A CO2 laser will not cut stainless - it won't even mark steel unless you coat it... | Hacker News

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theatrus2 on Sept 24, 2015 | parent | context | favorite | on: Glowforge launches consumer-grade laser cutter

A CO2 laser will not cut stainless - it won't even mark steel unless you coat it with a special ceramic.

You're looking at a very very large fiber / YAG laser to cut it. A low power YAG laser can engrave steel - commercially these start at about $30k

krasin on Sept 25, 2015 [–]

Technically, the statement "CO2 laser will not cut stainless steel" is not accurate. Stainless steel is commonly cut by 500W-5kW CO2 lasers, see:

https://www.coherent.com/Applications/index.cfm?fuseaction=f...

https://vimeo.com/106264555

But it's true that sub-100W CO2 lasers are not even remotely capable of cutting steel.

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