[Blackthorn]

Given how quickly dangerous these compact lasers can be, I think I'd rather stick with the handheld plasma cutter.

[rozap]

The quality of the cuts out of a plasma cutter are not great. I always have to spend some time cleaning them up after the fact. I'd hope laser cut parts are much better.

[Qworg]

Given large scale laser cuts I've seen - they require less cleanup, but still some. You spatter molten metal everywhere.

[TaylorAlexander]

I have a CNC plasma cutter which I use for making robots, and have also worked with laser cut metal. The laser cutter is so, so much more precise. On the plasma I cut some gear teeth with 5mm pitch and they’re okay for a coarse positioning system that doesn’t rotate continuously. On a laser you could cleanly cut 1mm pitch gears for continuous rotation I would think.

[Qworg]

Oh, absolutely! I was more speaking to the clean up. Lasers are a big step up.

[Blackthorn]

If I'm doing handheld cuts I'm not holding out that much hope for precision anyway.