If I may ask a few questions,
1: What is the difference between a glass tube laser and a metal tube laser. Is there a pro and con between them.
2: Just getting into lasers, what would be the best wattage to purchase. I only want to do it once and not have to upgrade in a year or so. ( Cutting ) (Engraving) and Photos.
3: What is the best software to run? Since we do digital printing I use Flexi-pro now.

I do understand that the questions are vague, but ant help would be great. You have a very nice forum here. Thanks John

1 - Huh?

2 - The most you can afford

3 - Corel is the most prevalent and probably the best as well

Gary

As for the first question, I see from some companys there laser are metal tube ? some I looked at are glass tube, No metal around or anywhere near them. You don't recharge them you just toss then and replace them ( so I am told).
As for money looking for the best bang for the buck. want to stay between 15K to 20K.

The "glass tube" lasers are antique technology. There are some laser companies in mainland China that use them because they are cheap and easy to manufacture. But they don't last very long. They require water cooling, using an external pump. Their power levels can be controlled, but not as acurately as newer types. The gas typically breaks down after about 600-1000 hours of use, though their life can be a lot shorter if the cooling is not sufficient.

More modern lasers, used by most major CO2 laser engravers, use an RF excited waveguide tube. This is a set of metal plates and insulators with a high pressure gas in the cavity. Cooling is simplified by directly drawing heat off the metal plates, and the power levels are accurately controlled by modifying the RF waveform. The gases do not break down in these very fast and the core tube can last 20,000-50,000 hours. But in practice these types often have electronic components in the RF amplifiers that might burn out every 3,000-5,000 hours. These parts can be replaced and the laser brought back to life.

Thanks for the replys, I looked at Universal and Epilog both seem to be the benchmark in lasers. The only drawback is the price. I am looking for a 36 x24 or close in size and about 50 to 70 watts.
Universal is in the low 30's and Epilog came in a bit higher.
I am not in the engraving business, we do Digital printing. Wanted to play with a laser, and not spend a great amount.

The Glass tube laser I was asking about is at http://www.worldlasers.com/producthighlights_lr_3624.htm
There price listed on the web site 16,000.00 went out to there location and looked at it. They ran a bunch of different materials, they seemed to me to engrave and cut fine ( again to me) A total newbee.

The bottom line was there price they have a demo unit 24 x36 60 watt. with the grid and rotary piece for 9500.00 it is worth it I do not know.

The one response back on here said the the glass tube was old stuff. when I asked them about the glass tube while I was there they said it was cheaper to replace about 335.00 for a 60Watt and the should last for 3000 hrs. My figure was .10 cents per hr of usage which seemed cheap.

Maybe I am looking at it all wrong just going on price, but I don't need it for everyday use.
Just looking for a laser to play with. Thanks John

John,

I'm glad you are doing your homework first. One suggestion is not to get the cart ahead of the horse. You should investigate the capabilities of these machines, than see if any of these capabilities will allow, in your market, to make an investment in a laser a profitable one.

I have seen many used laser engraving machines on sale that were purchased under the "buy it and they will come" mentality.

Determine how a laser could be utilized to make your business unique over the competition. These machines are very versatile, so there are many directions you can go with your product and service mix. It's good to know the answer to these questions before selecting machine brand, power, table size and other features.

Actually our main business is motorcycle service shop, the kids run it. I just give orders and take abuse. Was looking for one to cut gasket material (which is pretty much compressed paper). The side cover gaskets for Kawasaki and Honda for some are close to 100.00 a 32" by 20" piece of material is $5.00 . Will a laser cut them?? without burning them up?? I don't know.

It is something I have been looking at for a while and came across this site. Thought I could pick some brains here...

Hi John,

I bought a machine similar to what you are looking at (if not the same). Mine was purchased directly from China which turned out to be the biggest draw-back. Shipping was lengthy and brokering the unit through customs was not much fun. Also it came with an "english" manual on disk that was about 33% as useful as it should have been. Tech support directly from China is pretty good and helpful but they are on the other side of the planet which means session tend to run past midnight.

If you are working through a distributer from the US I would think most of these issues would be resolved.

Technical items are as follows and keep in mind that I have no experience with any of the more "main stream" lasers:

Mine has a 60w glass laser tube that is obviously water cooled (and they did ship an extra tube with the machine). I probably have 500 hours of run time on mine and it has been very reliable so far. Like you I did the math on hours of use/dollars spent and figured this wasn't such a bad deal. I can replace mine for $220 plus shipping (~$40 if I remember correctly).

I had some issues with the reflecting and focusing optics for a while, but they are resolved now and it seems that it was a focus issue -- in that the laser beam was not aimed near enough to the center of the optics. I replaced a couple of the optics with replacement optics for Universal Lasers (through oemoptics.com and Michael) and there does seem to be a difference in quality. I went with the domestic optics because they were quicker to get and I was totally out of commission at one point. Fact is, you could replace all of the optics on the machine for relatively cheap money if you wanted to. (Less than $500).

Software-wise mine works seemlessly with the Corel Draw 12 suite and is compatible with AutoCad and Adobe Illustrator. In fact saving designs as .plt files in Draw is my most common application and the layering works extremely well with my laser software/driver.

I do not regret the decision to buy this laser one bit. Frankly I intend to make enough money off of it to buy an Epilog or Universal because I would like to enough business to keep multiple machines going, and I would like to see what an "expensive" machine is like. I'm sure you get more bells and whistles for that kind of money! I use the crap out of it and for the most part it is ready to go when I ask it to. The software is stable and almost never crashes, the hardware is durable and elegant in design. I believe I could replace any part on the machine by myself if I had to.

One concern if you are using this in your shop where you may have employees running it is a lack of some of the safety measures associated with other machines. I solely run mine so it does not concern me, but you can find other posting about "door magnets" and such on this forum. I can run my laser completely open (the lid and 6 access panels to the work area) if I choose. There are obvious safety implications here. Just something to keep in mind.

I don't want to imply that my machine is perfect, I have had issues to resolve (mentioned above) and it would have been easier if I could have called "Jim Bob" in Nebraska for tech support when ever I wanted. But, the machine does everything I ask it to do and I feel that it was a sound investment.

If you would like to talk to me directly, respond to this post and I would be happy to chat with you.

Hope this helps.

Ron

The laser salesmen will throw rocks at me but here goes - Why would you want to invest the amount of money your talking about for a machine to just cut a few gaskets and play with? Please don't take me wrong but it is a good sized investment in cash and time for the learning curve that you will need to get to the point you want to be.

Could I suggest you contact a laser engraver in your area that will work with you on cutting your gaskets. The laser company reps can even give you a list of there customers to talk with. Most of us who do industrial type work would be glad to discuss your needs for gaskets work out a fair price when cutting multiples of the same product. If nothing else you will gain some knowledge about the process and what it will take to get the proper equipment to meet your needs. I know there has to be several people with lasers in your area.

I apologize up front if this offends you in any way - it is not my intention - obviously you can spend your money any way you please. I just hate to see you make a decision that you might regret in a few months.

If you decide to buy I strongly suggest you look carefully at all the companies who sell and service lasers carefully look at what training, after sale service, tech support and parts availability. Your rep from these companies can be a huge factor in your success. Have each company demo on materials you will be using and do a job you will be running.

I truly wish you the best success.

A piece of my own experience; I bought two laser systems with Access Business Solutions, the second one was a decission made after experiencing the awesome service from the Bosworth family who runs this business. Their lasers are fully operational, refurbished used lasers that come guaranteed for six months usually. The guarantee on this two systems i have has long expired, but Robert Bosworth keeps taking my calls everytime I ring him and enlighting me out of my ignorance.

I strongly recommend checking out his page at www.usedlasers.com

p.s. I didn't receive a dime for this, it's just consumcer satisfaction.

Hermes,

My family and I had dinner with the Bosworths last Tuesday; they were in SoCal on business.

I can attest to them being very genuine and ethical businesspeople.