Laser Marking Metal: Steel, Aluminum, Diode and Fiber

Start from the rows the documents name

Metal marking questions reach this site as "will my laser mark metal". The captured records answer a narrower question: which machine, on which surface, at which printed parameters. Creality Falcon's Falcon2 material table carries three engraving rows for brushed stainless steel and three for anodized aluminum, one per optical module. Read them as stainless steel settings and anodized aluminum settings, or machine by machine on the Falcon2 machine page.

Each row states its operation, thickness and surface as the publisher printed them. The diode rows for brushed stainless steel and the diode rows for anodized aluminum are the complete metal set on this site today. A wattage label alone, on any laser, does not extend them.

Match the surface, not the metal name

The two recorded surfaces carry their finish in the material name: brushed stainless steel, and aluminum with its anodized layer. The finish is part of the marking process, so a row for an anodized surface is a record about that layer, and a brushed surface is a record about that texture. Neither establishes a marking result for bare aluminum, polished steel, or a coated sheet the table never names.

The same discipline applies to machines. The Falcon2 rows for brushed stainless steel and the Falcon2 rows for anodized aluminum name their exact modules, and the module is a column you keep when you copy a value. When a seller lists a metal without naming the machine family or the surface finish, treat the listing as a claim, and treat the printed table as the record.

Diode, CO2 and fiber are separate sources

LightBurn's laser types overview states that the beam is generated by a source that dictates its power and wavelength. That is the whole reason a diode row cannot answer a fiber question: the wavelength, not the word "laser", decides what the beam does to a metal surface. Epilog's material compatibility chart keeps CO2 cutting and engraving separate from fiber engraving for the same reason.

This site holds no fiber parameter table, so it publishes no fiber settings page. The fiber routes return a held page instead of a guess, and a fiber acquisition pass is the only thing that changes that. Before comparing machines on power labels, run the wattage and its basis through the optical-watt decoder, which prints what each document actually states.

Keep the safety sheet with the marking job

Epilog's compatibility guidance also says it is important to obtain the safety data sheet of the material, and its chart is a compatibility description, not a safety approval. The same holds for every metal row here. The captured safety records for these surfaces sit at stainless steel safety and anodized aluminum safety, each quoting the publisher that wrote the statement.

Marking metal at low power still puts heat on a thin surface. Ventilation, eye protection and the material sheet belong to the job, and the statements on those pages name their own limits. CutChart has not run any of these rows and does not review safety procedures.

Save the preset with its evidence

When a row works on your machine, save it with the document it came from. Record the exact module, the surface finish as printed, the thickness, the operation and the date you read the table. The LightBurn Material Library guide shows where a preset lives in the software, and what each laser can cut or mark keeps the family distinctions in one place.

If a marking job fails, record what changed before you change anything else. The surface, the finish and the module are the three fields most often lost, and they are the three that make a saved row reusable.