Presentation of a 445 nm 20 watt Endurance laser attachment!

One laser is good but two are better!

Today (3-rd of September 2018), we have created a 2 x 10 watt laser = a 20 watt (20000 mW) laser attachment for any 3D printer / CNC machine.

For a long time we have been thinking about how to make a more powerful unit.

Due to the limitations of laser diodes on the market we decided to choose another way.
A few weeks ago we carried on a test with 2 laser beams combined together to focus at one spot and it did work great!

Laser beam combination

That is why we decided to build a platform and combine 2 x 10 watt lasers to focus both at one spot.
For this technological invention we needed to make a special holder to keep two lasers.

The most important thing was to make that holder movable so that you could be able to rotate the lasers to focus their beams at one spot.

There are 2 degrees of freedom: X & Z.

With the X axis you rotate both lasers in a horizontal plane.
We use the M6 screw for this.

To change the Z axis you need to coordinate the second laser and we use the M4 screw to move the laser up or down. That works perfectly, and you may focus both laser beams at one spot.

The only disadvantage is a bit complicated way of changing the focal range. To change the focal range you need first to move the lasers closer to each other or farther apart.

That is why a 2 x 10 = 20 watt laser will more likely have a fixed focal range.
As for the laser power, the combined beam engraves and cuts much faster plywood / wood with a much higher speed.
Plus some ultra abilities appear, such as: fast engraving on anodized aluminum, brass and stainless steel.

The Endurance 10 watt laser can engrave stainless aluminum only with a pretty low speed and can engrave only on some sorts of steel. With a 20 watt laser you get more abilities to engrave on a variety of materials.