You don't mention what you plan to do with the laser. That would help to determine if size or power is more important. Also, do you plan to engrave one at a time type of items for customers, or are you imagining production items being engraved hundreds or thousands at a time?

For some types of engraving (like Cermark) the extra power can make a difference on certain types of metal, and can change how long it's going to take to engrave. For other things (like anodized aluminum pet tags) it takes very little power.

If you can , Spend a little more and go for the Spirit and not the Mercury , the Mercury is a real workhorse and is a very reliable machine , but its "old" in terms of its development and introduction.
The spirit is about 1.5 -2 x faster and has some really nice improvements over the Mercury.

I dont know the exact prices , i'm in South Africa but in aussie , the spirit 25 w is Aus$25000 and the Mercury is $20k , 26% difference.
The spirit is a lot faster and will pay the differential quickly as its way more than 25% faster
I find the Spirits the best machines we have run so far and do all the critical work on them (I also have 3 Explorers)

The other thing to consider when considering "older Technology" is the computer. You can not even get a new computer with a parallel port any more although you can still get add on cards. But for how long?

The other thing to look at is the operating system XP / Vista be sure that the drivers are compatible with both there will come a time when you will not be able to get XP any longer it may be a few years but it will happen if the system is only compatible with XP and two years from now you need a new computer and can not get XP on it then what good will the laser system be?

Just something to think about.

Dear people,

thank you all for your comments; you can be sure that every message posted under this thread was taken into serious consideration.

Thank God, today I managed to get a VERY GOOD PRICE for a Spirit 25W machine from the domestic representative!

So, I wish good work and profits to all of you. Yet, we all have to admit that there is NOTHING MORE VALUABLE THAN GOOD HEALTH.

Till I get the machine in about 15-25 days, have a creative time all of you.

Thanks again.

Yasoo Re ! :D

Regards
Peter

Congratulations on the acquisition, now the 15 - 25 days will seem like an eternity. Have fun and start dreaming up items to engrave once it gets here.
;-)