Endurance Lasers Q and A – George Fomitchev

I got the honour to ask George Fomitchev from Endurance Lasers some Q & A, hope you guy enjoy the read as much as I did, very interesting.

How did you get started developing Endurance lasers? – It was a long story.  Started back to 2015 when I went on a business trip to California and then visited CES 2015. There were so many things going on in the 3D printing industry and I was so excited to jump into it. I met a guy, Matteo Borrie and we started an Endurance company.

At the beginning we were partners and we were selling L-Cheapo lasers. After a year Matteo did not want to continue since he was very much involved in (as he said) NASA projects so he was simply out of time. Another thing that Matteo did not want to listen to customers and meet customers expectations so we start losing money due to bad assembling quality of L-Cheapo.

After that, we started our own R&D and later production of more powerful units. Right now we ship and deliver all variety of 445 mm diode lasers starting from 2.1 watts and up to 20 watts (double) beam laser modules. At the moment we have 2 office – one in Russia, one in the US (Fort Myers, FL) and more than 10 people are in our team.

What makes Endurance lasers different from your competitors? – Well, to be honest – diode (solid-state) lasers is a growing market and there are not so many players out there. But our key advantage – high reliable products, ultra-fast delivery (with DHL Express service) and ultimate tech support.

We have a very friendly and supportive community  also our experts are always ready to help Another important thing is that we help 3D printing and CNC guys to learn something more We are sharing a lot of interesting video footages on our channel

How many different options are available? – We mainly offer laser engraving machines and laser diodes to all maker community. I must say that this is our target market. We like to get people together, share interesting things. I’ve been to Germany 2 times on a big Make Faire (one in Berlin, the other one was in Hannover)

Will you be creating your own software to work with the lasers?  If so, would it be open-source? – I must say that there is some software on the market like LaserGRBL, T2Laser, Lightburn and we make tutorials for them. Zax from T2Laser is a very supportive guy and helps the best he can. as for our own solution – we have 2 free (open-source) plugins for Inkscape so anyone can make a g-code for laser cutting or laser engraving

Do you only make laser mods for 3D printers or do they have their own enclosures? –  Yes, our lasers are mainly plugged and play for any 3D printer or CNC machine. They work out of 12-24V and have a TTL wire that has to be connected with PWM and then you are pretty much set Mounting brackets are also quite universal and we have quite a few here on Thingiverse  for CNC machines is a bit more complicated so we upload them on our website

If you don’t sell a whole unit (enclosure, laser, and all), then do you plan to? If so, when? – Like I said before we do seel entire machines too but it is not our focus. We are more interested in building and developing stand-alone laser attachment that can be hooked to any 3D printer or a CNC machine.

I think a lot of people already have 3D printers, CNC routers, XY plotters and other marking devices where they can hook our laser. I have heard that some people even replace a Co2 tube on their big machine and installed our 10 watts + laser module that goes with an air assist and TEC cooling.Have you seen any big or impressive projects in the community that caught your attention? – Sure- quite a lot our customers like to make and share, some engravings are very impressive. these a be found on our website

Do Endurance lasers use the traditional method of engraving, or are they using a non-contact process? – yes, it is non-contact since there is no mechanical work…

What materials can Endurance lasers work with? Up to what thickness? –  Our lasers can engrave on many surfaces including steel, stainless steel copper, brass but for them, you need special chemical also you may engrave on wood, plywood, plastics, MDF, leather, etc cutting is available on dark materials including plastics, acrylic, wood, plywood, hardboard, cardboard and paper of course The thickness of laser cutting varies from 1-2 mm up to 5-8 mm. but to cut thick materials you need more passes, special laser cutting lens and air assist is very preferable

Does Endurance’s process involve any harmful chemicals? – We made a special laser cutting guidance and as you may see there are some materials that should be laser cut only with a fume extractor it is important that a lot of plastics contain chloride that has to be removed since it is a very hazardous gas.

Usually, laser cutting or laser engraving is not dangerous. But keep in mind that all Endurance lasers are class 4 therefor you need to wear laser protective goggles all the time we even make a video showing the difference between some laser goggles.

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