Laser cutting machines empower your business to swiftly and accurately cut materials, thereby skyrocketing profitability, quality, and efficiency. However, there are ways to improve performance even more.
That’s why Accurl put together this guide to help you optimize laser cutter performance. We included all the best laser-cutting machine tips for improving cut quality, power, lifespan, efficiency, and more.
Laser Cutting Machine Tips
Want to know how to improve laser cutting performance? Follow these tips and techniques for improving laser cutting quality and efficiency.

Fine-Tune Cut Settings
The most important tip is to adjust settings regularly, fine-tuning things like laser power, cutting speed, nozzle distance, and more. Doing so will help you get cleaner cuts while minimizing heat-affected zones to improve quality from end to end of the process.
Remember, different materials will require different settings. You should also regularly monitor and adjust parameters even if you are performing the same cuts on the same materials. Doing so will ensure the highest possible cut quality for every cut, every time.
Maintain Your Laser Cutting Machines
Laser cutting maintenance and troubleshooting is one of the most essential laser cutting machine tips. That’s because it will extend the lifespan of your machine while ensuring the highest possible performance every step of the way. Plus, it can improve safety and reduce expensive repairs.
So, what are the most important maintenance tasks?
- Clean mirrors and lenses often
- Inspect machine regularly
- Check water levels
- Update software
- Clean the machine bed
- Clean exhaust fans and filters
- Lubricate as needed
- Replace worn parts monthly
Optimize Cut Layouts
Instead of just cutting materials wherever you want, try optimizing material usage by carefully planning cut placement. This can help you increase productivity while reducing the amount of material waste, saving your business money.

Train Your Operators
Proper training is paramount when it comes to improving laser cutting quality and maximizing efficiency. Make sure you train operators on the machine specifics. Then, make sure you offer continuous training opportunities to keep them up to date on the latest techniques, machines, and cut tactics.
For example, even if you have operators with years of experience using laser cutting machines, whenever you get a new laser cutter like the Accurl High Power ML Plus Series of sheet metal cutters, they will need model-specific training to ensure long-lasting performance.
Test, Test, Test
One of the best advanced tips for optimizing cutting performance is to test often. Materials, parameters, and cuts change all the time. Keep testing to discover the best settings for optimizing laser cutter performance for your operation-specific materials, cuts, and machines.
This also goes for following guidelines for different materials, based on the speed and power of your laser cutter. Do not just blindly trust these types of settings. Instead, use them as guidelines before testing and adjusting parameters to optimize laser cutting machine performance.
Understand Laser Beam Focus
The focus of the laser beam is one of the most important factors for cutting precision, quality, and performance. A well-focused beam cuts a smaller area, improving the quality and ensuring cleaner cuts.
The spot size is the diameter of the laser beam at the point of focus. This is the most critical setting you need to pay attention to. Try to create a smaller spot size, which will help you create more intricate cuts with exceptional precision, fine details, and sharper edges. This is where testing comes in handy.

Use Gas Assist Correctly
Assist gas type and pressure are greatly influential on cut power and performance. That’s because gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, or air, can remove molten metal during the cutting process, improving cut quality while eliminating debris.
Know that higher gas pressure can help remove molten material more effectively, while improper gas pressure can cause rough edges or larger heat-affected zones, reducing the overall quality of the final product.
Adapt Beam Quality
Beam quality is important for cut quality and efficiency. So, how do you know if you have a good beam quality? Well, the beam quality is measured by M² with a lower value indicating a higher quality beam.
On the other hand, a higher value means a higher beam that slows the cutting process and can cause poor accuracy. Check this quality often to ensure you maintain an efficient beam quality throughout the lifespan of your advanced laser cutting machine.
Ensure Proper Cutting Environment
Even after you optimize laser cutting machine performance, you might notice that you still aren’t getting the results you want. This might be because of the environmental conditions around the machine, meaning the conditions around your cutting machine.
For example, high humidity can negatively impact cut quality by contributing to condensation on the laser optics. The same thing can happen with poor ventilation, causing dust to scatter the laser beam, leading to inconsistent cuts.
What Are the Recommended Settings for Common Material Types?
It can be difficult to know what settings to use for different materials, but remember that you should test often. That being said, here are some guidelines that you can follow.
Softer materials like Wood, MDF, leather, glass, and Acrylic will require significantly lower laser power, around 50-80 Watts, with faster cutting speeds reaching as high as 500 mm/s. Metals including stainless steel and aluminum will require moderate power of 500-600 Watts and moderate cutting speeds of 60-100 mm/s.
Finally, materials like Carbon Steel will require the highest power settings around 1000 Watts, with the slowest cutting speeds of around 60 mm/s.
However, material quality can adjust these guidelines, so make sure you test often to find the best setting for optimizing laser cutter performance.

Conclusion
Now that you know laser cutter maintenance tips for how to improve laser cutting performance with the top laser cutting machine tips, you need to know the biggest factor that influences performance: the machine itself. Accurl offers over 3 decades of expertise building cutting-edge machines that deliver unmatched efficiency, precision, and long-lasting performance. Tap here to browse our machines to find the best machine to optimize laser cutter performance for years to come.