So for one of my projects, I am going to make a laser cutter that would need to be able to precisely cut different shapes, my material is going to be caardboard. So my question is this:
How many watts would I need in a laser Diode to be able to make a clean cut through cardboard?
I have no idea and you might get better answers on a laser forum. Or, check the power ratings for commercially available laser cutters.
I'd guess it's going to take at least 5W. ...You can solder with a 30W soldering iron, so that's probably enough to burn-through cardboard.
Depends how fast you want to cut it, and how nice you want it to look (cutting faster with higher powered lasers gives a better edge). Try a laser cutter forum for details - there are people who live and breathe laser cutters.
what color cardboard, what composition, what thickness? all will affect cutting rate at a given power.
what wave length laser? longer wave lasers cut better at a given power. IR cuts better than red/blue/violet.
understand that you are talking about optical power output, not electrical power dissipation. a low efficiency low optical power laser can be driven to dissipate a goodly amount of heat without doing very much usable work.
and YES, you will get much better answers on a laser forum, no, not at least 5W,,, 1Watt IR may do nicely, or even a 1-2W blue(violet), albeit rather slowly. see question 1 above....
What thickness? That's the most important factor. CO2 lasers choke on the CO2 generated in the
cut more with deep cuts (I use a 50W machine that struggles beyond 5mm or so in plywood, but
can cut much thicker in acrylic). Corregated cardboard will catch fire far too often to be sensible
but solid cardboard can cut quite well.
You need to figure out the minimum cutting rate you are happy with - a clean cut that takes ages is
not necessarily useful.
air assist helps A LOT when trying to make deeper/cleaner cuts with less charring/burning (flare ups)
About 10W CO2 laser should be able to do that. In theory you can cut with much lower power laser, probably even 2-3Watts at a very low speed, but in reality your cardboard will catch on fire. It also makes difference what type of cardboard you are using. Corrugated with a lot of air between layers is worst. More dense is better...