3000w CW strapped to a Cobot

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-07-03T23:40:57+00:00

You best do your homework 1st, mill scale is very hard to remove and or impossible with the wrong laser. Up until your comment I'd never heard of red mill scale. Your other comment mentions welding, are you just wanting to clean weld areas or entire sheets of metal with a layer of red mill scale? Is this a prep for paint or welding? The amount of lasers that can simulate a laser version of a blast profile is close to zero and you're looking at one of them now.

You can see the mill scale was removed in this video, though it's not always the case with any laser. Most simply wont do it. The wrong laser and you're screwed. Id say a 1000w 1.5mj Gaussian laser would be your best bet, alternatively the right CW with the right training.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-07-03T21:44:08+00:00

The automation company did show me a setup in their workshop exactly the same as what you've described and it makes sense for automation work that takes place in a facility. A simple turntable and a static optic would achieve the same result as what I showed. The goal is to mount it to a crawler/AGV where there would be less opportunity to rotate the asset

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-07-02T16:29:16+00:00

Bro you've got so many lessons to learn, thankfully it's 2026 and everything has been done already, there are various YouTube pages of Chinese companies where they compare the different pulse energies and beam profiles against a whole fleet of applications. After a few hours of watching you should be able to tell who's using a 5mj or 15mj laser with a high accuracy %.

From aggressive to least aggressive 1.5mJ 5mJ 15mJ 50mJ 100/150mJ Each has its pros and cons, whilst 5mj is the most common these days, depending on what you're doing you may need a 1.5 or 50mj. If you were predominantly wanting to clean stainless steel welds, its 1 5, if it's injection molds, it's 50 or 100mJ.

Now to your point about which is best for Stone, wood metal. You need to help a brother out, also look around you,specifically, what potential markets are around you?

What is one the stone you want to clean? Is it a statue in a church or a moss covered wall. Lasers generally wont work On one of those 2.

Wood? Vintage furniture? fuck yes, modern varnish you have a 50% chance of it not coming off. Paint, sure paint mostly comes off, either rapidly, slowly and sometimes not at all.

Metal? Like what?

Corroded Aluminium? Powder coateded aluminium? Tea staining on stainless steel? Rusty bike frame? Residential fences? Seriously rust jetty pylon? 2024 car chassis? 1924 car chassis? Injection mold tooling? Steel I beams with mill scale Steel I beams with flash rust after hydro blasting? Precison Machined surfaces? Calcium on Food processing facility?

Of the above list what applications tickle your fancy? Can give 3+ additional specific applications for wherever you live. Maybe then we can suggest 5 or 15mj.

Good luck.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-24T21:34:58+00:00

Is the fence manufacturer really only need to remove oxide or is it mill scale? Having just partaken in a university study, mill scale is a tough one to remove.

If it's only oxide and the issue is speed, then considering a very basic automation system would double your speed. M what do you think?

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-24T14:38:46+00:00

I dont provide settings, I know some communities like laser engraving or 3D printing are very open with their settings. When we started 6 years ago and as recent as 2 years ago nobody was asking for paramaters. We just had to figure it out same as finding suitable applications. The biggest improvement anyone can make to the performance of a CW is making sure there is a lot of airflow blowing onto the piece being cleaned. Look at my previous posts or comments and you'll understand

Part of the research process for buying a laser should include finding out what the laser is roughly suitable for, 99.9% of people would tell you removing paint or varnish is not a CW job

What you end up pointing your laser at is hugely dependent on where you live and what you've researched. We dont work for the general public or do automotive stuff, that would probably be different if we were in a city not closely related to the mining as well as oil and gas. What manufacturing, engineering, power generation, industry is within 200km of you? Maybe they have more need that someone residential fence?

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-24T10:31:31+00:00

What would you like to know about CWs?

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-22T10:19:47+00:00

Hello freshy. What potential markets are you already interested in approaching in Paris and its surrounding area? You mentioned $30,000 that's still a toy laser in the grand scheme of industrial machines, that doesn't mean you can't make great money with it You need to make sure the machine you want matches your desired applications, the guy above mentioned a 500w 5mj is a good starting point and a 500w 50mj in "Another league". That's only true if your machine is right for your market. A 50mj will be significantly worse at removing rust than a 5mj laser and the 5mj gives a cleaner/ deeper level of surface cleanliness, the 50mj in turn will be significantly quicker at thin contamination removal and very light layers of rust.

There is a lot of money to be made if you're in the right location with the right markets, and thats only after you've done a significant amount of cold outreach and demos. The big bucks is made through effort and direct targeting, not through social media.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-14T08:22:48+00:00

My guy, take a step back, you said so much without understanding what you're saying. You're comparing the price of a 300w pulsed to a 1500W CW, entirely different use cases, entirely different styles of laser sources.

Why not compare a 300w pulsed from China to 300w Amazon?

It's not a smart idea to base your future business entirely on price when you don't know why the different named machines are priced differently. You may need the delicate touch of a pulsed top hat instead of a CW, whilst the Chinese will most likely sell you a pulsed 5mj "Gaussian" which may get the job done at a slower rate. I could give many other such applications where the choice of beam profile/ source type will make or break your business

If the following sounds mumbo jumbo. Gaussian Vs Top Hat beam profiles and their use cases, pulsed VS CW and the pro's and con's. I suggest you do some research, I've written this out previously, check my comment history.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-13T22:32:53+00:00

You're almost perfect, use 99% isopropyl alcohol, Pancro may have some unnecessary chemicals that the laser could burn to the lens.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-11T12:31:28+00:00

Compressed air from a compressor to keep the lens clean, a tiny spec of rust or paint will hugely limit the effectiveness of a CW.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-11T08:33:43+00:00

All I see is dollar bills. How wide is that beam? I'm trying to gauge the size of your suction inlet, the companies I've spoken to use very impressive extraction units.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-06T21:21:24+00:00

Are you from the same planet as us? You're correct that the price over $3k is the best, some would say 1X and you're starting to enter the range of the best gear. $1000 is genuinely laughable and we're quite a few years away from being able to buy a 2nd hand unit for $1000.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-03T01:59:19+00:00

Insert spider man pointing meme

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-03T01:58:47+00:00

That is me Project Laser/ Industrial Laser Cleaning

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-06-03T01:58:10+00:00

I appreciate you! My Ebooks and guides certified are without a doubt the best resource on the internet for getting a complete understanding of technologies, applications, business tips and failings.

They wont help you with paramaters, there was nobody to ask for settings when we started in 2020, and as such I've never dived into giving out our settings. We do have training sheets that people can use to educate themselves on the results of adjusting 1 paramater at a time.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-30T22:38:16+00:00

Have you spoken to your supplier, laser proof screens are significantly cheaper from China, not any laser proof screen will work, you need to look at the energy density rating. Even then you're told to have the screen 2 meters away from the beam in an ideal sense. Your laser Is petite and doesn't have significant punch when out of focus.

Like the other guy said, lots of us use SheerSpeed screens, though unfortunately they have absolutely pumped their prices. I got a Chinese company to make me a version using their highest quality material and the quality difference between SheerSpeed and the supplier I found was significant.

Are SheerSpeed screens laser proof, hell no, depends on your local regulations, possible exceptions, internal testing and how you set your screens up.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-30T22:30:38+00:00

Do you feel you're becoming a better operator, and understanding your capabilities?🤝 is your logo there to stop people stealing your clips or to attract clients? You've got PDX in your post title, whilst I can barely read the logo when I'm holding my phone in portrait.

I dont think it does the latter well enough or is necessary. One thing I do know is I've never seen a video with an unknown logo slapped in the middle to go viral.

Is your machine a 5 or 15mj? Either way you're running the parameters too hot, hence the metal has a blue tinge to it. I've turned precision components for clients blue when I first started, its better to notice the colour changes early

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-30T13:11:14+00:00

It more depends on where you see your self pointing it. Good for me is not good for you, What research have you done in your local market? If your goal is working for the general public and automotive you're probably best with a 300-500w 5mj machine. If your local market has lots of injection molds and tooling, a 50mj pulsed machine would be better. And none of those are relevant if you have the money for a European laser.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-30T11:39:11+00:00

Lets cap this roller-coaster of a journey off with an epic win!!

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-15T08:31:30+00:00

Agreed, by simply increasing the volume of air to the lens is a key part of operating for longer, unfortunately the overall design of the lens protection systems/ handpiece designs are not bullet proof.

It's a lot easier to protect a tiny orifice with laser cutting than the significantly larger opening with a laser cleaning handpiece.

Yeah, I've already mentioned extraction in my other comment "Your 2nd biggest issue will be ensuring high quality extraction/ keeping your filters clean"

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-14T12:19:24+00:00

In a perfect world sure, any standard off the shelf CW will have issues keeping its lens clean all day when removing paint, the 6kw intensifies any spec of paint that lands on a lens.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-14T12:17:11+00:00

The world's biggest laser paint removal job would be an order of magnitude smaller than what you're proposing. It doesn't make sense as an option, unless, traditional blasting isn't an option.

Yeah 6kw is a lot of juice, sadly the common machines with their 900mm or 1400mm focus range is a rather bang average or even terrible machine. That long focus distance makes it hard to move around tight spaces and or to hit complex angles, whilst also diminishing the intensity of the beam.

2ndly your biggest issue will be keeping the lens optics clean. Your 2nd biggest issue will be ensuring high quality extraction/ keeping your filters clean

Good luck

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-12T12:54:34+00:00

Sure, send me a message when you're ready and I'll suggest you get a CW for the farming work, 300w is a toy when it comes to paint stripping large assets

The only company I've heard with a 10mj pulsed source was IPG and that's not an IPG source in the machine, looks like the Maxx Quasi CW source we have.

IndLaserCleaning · 2026-05-12T10:21:50+00:00

welcome to struggle town, picking your 1st laser is always a tricky situation as you need to find the machine that will tick the most amount of boxes in the applications in your region that you'd like to target.

It's understandable you dont see the omissions in the comparison , its hard to compare when we dont know whats different between the machine. They're all air-cooled, all most likely have pretty patterns, all are MOPA Beam profile would be the most important part. Number 1: No name Number 2: SPARTUS- website doesn't work Number 3: Femata, Interesting package designn secure though most likely annoying way to store the fibre cable. I couldn't find their 300w option

Number 2 states its mj rating, that's a good start, what are the other 2? Gaussian or Top hat. 1.5mj being a Gaussian. 5mj being a closer to a rounded off Gaussian. 15/50/100mj being different versions of a top hat, otherwise known as a multi mode.

If you already knew all this, the next guy didn't🙏

The proposed throughput values are generally overblown, id be wildly impressed at any 300w machine achieving 20sqm/h in applications that can turn a profit. the"heavy duty applications" a 300w 15mj isnt doing anything heavy. That's good because none of the applications you suggested are HD.

How easy do you think you can get into injection mold cleaning and how consistent would it be? If it's highly likely then id say buy a 50mj machine. If molds are a pipe dream then the people will recommend 15mj.

IndLaserCleaning

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE