Lotus MOPA Fiber Laser Engravers

What exactly do you mean by ‘waveform’?

When a laser is engraving, it fires hundreds of thousands of pulses every second. During each of these pulses, the laser energy builds to a ‘peak power’, and then the energy dissipates away.

This forms a wave of energy, with a peak power in the middle. These waves are what we call ‘Waveforms’.

How long you want the laser to fire for per pulse is controlled by changing the pulse width: quite literally the width of the wave. A short wave means a short pulse that only fires very briefly, and so doesn’t put much energy or heat into the material. This is good for certain plastics which might be prone to melting or burning.

A longer wave means a longer pulse, with more energy going into the material. This is ideal for engraving metals like stainless steel and titanium, where more heat is needed.

Lotus MOPA Fiber lasers offer this level of incredible control to mean you can engrave anything from plastics to metals all on one machine – even all as one job – by simply changing the settings.

This is why Lotus MOPA lasers can offer the incredible results they do on anything from ABS to anodised aluminium: you need only change one settings to achieve a completely different result.

What’s the best way to mark metals on a Lotus MOPA Fiber?

Marking metals with a Lotus MOPA fiber laser engraver is easy: increase the pulse width, going for a higher level waveform, to put more heat into the material.

Applying this level of heat allows you to even remove parts of the surface of the metal and engrave depth into something like stainless steel or aluminium, and because you can increase the power, a Lotus MOPA fiber laser engraves depth into metals quickly and precisely.

What’s the best way to mark plastics on a Lotus MOPA Fiber?

Marking plastics with a fiber laser can be tough, since they’re much more prone to burning or melting than metals are.

In the case of marking ABS, without proper power control it can actually be dangerous, since burning the material releases very harmful by-products.

This is where a Lotus MOPA fiber comes in: by reducing the pulse width, and going for a lower waveform, the amount of heat going into the plastic is massively reduced.

A Lotus MOPA fiber can mark plastics without causing issues from overheating because the power can be easily controlled to reduce heat damage and leave a clear, high-contrast mark.

Do all Lotus Fiber systems come with 17 waveforms?

Yes. All Lotus MOPA fiber laser engraving machines come with the same extremely powerful, OEM laser source with 17 waveforms of power flexibility. We don’t cut those kinds of corners.

Our machines will differ on things like work area, automation, and upgradeability, but the quality of our laser sources never varies.

In fact, you can get Lotus MOPA fiber lasers in 30w, 60w, 80w, 200w, and 300w variations for different applications, whether you’re more focused on marking and annealing or deep engraving.

In any case, this level of industrial-grade lasers comes on all Lotus Fiber engraving machines.