Independent · US
The settings live in Facebook groups. They should live in a table.
Laser Oracle is an independent US reference site for laser engravers, laser cutters and fiber markers. We publish cutting and engraving settings by material and wattage, and the specifications manufacturers leave off the listing — working area, optical output, extraction and mains supply. Every figure is read from the maker's own documentation and carries the date it was read, and where a maker publishes nothing we say so rather than estimating.
We do not test machines in-house, and we never claim to.
Four figures the listing leaves out
- Working area
- Whether your workpiece fits, before it arrives
- Optical watts
- The real output, not the wall draw on the box
- Duct diameter
- Whether your extractor physically connects
- Mains supply
- 120V, or the 240V circuit nobody mentions
Four ways to make a mark
The source decides what the machine can do at all. Wattage only decides how fast.
Fiber laser engravers
Bare metal, deep marks, and the only machine that anneals stainless.
CO2 laser cutters
The cutting machine. Wood, acrylic, leather and everything organic.
Diode laser engravers
The starting machine. Wood, leather, coated metal, open frame.
UV laser markers
Cold marking. Glass, clear acrylic and the materials that char.
Everything else the bench needs
The machine is one line on the invoice. Extraction and eye protection are not optional, they are unbundled.
Rotary attachments
Tumblers, rings and bottles, without the artwork stretching.
Fume extraction
Where the smoke goes, and what it costs to keep filtering it.
Beds and tooling
Flat material, clean cut-through, and no burn on the underside.
Optics and safety
The consumables, and the one purchase where the rating is the product.
CNC routers
The other machine on the bench, for thickness and for metal.
Every accessory we track
One page, all five categories, priced today and re-read through the day.
Browse accessoriesWhat we publish
Four datasets, each one a question people type and nobody answers with a table.
Settings by material
Power, speed and pass count for a named material at a named wattage, each figure attributed to the machine it was run on rather than floated as a general rule.
Find your settingsMachines compared
Fiber, CO2, diode and UV in one table: what each source marks, the working area and wattage the maker publishes, and what it needs on the bench.
Compare specsWorkspace fit
Bench footprint, the clearance a lid needs above it, where the duct has to go and whether the machine wants a 240V supply.
Check your benchRunning costs
The software licence, the tube, the extraction filters and the optics, totalled over five years. The sticker price is the first payment, not the total.
See the totalsMethodology
Why you can check everything here
Plenty of channels genuinely buy these machines and cut things on them. We cannot match that, so we do not pretend to. We treat the specification layer as the product instead: gather what manufacturers publish, put it in one table, and show our working.
Every figure carries its source and date
A spec without a source is an opinion. Ours name the manufacturer document they came from, with the date it was read, so you can check whether it has since changed.
Real tables, not adjectives
"Industrial-grade power" is unfalsifiable. An optical output figure with a source is not. Where a manufacturer publishes no number, we say so rather than filling the gap with a word.
We say when we do not know
Blank cells stay blank. A comparison table that is complete because the gaps were guessed is worse than one with holes in it.
Paid links are marked and never change the ranking
We earn commission on some outbound links. Which products appear, and in what order, is decided before any of that is considered.