Hello from Bulgaria  ,

Just finished project: 150W nd:yag pulsed laser system for sheet metal cutting.

single lamp, single rod, water cooled gold cavity laser head, IGBT driven CCPS and PFN.
Repetition rate: 10-120Hz
Pulse duration: 0.5-2ms
Pulse current: 100-300A
Beam size: 0.15-0.20mm
XY Table size: 510 x 510mm
Power: 3x380V 20A

Builded from zero for 60 days.

Cut metal as follow:
Ordinary sheet steel up to 2mm
Stainless steel (304L, 316L) up to 2mm
Brass up to 1.5mm
Aluminum up to 1.5mm
Gold and Palladium up to 1.5mm
Silver up to 1.2mm

That is slick.  What would it take to cut up to 10mm of aluminum?

Nice machine you have built there Dimitar. Do you have a final build cost ?.
Think it would probably take me 60 days just to do the wiring. 

Tweakie.

Thank you people.
@Tweakie.CNC - The final building cost - nobody knows exactly, but its near 10,000 usd where the optic and optomechanic cost is half of that price. Yes, its not easy job and its take me from 7:00 in the morning till 23-24:00 in the night - nonstop - no weekend or other work.

@GAWnCA - The laser can not cut aluminium in passes like CNC router, so - its impossible to cut more then 1.2mm. For 10mm aluminium you need 5000W co2 laser and even some of that lasers are not able to cut more then 6-7mm... Many of them will require duraluminium and reject even to try simple aluminium. The main advantage of all nd:yag pulse lasers is not to cut anything thick. With beam size 0.15mm we are cutting  promotional items and gift from any metal in very small size and very precise. No other machine can complete that job. Take a look:

Those are nice objects you have cut.  I guess the CNC Mill is my only hope for cutting larger items from aluminum. 

There is one other hope - waterjet...No thickness limitations. No problems with reflective materials such as brass and aluminum. No heat input, so there is no burning or heat-affected zone.

Where do you find the information on building a water jet?

Don't try to build it. You can't do that in your garage. but there is some not so expensive retrofit kits over here http://www.wardjet.com

Now that is cool and thanks for the link.!! 

And more info and water jet machines: http://www.techniwaterjet.com/water-jet-machines/