Laser machine selector, CO2 or fibre by material, power and payback
A CO2 laser and a fibre laser see the same sheet of material completely differently, because their wavelengths are nearly ten times apart. List the materials and thicknesses you actually cut, and the tool returns a verdict built from your worst case, not your average job, plus the power class and a rough payback time.
Open the machine selector A free account opens this tool. The interface is in English and nothing you enter leaves your browser.How it works
Three steps. The verdict is built from the hardest material and thickness in your list, not the average of it.
List every material and its thickest real job
Enter every material you actually cut and the largest thickness you realistically expect for each one, not an occasional extreme you might never see again and not a comfortable average either. The tool is deliberately built to size against the hardest case in the list, because a client who brings a thick part once a month will not accept being told the shop only calculates for the typical day.
Read the verdict for your material list
The tool compares CO2 and fibre against every material you entered. If the answer comes back as neither type alone, the list contains one material that effectively demands CO2 and another that effectively demands fibre, and the honest answer is two machines, or outsourcing one half of the work, rather than a single compromise machine that cuts both groups poorly.
Check the power class, site power and payback
For the metal side of the list, the tool recommends a power class based on your thickest real job, then checks whether your site's electrical supply, single phase or three phase, can actually deliver what that class of machine draws once wall-plug losses and auxiliary systems are included. A simple payback calculation compares the machine's monthly running cost against what the same volume of work would cost outsourced, using your own numbers.
Wall-plug efficiency is not a footnote
A sealed CO2 tube and a fibre diode source turn electricity into cutting light at very different rates.
Built to price the worst case, not the average day
A client who brings in a thick part once a month does not accept an answer built around your typical job, and a machine bought only for that rare thick part overpays every ordinary day in between.
Wavelength decides what each laser can even see
A CO2 laser runs at 10.6 micrometres, a fibre laser at around 1064 nanometres, close to a tenfold difference. Organic materials, wood, acrylic, paper, absorb the CO2 wavelength well because their molecular bonds resonate close to it. Metals do the opposite, their free surface electrons reflecting the long CO2 wavelength while absorbing the short fibre wavelength readily. Clear acrylic is the extreme case: it does not absorb the fibre wavelength at all, so the beam passes straight through rather than cutting slowly, which is a physical limit, not a setting to adjust.
More power buys progressively less extra thickness
Doubling laser power does not double the thickness a machine can cut. Published fibre tables show a 1 to 2 kilowatt class reaching about 10 millimetres of carbon steel, a 3 to 4 kilowatt class reaching about 20 millimetres, and a 6 kilowatt class only reaching about 25 millimetres, with each higher class buying a shrinking increment of extra thickness because more of the energy dissipates as heat before it reaches the bottom of a thick cut.
The assist gas cost difference is a real, calculable ratio
Cutting carbon steel with oxygen needs only 0.5 to 2 bar of pressure, because the gas participates chemically in an exothermic reaction that adds its own energy to the cut. Cutting stainless steel with nitrogen needs at least 10 bar, commonly 10 to 20 bar or more, because nitrogen is inert and does the job purely by mechanically ejecting molten metal at speed. From those two published figures the tool derives a real pressure ratio of roughly 5 to 20 times, rather than inventing a cost in currency the underlying data does not support.
Site power is checked before the machine is ordered, not after
A domestic single phase 230V supply at 16A carries a maximum of 3.68 kilowatts, enough for a modest desktop machine but nowhere near enough for an industrial fibre source. A 4 kilowatt fibre source, once wall-plug efficiency of around 30% and the auxiliary load of chiller and extraction are included, can draw close to 15 kilowatts from the wall, roughly four times that domestic limit. Three phase 400V at 32A carries about 22.2 kilowatts, comfortably covering that same 4 kilowatt source, but higher power classes need correspondingly heavier supply. The tool flags this before the order goes in, because upgrading a supply is a building project with its own timeline and cost.
Frequently asked questions
Why can a single material list rule out both machine types at once?
Because CO2 and fibre lasers are not two strengths of the same tool, they respond to materials through opposite physics. If your list includes a material that only a CO2 laser can cut safely, alongside a material that only a fibre laser can cut safely, no single machine covers both. The honest options at that point are two machines, or sending one group of materials to a subcontractor, rather than a compromise machine that handles both poorly. The tool is built to surface that conflict explicitly rather than quietly average it away.
Why does the calculator ask for my worst case rather than my typical job?
Because a machine specification built around an average job breaks the first time a client brings in the thickest part you actually handle. A metal shop that mostly cuts 4 millimetre carbon steel but occasionally receives a 15 millimetre job needs a power class that covers the 15 millimetre case, not the everyday one, or it simply cannot take that work when it arrives. The tool is deliberately pessimistic on purpose, because underspecifying a machine is a far more expensive mistake to discover later than overspecifying it slightly.
Is a fibre laser always cheaper to run than a CO2 laser?
On electrical efficiency alone, generally yes. A sealed CO2 tube converts roughly 8 to 10 percent of the electricity it draws into laser light, with most of the rest lost as heat inside the tube itself. A fibre source, pumping diodes directly into doped fibre with no gas discharge stage, runs at roughly 30 percent efficiency, about three times higher. That advantage is specific to the light source itself; total running cost still depends on assist gas choice, consumables and maintenance, which the tool treats separately rather than folding into one blended number.
How is the payback time actually calculated?
The tool takes your expected monthly cutting hours, the hourly rate you currently pay to outsource that work, and your own estimate of the machine's monthly running cost, electricity, maintenance and consumables together. Monthly saving is the outsourced cost minus the running cost, and payback time is the machine price divided by that monthly saving. It is a simple, honest calculation, not one that accounts for financing interest or the risk of downtime, and at low monthly volume the outsourced cost can end up cheaper than the machine's own running cost, in which case the machine never pays for itself from that work alone.
Does the tool tell me the exact wattage for a desktop CO2 machine and acrylic?
No, and this is stated as a deliberate limit rather than filled with a guess. The underlying laser rules data carries a single reference point for CO2 on steel at industrial power, not a thickness table for organic materials such as acrylic, wood or MDF. Desktop CO2 machines are usually specified in tube wattage rather than steel cutting thickness in any case, so the honest next step is checking the specification of the specific model you are considering.
Does this replace getting a quote from a machine manufacturer?
No. The verdict, power class and payback figures are a starting point built from your own numbers and published industry data, not a substitute for a manufacturer's formal quote, which will reflect the exact machine configuration, warranty terms and installation cost. Once you know which type of machine you are looking for, the natural next step is the cutting parameters tool for the exact power, speed, gas and focus settings by material and thickness.
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