What is laser engraving and how does it work

Posted by John Smith on December 22nd, 2018

With the invention of laser machines, high precision cuts and engravings can now be made in a wide variety of materials. Thanks to our equipment, what until a few decades ago could be a time-consuming and risky task.

Nowadays it is very fast, safe and highly effective to improve the times and production quality of pieces of almost any type of material. This time we will talk about what laser engraving is and how it works, mentioning the main benefits of this technique over the traditional methods used to engrave wood and metal.

To begin, it is necessary to define what a Machine engraving is and how this device works on a machine. In short, a laser is responsible for amplifying light through the emission of radiation and for this requires mirrors that reflect a beam of light and an active medium that amplifies it.

The active media used by a laser are different and can be found in the gaseous, liquid or solid state, but in a laser cutting and engraving machine, carbon dioxide aluminum garnet lens doped neodymium is mainly used.

How does it work?

A laser cutting and Acrylic engraving equipment are composed of a laser unit, which can be CO2, fiber optic or diode pumps. The CO2 laser works to engrave and cut wood, acrylic, agglomerate, plastic, cork, fabric and other non-metallic surfaces.

The fiber optic laser is used to cut and engrave metals and plastics, especially for industrial applications, to record logos, serial numbers, bar codes, engravings in the third dimension, among others.

Finally, the diode pump laser is mainly used for metals, although it also works for plastic. In addition to the laser unit, the equipment has motors, an air compressor, moving parts and bearings to move the arm of the machine; a filtering system to eliminate waste after work.

Then lenses and mirrors that direct the beam of light to the head of the team, and a unit of process to control by means of an operating system the functions of the machine and store different working patterns.

The laser equipment works by automated systems that allow sending commands to the machine to control the design of the cut or Control panel engraved and factors such as the frequency of the beam of light that is to say, the speed as well as the speed of depth of cut.

Thanks to this feature it is not necessary to worry about controlling the position of the mirrors or to adjust it manually for each user, as the equipment focuses automatically to determine the distance between the lens and the work surface.