Full Version: Attack of the Chinese laser (part xxiv)
From: ab_laserart [#1]
14 Apr 2007
To: ALL
Here is the meat and taters on my Chinese laser experience!
Stats:
60 watt water cooled laser; 600mm by 900mm (approx. 24" by 36") bed with about 10 inches of z travel; rotary attachement that is poorly designed -- I have modified it already and am "this close" to completely rebuilding it; 1000 cfm exhaust fan; powerful, but not very adjustable, air assist pump; industrial chiller that holds about 10 liters of water
Alright, just to get things rolling and whet your whistles a little I will start with a current update and then a little look at the software.
UPDATE:
I picked up the engraver from a freight company near Detroit Metro Airport last September. It was well packaged in a wooden crate and took up most of the bed of my full-size pick-up (see first picture). I was still on crutches at the time, luckily my brother and I were able to get it out of the truck. A forklift would have worked nicely.
Unloaded and unpacked, it was a chore to figure out what was what. The cabinet was completely assembled but all of the peripherals were unlabeled and it was not clear to me what some of the things were. To make matters worse there were no english assembly instructions. I had a mostly english users manual (crudely translated) that gave no help with assembly. After a couple of days of midnight tech support and consultation with my electrician assembly was complete. Interestingly the engraver and extras all work on 220vac. Included was a converter that plugs into a regular 110vac outlet and powers the engraver, the chiller, air assist (which I sometimes plug into 110v for 1/2 speed) and exhaust fan.
Once everything was running there were some optic issues that led to replacing several bending optics as well as the focusing optic. It appears as though the initial allignment was not close enough -- the machine worked and even engraved nicely, but the beam was hitting the edges of a couple of the mirrors. With enough energy hitting the edge of the optic, the mirrors heated up too much and cracked. Now that everything is alligned properly there have been no related issues. Thanks again to Michael at oemoptics.com for the quick replacements.
The original tube is still in use and is holding up well. I use the engraver every day and have engraved and or cut thousands of items so far. It's hard to estimate how many hours it has been in use, but I would guess more than 1000 at this point.
SOFTWARE
The second attachment is a screen shot of the software (Easycut 4.0 I guess, but the program is called Lasercut on my pc). It is pretty user friendly and flexible. .PLT files from CorelDraw and .BMP files from Corel PhotoPaint (or anything else) open exactly as they appeared in the original software and scaling is perfect. You can manupilate the images pretty much infinitely in Easycut and even add text and drawn items. The layering feature is easy to use and works very well with .PLT files. .AI and .DXF are also supported, I have had good success with .AI and not so much with .DXF.
Two complaints: you can not use greyscale images, everything must be true black and white in .BMP format; and there is no "estimated time to engrave" in this version. I have found the developer of the software and I see there is a version 5.0 now that does time estimating... I'll have to see if I can upgrade.
Oh yeah, the engraver interfaces with the pc via a pci controller card and a 72 pin (I guess) cable similar to the old printer cables.
Alright, this is probably long enough. Fire away with questions about the stuff covered so far and I will be back with more. Next time I will try to post more pictures of the actual engraver and components (I might have to edit out my horribly messy shop!) and try to get into typical day to day use.
Regards,
Ron
From: Mike (MIKEN) [#2]
14 Apr 2007
To: ab_laserart [#1] 14 Apr 2007
You sound like your pleased with your purchase. Glad to hear that.
When you called tech support did you have any problem getting somebody who spoke English and were they helpful?
My previous experience with chillers was with 100w Epilogs. They were pretty much maintenance free; how is this one?
Very interesting, keep us posted.
EDITED: 14 Apr 2007 by MIKEN
From: ab_laserart [#3]
14 Apr 2007
To: Mike (MIKEN) [#2] Unread
Hi Mike,
While they did supply a phone number for tech support, we chose to go with instant messaging. They ask us to try to make an appointment when we need help, but there has always been someone there who spoke english when I IM them. The bad part is they don't get to work until about 9 pm my time.
The chiller is very low maintanence. That said, when you turn it off it loses suction and you have to prime it to get it going again. I fixed that by leaving it running all the time, no biggie.
I am satisfied so far, there have been some issues to work through but I get the feeling all engravers have occasional issues to deal with. Luckily I'm a pretty hands on guy and have some experience building experimental electronic devices (not bombs!!! (devil) ). Not that I'm the biggest techy in the world, but someone with less technical knowledge may have really struggled with this.
If anyone gets the idea of distrubuting these in the US, I would suggest strongly advising a $2000 set-up session in which an experienced tech goes on site and does the install and 8 hours of training, or something like that.
Ron
From: Cody (BOBTNAILER) [#4]
14 Apr 2007
To: ab_laserart [#1] 14 Apr 2007
By the time you get that big box out of your truck, it will be time to "fire up" that grill sitting next to the pickup.
A 2" thick ribeye, medium rare, please.