Fiber lasers are everywhere in the modern world. Due to the different wavelengths they can generate, they are widely used in industrial environments to perform cutting, marking, welding, cleaning, texturing, drilling and a lot more. They are also used in other fields such as telecommunication and medicine.
Fiber lasers use an optical fiber cable made of silica glass to guide light. The resulting laser beam is more precise than with other types of lasers because it is straighter and smaller. They also have a small footprint, good electrical efficiency, low maintenance and low operating costs.
Most online sources claim that fiber lasers last 100,000 hours whereas CO2 lasers last 30,000 hours. This is not entirely true. These numbers refer to a value called “mean time between failures” (MTBF), which isn’t the same for all fiber lasers. In reality, you will see different numbers for different types of fiber lasers.
The MTBF measures the reliability of a laser by indicating how many hours the laser is expected to function before a failure occurs. It is obtained by testing multiple laser units, and then dividing the total number of operational hours by the total number of failures.
Although this value does not exactly tell you how long a fiber laser can last, it still provides a good idea of the laser’s reliability.
If you really want to know the exact service life of a fiber laser, you’ll be disappointed as there’s no real answer. In truth, fiber lasers have critical points in their lifetime when they can fail.
Here’s what you need to know if your laser experiences failures at any of these moments:
- Early life: If a fiber laser has fabrication errors, it will likely have failures early on. You should ensure that you have a purchase guarantee that covers fabrication errors so that the laser can be replaced at no fees.
- Normal life: Once you’ve passed the first critical period of early life, the MTBF value provides you a good idea of your laser’s chances of failure. A high MTBF is a good assurance that everything will go smoothly, but not a guarantee. You can prepare for failures during the normal life in different ways: have a spare laser readily available, rent a laser while yours is being repaired, or have a prolonged purchase guarantee.
- End of life: When fiber lasers are near their end life, chances of failure increase drastically. Even then, a high-quality industrial laser can often operate way past its MTBF.
