Hello all.
I projecting a laser cnc project and I would like to understand the basics about the subject.
Most of this forum is about about ready to use laser cutter/engraver.

First thing I need to get is what wattage should I use.
My general idea is that I can use a laser to do cutting of some materials, but I dont know how many watts do I need to cut what type of material.

Can I use a 100Watt CO2 sealed tube laser at 30Watts to engrave?
The engraving process must take in consideration what type of material I want to engrave? What would be a bad engrave job a hole burned in the piece?

Are there solid state lasers 25-50Watts range that could be used to cut or engrave?

My intended projects involve cutting wood veneer maybe up to 3mm in thickness. Can I use the same laser to cut and to engrave?

The project in my mind looks like a couple of servos, gecko powered to move an XY table, maybe 1m x 1.5m, with a laser tube on the side of the table and mirrors to direct the beam to the work piece.
This makes me wonder about what software should I take in consideration. Mach3 will aid me in that?
What does that mean, does it mean that I will have to make my own Gcode I wish to cut/engrave?
Would I need more software for photo engraving?

Many of the ready to use laser cutter/engraver in the market (chinesse and others) use some sort of controller MPC03 for example. What does it mean? Is it a PCI card of sort? What kind of software does it uses?

Should I buy something other than gecko´s to drive my servos, some other type of controller more suited for laser applications?


Feel free to answer what ever part of this post you want, I apritiate any input.
Thank you.
Konstantin.