Fiber Laser vs MOPA Fiber Laser: Which One Do You Need?

Frequency Range: MOPA can fire more pulses

Controlling your laser frequency means controlling how many pulses the laser fires per second. If you set your laser to 50kHz, it will fire 50,000 pulses every second.

Most Q-Switch fiber lasers restrict the frequency range between ~20kHz and ~60kHz. Lotus MOPA goes from 1kHz to 3,000kHz.

This massive expansion of frequencies available means you can laser mark more metals & more plastics with more variations and finishes. It also, despite what you might ready on Google, makes the laser faster. If you can fire more pulses, you can move the laser across your material faster and still get a clean, even, consistent engraving result.

Pulse Width: The ultimate laser control that standard fiber doesn’t have.

It’s not just the number of pulses fired, it’s the length of the pulses that matters. If your laser is holding the energy against the material for a longer time, more heat will go into the material. If the pulse is short, there’ll be very little heat going into the material.

So, the shorter you can make your pulses, the more you can mark plastics like ABS and polypropylene without worrying about burning or melting. Or, make your pulses longer to put in as much energy as possible and engrave depth into stainless steel. Lotus MOPA lets you do both of these with one machine.

In fact, not all MOPA lasers are created equal. The industry standard is to offer 2 or 3 waveforms (the setting where you decide your pulse width). Lotus MOPA offers 17 different waveforms, and so you’ve got far more options of how much energy you laser mark with and so how many products you can mark.

MOPA lasers leave a much higher quality finish on your product

This level of control means the quality of finish you can achieve is greatly improved by using a MOPA laser over a Q-Switch. Optimising your laser mark means getting the finish you’re looking for in the fastest possible time. Having your frequency range restricted and your pulse width completely locked to one setting makes that optimisation much more difficult.

The quality of the engraving that can be produced on a Lotus MOPA is a result of the level of control it offers. It’s why you can get a pristine finish on so many materials, everything from brass to plastic, aluminum to copper, and much more.

Let’s debunk some myths about fiber vs MOPA!

“Standard Fiber Lasers are faster than MOPA”  False.
There is no part of a Q-Switch that makes it faster. In fact, being able to do more laser pulses per second means you’re able to engrave across the material more quickly. MOPA is faster than Q-Switch.

“Q-Switch lasers have lower failure rates”: False.
The deciding factor in the failure rate of a laser is the quality of the components. In fact, with MOPA being the newer technology, it’s likely to fail less than Q-Switch. But this is not automatic: a laser with bad components will fail faster.
This is why Lotus MOPA lasers are OEM: built to an exact specification that guarantees quality components and an incredible longevity of marks.

“Q-Switch Lasers are better for deep engraving”: False.
For deep engraving, you need to put as much laser energy as possible into your material, to remove the surface layer by layer. So a Q-Switch fiber laser, with restricted frequency and no control over pulse width, cannot put more energy in than a MOPA. 

Most Q-Switch lasers are locked to a ~150ns pulse. A Lotus MOPA can hold a pulse for ~500ns. More than three times as much energy means deep engraving will be much quicker.