I would venture to say that a laser and a rotary are very complimentary , however there are rotarys and rotarys and I think the smaller machines that are specific to engraving are not a good buy in this regard.
What you really need is an inbetween machine , 1/2 an overhead router and 1/2 an engraver. What I mean by this is one of the heavier duty XY tables that can either take a routing spindle or a floating diamond tip type burnisher/nose cone type spindle .
The ability to cut and route heavier duty stuff is invaluable if you have a laser , there are so many ways you can combine the output of that and what you do with a laser.
The smaller machines (Like our roland 2300) are not really potent enough to do much else APART from engraving and struggle to profile stuff. We make money off it , but its very limited in marking compared to a laser , ANY contact type engraving is limited compared to a laser - jigs and holding devices will be your major headaches

We use ISEL 1m x 500mm "engravers" running 900w Kress router motors as spindles and have a floating attachment on one of them for anything thats not flat , for the real heavy duty stuff , we run a Tekcel heavy dutuy router with a high power perske high speed spindle.

The Isels do beautiful engraving (even with their stepper motors) and can go from diamond burnishing right thru to cutting , routing and pocketing supawood , can cut 1mm brass in a single pass , cuts and engraves ally boat panels, 10mm perspex and so forth.
The Tekcel is a potent speed machine and can cut and shape stainless up to 2mm , 5mm thick brass in a single pass and can do 3d type engraving over BIG areas. (as well as tiny stuff)
To give an example , you can laser a nice piece of acrylic , route a wood base with a slot for it and make a nice standing type sign , You can route and pocket THICK acrylic and then laser engrave it , you can do a nicely engraved brass plaque and then use the laser to make a pex backing , the possibilities are endless , I cant POSSIBLY list them all.
A TON of stuff on my site is done that way , CnC routed/engraved AND lasered.
I would seriously look far further afield than mere engravers if you do intend to go rotary as the right machine can lead to far more opportunities than just an engraver and will be a far more profitable purchase.
Regards

Chuck,

I can tell you that I do use my computerized mechanical engraver every day.

One of the keys to my growth is that I have been able to promote the fact that I "engrave". I have a big neon sign in my window that says "Engraving". In hindsight, it should say "We Engrave". I have so many people that say they came to my business because they remember the sign. If they came into my store and all I did was laser engrave, I would have alot of customers leaving my store upset or disappointed.

Customers to our industry don't understand all of the nuances of what can and cannot be engraved by the various technologies. Granted, it is our job to educate them, but all they want is Baby Joe's silver-plated picture frame engraved, not an education. What they do know is that they read or heard that we engrave, and now we say we can't. What is it?

I don't do a tremendous amount of industrial engraving. The image development of my business has been on the corporate gift and award side of the market. I can't imaging my business functioning effectively without a computerized mechanical engraver.

If you are going to get into the gift market, investigate the machines that have the ability to engrave cylindrical items. I know in my market I am the only person in town that offers this service, therefore it is at a premium. It would be anyway, because it does require an additional investment.

You also want to find the machine that has a good vice sytem with reasonable clearance for larger sized and odd shaped items.

I really enjoy my New Hermes IS400 Volume, but there are some less expensive machines on the market, of which I would specifically like to mention the new machine from Xenetech. I am not sure if it has been released, but the early comments have been interesting.

David,

One of my struggles starting out was determining whether I needed a larger engraving table or a machine with a smaller table and more versitility. I don't know if I got lucky or just marketed my machine's capabilities well. Whatever it was, I am glad I went the route I did. Versatility all the way for me.

We don't even have a laser engraving system. It is not a total necessity for a successful engraving busness.

We make do at present with a flat bed Meistergram and a Vision Max.
We have 3 manual pantograph machines and at least one is used every day. You cannot do single names and dates for yearly perpetual awards on a computer system any where near as quickly as a pantograph. By the time you have it lined up to match the previous column, you could do it twice manually. We also do sublimation and have a Sandblasting system, so can cover many areas where a laser would excel, albeit not as efficiently.

It may surprise some that I still do some work by hand with a dental burr and hand gravers. It is very handy for engraving inside rings and bracelets and for going over computer work when there is a hiccup. Our Vision Max ocasionally drops steps, (grr!) and I can recover the work by overcutting by hand. This has saved me lots of money.

The fact that the Vision drops steps is frustrating, but support is limited way down here in the South Pacific, and intermittent problems are near impossible to track down.

That being said, we take delivery of a LazerPro Mercury in the next few weeks.

Losing steps is usually due to some binding or over speeding.

Try to check the lubrication on all moving parts. If they stiffen there will be too much drag. A good rule of thumb is to clean off all lubrication before re-lubricating. That removes the bad stuff and replaces it completely with new lubricant that will last a lot longer when pure.

Even if you are not running it faster than you did before, slowing it down a little can usually get it to lose less steps. If it still loses steps then the lubricant is just thickened too much, or a stepper is going. (The bearings on the stepper need to have a good lubricant that has not thickened. This is one aspect of the machines that is often missed when checking for binding.)

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

David,
I agree, versatility all the way. That is one of the reasons I am enquiring about the computerized/rotar/mechanical engraver....if it is not on it's way to obselesnce and won't be for some time, I believe that I need to get one into my arsenal when the money permits.....hence the questions.

Thanks

But I'm sure everyone knew that...

And never use 3-in-one oil either, it gums up in a few months.

Singer Sewing Machine oil for a light oil, and a silicon/teflon grease for grease. If you can still find Lubriplate Marine Lube 'B' it is also a fine grease.

Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)

Harvey's Tips Page When you finally understand it completely... it changes.

I couldn't finde "marine B" on their site, but here is the tech contact number for Lubriplate. Most of their producets seem to have gone synthetic so they may have a new version that will work as good or better.

Technical Service Center.
800-347-5343
(For Technical Questions Only)

Mr C,

Can you scan them out of the book and use a program like coreldraw to make them in to the file you need? I do that from my QEG/D.14 book of logo pictures when I need it for my GEM engraver.

Puck

Mr C,

Not really sure about the difference since I only use the QEG software. When I bought my engraver they sent me the wrong, D.14, software and I had purchased the QEG software so have never used the D.14 software.

I just do a scan when I need one of the logos for my other engraver and use coreldraw to make it to a .ai file which I can import in to the GEM engraver. I'll check and see what file extension the software has since I have the logo disks for the D.14.

Puck

Sorry, I looked and both my softwares have .lgo files.

Puck