WeCreat's Lumos Ultra Delivers Multi-Material High-Speed Etching with Dual UV and MOPA Lasers
Currently crowdfunding, the company's latest laser etcher has a 6W UV laser built-in and the choice of 60W and 100W MOPA lasers as add-ons.
Laser etching and cutting specialist WeCreat has launched a crowdfunding campaign for what it claims is the world's first dual-laser system to feature one-click switching between lower-power ultraviolet (UV) and up-to-100W master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) lasers — delivering broad support for a range of materials, including inner engraving within glass objects.
"Lumos Ultra [is the] world's first UV & MOPA one-stop laser system," claims WeCreat's Yong Tang of the company's latest design. "UV handles almost anything; MOPA dominates every metal. UV [can] mark anything. Clean, quick precise. Five glass engraving modes, from surface to true 3D inside. MOPA [offers] metal mastery. Color, depth, control.
The top-end variant of the Lumos Ultra is built around a 6W UV laser delivering a claimed focus point down to just 0.0019mm (around 0.00007") and a 100W MOPA laser that can engrave metal at depth of up to 5mm in two hours — compared to a 50W fiber laser, which reaches 2mm over the same time. The higher-powered laser module is claimed to offer an "up-to" 100,000 hours service lifetime and is rated for 24-hour operation, with both lasers claimed to deliver engraving rates of up to 16,000mm/s (around 630 inches per second).
The key selling point of the engraver, though, is the promise of how easy it is to move between the MOPA and UV lasers. "Switch seamlessly between UV and MOPA with a single click," Tang promises, "and no complex setup. From brilliant metal engraving and cutting to beautiful crystal and glass detailing, Lumos Ultra fits snugly into your workflow — one device, one software, one smooth process."
The Lumos Ultra is now funding on Kickstarter, with "early bird" pricing starting at $3,699 for the "basic" variant with only the 6W UV laser and rising to $5,790 for a model with 60W MOPA laser add-on or $6,990 with the top-end 100W MOPA laser; the company is also offering a rotary add-on for automatic engraving of cylindrical objects, a slide extension for a larger working area, and a conveyor belt for automatic batch processing, plus an air purification system for fume extraction. All hardware is expected to ship in July this year, though as with all crowdfunding campaigns — even ones from established companies — fulfillment is not guaranteed.