Beginner Picks

A small diode is the usual first machine for wood, leather, and dark sheet. An enclosed machine keeps the beam in the box. You still need glasses matched to that beam, often near 445 nm. This is not a brand test.

Good for

• Wood
• Leather
• First machine

An enclosure is a lid or box around an open diode. It blocks a stray beam and helps hold smoke. It does not replace wavelength-matched glasses, and a window in the lid only counts if it is rated for your laser.

Good for

• Open diodes
• Beam cover
• Shop desk

Air assist is a small pump that blows across the cut. It keeps flame and char down so a wood edge stays cleaner. It does not put the smoke outside. You still need extraction.

Good for

• Cleaner cuts
• Less char
• Wood

A honeycomb bed is a metal grid that holds a sheet up and lets smoke and debris fall through. It reduces scorch marks on the back of a through-cut. It is not the thing that stops a fire.

Good for

• Flat sheets
• Through-cuts
• Less scorch

A fan, a filter, or a duct should take laser smoke outside or through a filter meant for it. Wood and acrylic both make smoke you do not want to breathe. A room air freshener is not extraction.

Good for

• Wood smoke
• Acrylic
• Enclosed diode

Diode glasses are often rated near 445 nm. CO2 and fiber glasses are a different pair and do not swap. Read the wavelength printed on the glasses and on the machine. An enclosure does not retire the pair if you open the lid.

Good for

• 445 nm
• Open beam
• Match the laser

An ABC extinguisher belongs where you can grab it without turning your back on a burning sheet. Lasers start small fires in wood and paper. Stay with the job, and know how to stop the beam.

Good for

• Shop fire
• Within reach
• ABC

Pale basswood shows a dark mark without the sticky soot pines often leave. Plywood sold for lasers is the better sheet when you need to cut a shape. Do not laser pressure-treated wood, and do not laser a board you cannot name.

Good for

• Coasters
• Ornaments
• Signs

Cast acrylic frosts when a CO2 engraves it. A diode wants a dark, opaque sheet, usually black, because a blue beam goes through clear acrylic. Buy sheet labeled acrylic, and peel unknown plastic film before the job.

Good for

• Signs
• Earrings
• Dark sheet

Vegetable-tanned leather darkens under a diode or a CO2. Buy blanks whose listing prints the words vegetable-tanned. Chrome-tanned hide, PU, vinyl, and faux leather do not belong in the machine. Exhaust the smoke.

Good for

• Patches
• Key fobs
• Tags