Buying an engraver

[juan45215]

I have been contracting my engraving work to a trophy shop, but I just got a contract to provide name tags for large company on an ongoing basis.
I have decided to buy my own machine and I am surprised at how few post there are on this subject.

I looking at the Roland 30A.

I'd appreciate any thoughts, comments or recommendations.

 

[thomchar]

Roland & the Wizard have very bad reputations, The Vison engraving machine has a good reputation, they are located in Phoenix Az. I do not know who the rep would be in your area.

 

[iSign]

when I ran engraving equipment, Meistergram & Hermes were 2 of the major players...

one contract for name tags, justifies tooling up for an entire new production line in your business? Was this something you did a lot of outsourcing already, had a serious interest in bringing in house already, and have multiple accounts you can start producing work for in house, as a result?

...or is this purchase really dependent entirely on this one "contract"?

...if the latter, I hope it's an airtight "contract"

 

[Precision Eng]

If you can afford it, go with a laser engraver. We have a EGX-600 Roland and a laser machine and 90% of or nametags are made on the laser. The egx-600 is mainly used for engraving phenolic materials which are not laserable.

 

[juan45215]

when I ran engraving equipment, Meistergram & Hermes were 2 of the major players...

one contract for name tags, justifies tooling up for an entire new production line in your business? Was this something you did a lot of outsourcing already, had a serious interest in bringing in house already, and have multiple accounts you can start producing work for in house, as a result?

...or is this purchase really dependent entirely on this one "contract"?

...if the latter, I hope it's an airtight "contract"

Isign the contract is for 4 years. They were looking to buy their own machine and I convinced them that this is a better option. I don't do alot of engraved signs, but I will go after more with my own machine.

I'm shocked at the price difference, Roland 30a $2900, the small Vision machine $6600.

I cannot find a supplier for the Hermes machine, this is the first I've heard of Meistergram.

 

[iSign]

I hope your contract includes enough commitment to purchase a significant enough amount of name tags, to justify the expense, based on whatever level of engraver purchase interest you already held, or viability of the equipment purchase to pay for itself (& your learning curve) outside of said contract.

I've wondered if i might get into engraving again some day, because i did some pretty cool stuff 15 years ago & imagine a lot more can be done today. I have enough going on, and little enough demand for engraving work, that I've made no effort to keep up, or evaluate the cost & capabilities of today's systems...

...but, I have thought about how a big job could come up some day & make me want to buy an engraver.

 

[Air Art Girl]

I do both rotary and laser engraving. My rotary is a Xenetech, love it and the support. My laser is an Epilog 40 Watt. I also dye sub a quite a few name badges in full color for some of my customers. We do about 3,000 full color for one of our customers every year. I also do quite a bit of electrical panel labels.

Xenetech's are expensive but work every penny!!