hand, if we take the running cost into consideration, a fiber laser cutter is higher than a CO2 laser cutter in the first stage since the complex components and basic design. However, it will bring an adverse result in the long term, cause the maintenance cost of a CO2 laser cutter is higher than a fiber laser cutter.

The running cost could be divided into two parts, the first one is the photoelectric conversion rate, the second one is the maintenance cost.

Normally speaking, the photoelectric conversion rate of a CO2 laser cutter is about 10% to 15%, while a fiber laser cutter is about 35% to 40%. If we try to understand this rate from the literal meaning, you can see that a fiber laser cutter could at least faster 2 times than a CO2 laser cutter given that they cut the same material. It also means that if someone want to pierce that material, a CO2 laser cutter need more electric fee apparently.

Should we consider the maintenance cost and cycle to compare those two machines. According to the experience of our factory’s technical staff, they told me that a CO2 laser generator need to be maintained each 4000 hours, and about 20000 hours later, you need to maintain the fiber laser cutter.

If you know the application of these two machines, you will find that CO2 laser cutter is widely applied in the non-metal processing, while a fiber laser cutter is normally regarded as a great assistant in the metal related industry. Of course, a CO2 laser cutter could also cut the metal material, but it is gradually replaced by the fiber laser cutter in the recent years.

When it comes to CO2 laser cutter, most people would link it with non-metal materials, like plastic, wood, glass, MDF sheet, ABS sheet, cloth, rubber, leather and so on. It could engrave those materials with precise graphic and complex texture. The majority of businessmen who work at the manufacture industry are familiar with fiber laser cutter, cause this machine is very common in different industries, like hardware industry, medical equipment, environmental industry, communication and transportation industry etc.

Given the grade of risk, CO3 laser cutter could bring lower damage to workers than fiber laser cutter. Such as the dust and smoke produced during the daily working, thus that’s the reason why most fiber laser cutter equipped with protection box and exhaust vent.