Laser cutter engraver questions.

[ProgrammERIN]

I’ve been thinking for a while about getting one. What’s the best bang for my buck. Not looking to go super expensive yet. Just little projects to start like burning logos into cutting boards and things. I need recommendations.

Also, what kind of files do they take? I’m used to being a CNC programmer but don’t know a lot about laser cutters.

 

[JBurton]

Also, what kind of files do they take? I’m used to being a CNC programmer but don’t know a lot about laser cutters.

Gcode, though some fancier machines will essentially convert a dxf or other vector and convert it on the fly. If you're starting with a cheap one, you'll likely need to do some finagling on your end to make things work, so knowledge of gcode will be helpful.
As far as selecting a laser system, I couldn't tell you much, other than what you tend to lose on super cheap chinese systems is safety features, and lasers can and do bounce off materials. It's not like my super cheap router will grow legs and come at me, but a laser can tag you from quite the distance.

 

[ProgrammERIN]

Ok gotcha. Thank you for the info and advice haha.

 

[CanuckSigns]

We have 3 expensive laser machines because it's our bread and butter and they run all day every day. However there are quite a few middle of the road machines these days, American assembled and supported machines made with Chinese components, check out Boss Laser, Thunder, TTP, Rabbit Laser. If you want to go direct to Chinese made machines, lasereverything.com is a great resource on those machines and which ones to avoid.

 

[ikarasu]

My buddy has a trotec, and I liked it so I bought an omtech.


Trotecs... Just work. All the cut settings and everything is pre done, it has a nice camera.... Good support, decent software. It's the cadilack of lasers.


The. You have omtech. A 100 watt tube could be 110 watt, or 90 watt ... Every machine has different power, so no one setting fits all. Lots of trial and error....

I got a 24" x 40" bed for 9k. Spent maybe 2k in upgrades, and a week playing with the machine... Now I can do anything my buddy can do.... and more, for 1/6 the price. BUT it's not built like a trotec, I wouldn't use it in a production environment - it's fun to play with and to learn on.... I like to do stuff the hard way first, then buy the better machine so I don't break it and know how to fix it.


If you're looking for budget....that actually has north american support, get an omtech. The polar is a nice small tabletop one.... it's a glowforge killer / replacement, cheaper but 10x better.



It's like buying 3d printers. If you're ok tinkering, buy a cheap one - but if your business or customers rely on it.... Don't cheap out and buy a trotec.


I've brought quite a few things in house with my laser now, it's paid itself off in the 3-4 months I've had it... But we fully expect it to break and us having to go back to outsourcing it eventually. This is more of a trial run before we buy a trotec.

 

[White Haus]

I've brought quite a few things in house with my laser now, it's paid itself off in the 3-4 months I've had it... But we fully expect it to break and us having to go back to outsourcing it eventually. This is more of a trial run before we buy a trotec.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of work did adding a laser allow you to bring in house? I want to get one but not sure how much use we would get out of it with our current demand.

 

[fixtureman]

We have 3 expensive laser machines because it's our bread and butter and they run all day every day. However there are quite a few middle of the road machines these days, American assembled and supported machines made with Chinese components, check out Boss Laser, Thunder, TTP, Rabbit Laser. If you want to go direct to Chinese made machines, lasereverything.com is a great resource on those machines and which ones to avoid.

I think most of those are just relabled Chinese machines. You are paying for the support

 

[ikarasu]

Just out of curiosity, what kind of work did adding a laser allow you to bring in house? I want to get one but not sure how much use we would get out of it with our current demand.

We do probably a dozen lamacoid orders a month to that we outsource... Maybe 10 signs an order? So let's say 120 signs a year. We get charged a $45 proof fee for each order.... Then like $30 per sign, and we're talking small 2-3" by 10" signs. So $400 per order x 12...about $4800 a year? Not enough to justify a laser... But since I wanted one for fun... It's just "gravy"

Costs me about $50 for a sheet of lamacoid that can get 50 signs on it.... So we went from $35 per sign to about $2.

We also sell quite a few steel tags to a customer. We were charged $4.20 each tag...these were ordered in the 500-1000 at a time, maybe a few times a year. I can buy them for $.80.... and a can of the ceramark for $100, this one is a bit more labor intensive... So we probably save maybe $2 a tag? But it still adds up to $1000-2000 in savings, a few times a year.

Then there's tactile letters on signs, didn't few of those. We used to outsource about 20k worth of Braille / tactile a year.... We're thinking about getting the raster pen and attempting to do the Braille in house, then I do the tactile on my laser... But we haven't got that far yet!


We have a CNC, but a lot of times we do acyrlic letters that need inside corners to be smaller than our CNC can handle, plus our CNC cut looks like crap compared to laser cut letters.... So now we laser anything acyrlic, way faster and a nicer look.

We pretty much just stopped outsourcing the jobs we currently outsource - and we started to push lamacoids and tactile more than we used to. If you don't count my labor, we've paid it off easily in a few months.

But again, it's a "love" project of mine, sitting in my garage. If you don't mind tinkering and getting your hands dirty... A $7000 laser can do anything the trotecs can, just not as point to click as trotecs... though once its setup, its as simple as a trotec. I couldnt justify buying a 50k laser for the small work we do, but I could buy a 7K laser, outsource to my company for half the price they normally pay... and paid my laser off quickly


https://omtechlaser.com/collections...ts/100w-co2-laser-engraver-cutter-usb-1060-us this is the one I got - my only regret is not going bigger... Having a 48" bed would mean I'm making 1, not 2 cuts on 4x8 sheets.... Watch some YouTube videos about omtech upgrades and see it in action. Just ignore all the I made 100k on my laser in 1 year videos!

 

[JBurton]

We're thinking about getting the raster pen and attempting to do the Braille in house

Go for it, but get the automated braille bead inserter if you want to make money. We do so few that a hand held pen is fine, but for the past week I've been knocking out an order of 80 signs with paragraphs of text, all braille-ed, and so far I have more time on inserting beads than every other operation combined...

 

[rossmosh]

A cheap and easy rule of thumb for bang for your buck: Cutting = Chinese. Engraving = "US".

Chinese machines engrave slowly but you can get a high wattage tube and a big table for a fraction of the cost of a "US" machine.

As for setup, they're all basically What You See is What You Engrave at this point with Lightburn now being a main option for Chinese lasers.

 

[ikarasu]

Go for it, but get the automated braille bead inserter if you want to make money. We do so few that a hand held pen is fine, but for the past week I've been knocking out an order of 80 signs with paragraphs of text, all braille-ed, and so far I have more time on inserting beads than every other operation combined...

We looked into it, our machine was offered the braille option by Multicam when we first got it... I've talked to them half a dozen times about them adding it, but they say theyll look into it and never get back to me. Looking into it it uses a chuck thats slightly bigger than the max our machine can take...so I don't think its possible with the spindle we have... otherwise I'd go automatic.

I briefly looked into a smaller rotary that can take it... but now we're talking 20-30K.... Where as I can use our multicam to do the drilling, then a pen which costs 1K... not as efficient, but still a hell of a lot cheaper to pay a guy $15 an hour to sit there with a pen and hand apply all these beads VS outsourcing.

We've (I've) Done a lot of research into it! It's not as simple a process,you have to be ADA complaint, set up with type 2 braille...stuff that isnt as easy to teach our graphics department, so while it's on my mind to do one day, I think It'll be another "This is awesome, buying it for my garage" type machine instead of having the company I manage buy one - I have no faith in our production team to learn new stuff right now, so it'd cost us more than outsourcing

 

[JBurton]

Using the larger CNC is fairly plausible, but the biggest issue with braille beads is hitting a super consistent depth of .043", too shallow and the beads fall out, too deep and they set flush with the face. The fancy engravers have a floating spindle with a nose cone, so they can never drill too deep. Now if you have a T-slot tabletop, you can do it, but you have to be sure there are no chips, burrs, anything under the panel, otherwise the height will be wrong and you'll drill too deep. I've toyed with the idea of making an adapter to run a floating spindle using my actual spindle as the motor (the one we have uses a rubber belt on a motor that goes around the spindle that has some magic bearing action to keep the outside stationary and the inside spins), but never have.
You could also get a label maker that makes strips of braille, or a particular bit that carves a dome out of the face of the plastic, but that's a much longer operation and technically isn't ADA compliant, also it looks like trash.
You can pick up a used New Hermes for fairly cheap, usually, as long as you get a dongle and software, you're pretty good to go, very seldomly did these machines get sold without the grade II braille option. Here's one that looks pretty nice considering it's from 2005 (and this generation was built like a tank, this machine weighs at least 100lbs, if not 200.

IS6000 Engraver 25” X 16” | eBay

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[wedgeman]

I think most of those are just relabled Chinese machines. You are paying for the support

I can't speak for Thunder (pretty sure they're fully made in USA) but OMT is....dogsh!t, from my experience.. we've got 7 Boss decks, and they pay for themselves pretty well.
you're paying a bunch for support, but it's well worth the cost.. phenomenal support.

 

[ikarasu]

I can't speak for Thunder (pretty sure they're fully made in USA) but OMT is....dogsh!t, from my experience.. we've got 7 Boss decks, and they pay for themselves pretty well.
you're paying a bunch for support, but it's well worth the cost.. phenomenal support.

Fairly certain thunder is just assembled in US... but I could be wrong.

What do you hate about the omtech? Honestly, a laser is a laser - The omtech is more of a learning curve, and more for technical hands on people. If you're not someone who will align their own mirrors / level their own bed, and you want a tech to do every piece of maintenance... Than you pretty much need to buy a Trotec or an Epilog. Thunder, Omtech, all the other brands you need to get your hands dirty because you become the tech.

I've had my Omtech for a little under a year now - I cut half inch acyrlic all the time, and every cut is perfect - I've engraved a few thousand Lamacoids... A few thousand stainless steel tags... We use it to do print and Cut on coro Since it cuts with a nice clean edge, and does print and cut 100% (More accurate than our Multicam router does even...). I've cut 1" Thick acyrlic on it perfectly.... No edge clean up, flaming, anything. My buddy with the Trotec actually gets me to do some things for him since his trotec isnt strong enough, or has too small of a bed

There hasn't been 1 thing I couldn't do on mine, that he can on his.... However engraving on his is way, way better due to how the trotec is built - But now Omtech pro came out with the same motors...and their new machines should be just as fast... ontop of it also cutting metal. Albeit it, thin metal - and I havent seen it in action, so maybe its garbage at metal cutting.


https://omtechlaser.com/pages/proline-landing-page


I originally bought the omtech thinking it'd be a cheap machine for me to learn the ins and outs of lasers and break it in the process, before I upgrade to a Trotec - But honestly... For the price of omtech, and the pro line coming out, I think when it comes time for me to replace this one... I'll be getting the pro. The ONLY downside I've seen is the Camera system on the Trotec is way better. I bought a Camera for my Omtech... but it goes on the lid, so everytime you raise or lower the bed, its out of focus and isnt perfectly accurate. I never use it because it sucks, I learned to get around it with the dot and framing system, but maybe if I had a good camera I'd find it useful.

Either way... If youre the hands on type that does your own printer maintenance, and you dont mind getting your hands dirty... Lasers are 100X Easier to fix and diagnose than printers are. If you can change your cap tops, you can align your own mirrors, or replace your own motors on a laser... I wouldnt hesitate to recommend Omtech. My machine showed up with a bad red dot laser, and a broken limiter switch... I emailed them, and they sent brand new ones no questions asked. If you buy direct from Omtech, not from their Ebay store... Their support is great. Very happy with my Omtech, and it's paid itself off 5X over now, If I had the space I'd buy the pro right now!

 

[CanuckSigns]

Fairly certain thunder is just assembled in US... but I could be wrong.

What do you hate about the omtech? Honestly, a laser is a laser - The omtech is more of a learning curve, and more for technical hands on people. If you're not someone who will align their own mirrors / level their own bed, and you want a tech to do every piece of maintenance... Than you pretty much need to buy a Trotec or an Epilog. Thunder, Omtech, all the other brands you need to get your hands dirty because you become the tech.

I've had my Omtech for a little under a year now - I cut half inch acyrlic all the time, and every cut is perfect - I've engraved a few thousand Lamacoids... A few thousand stainless steel tags... We use it to do print and Cut on coro Since it cuts with a nice clean edge, and does print and cut 100% (More accurate than our Multicam router does even...). I've cut 1" Thick acyrlic on it perfectly.... No edge clean up, flaming, anything. My buddy with the Trotec actually gets me to do some things for him since his trotec isnt strong enough, or has too small of a bed

There hasn't been 1 thing I couldn't do on mine, that he can on his.... However engraving on his is way, way better due to how the trotec is built - But now Omtech pro came out with the same motors...and their new machines should be just as fast... ontop of it also cutting metal. Albeit it, thin metal - and I havent seen it in action, so maybe its garbage at metal cutting.


https://omtechlaser.com/pages/proline-landing-page


I originally bought the omtech thinking it'd be a cheap machine for me to learn the ins and outs of lasers and break it in the process, before I upgrade to a Trotec - But honestly... For the price of omtech, and the pro line coming out, I think when it comes time for me to replace this one... I'll be getting the pro. The ONLY downside I've seen is the Camera system on the Trotec is way better. I bought a Camera for my Omtech... but it goes on the lid, so everytime you raise or lower the bed, its out of focus and isnt perfectly accurate. I never use it because it sucks, I learned to get around it with the dot and framing system, but maybe if I had a good camera I'd find it useful.

Either way... If youre the hands on type that does your own printer maintenance, and you dont mind getting your hands dirty... Lasers are 100X Easier to fix and diagnose than printers are. If you can change your cap tops, you can align your own mirrors, or replace your own motors on a laser... I wouldnt hesitate to recommend Omtech. My machine showed up with a bad red dot laser, and a broken limiter switch... I emailed them, and they sent brand new ones no questions asked. If you buy direct from Omtech, not from their Ebay store... Their support is great. Very happy with my Omtech, and it's paid itself off 5X over now, If I had the space I'd buy the pro right now!

We are primarily an Engraving shop and have had laser engravers for almost 20 years now, almost exclusivly Trotec machines, now an epilog as well. Our main business is lamacoid tags and for those the trotec is far superior to even the epilog, the software allows a much better workflow, and the machine is lightning fast at engraving, which is something the Chinese machines just can't match.

In the last 5 or so years, there have been really great improvements made to the Chinese machines, to the point where I would consider them as a secondary machine for cutting, the large bed size and powerful tubes work great for cutting.

Where the trotec and epilog machines really shine is in their build quality, we have a 13 year old trotec speedy 300 that still works and is on its original tube, in fact there has never been a single part replaced on it, and up until this year it was used a minimum of 5 hours a day for 13 years.

The epilog is a strange one, it's priced to compete with trotec, but the build quality is not up to snuff, and they are built to be 100% user serviceable, and they expect you to service it yourself (they provide you with very well written instructions on how to change almost every part, and you can call in and talk to a tech) so you are kind of getting a high end Chinese level machine, with a Trotec price point, not sure how that will pan out for their business now that the Chinese machines have gotten so much better over the years.

 

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[Vassago]

Lasers are very simple things.. Basically a very strong light and a few mirrors.

Chinese machines are great, but the software is rubbish.. So buy lightburn.. Makes even the worst piece of junk sing.

Find a cheap 2nd hand machine of a suitable size and off you go.

Bare in mind. The laser tube is a consumable - it will need replacing, so the difference between Chinese and US is who does the replacing.. Its really really not hard to do.. Just fiddly.

I've got a 1300 wide 100watt for £500 off Ebay.. Works a treat. Just needed a bit of TLC.

Lightburn really makes the software side simple

 

[Saturn]

Anyone looked at the Trotec R Series at all? $9900 to start. How new is that?

 

[Vassago]

Anyone looked at the Trotec R Series at all? $9900 to start. How new is that?

Problem with a lot of the big brands is software. They won't work with lightburn which tbh really makes a difference.

Its all horses for courses though.. They are good machines with support, but often only offer small operating areas and are expensive.

Chinese ones are MUCH cheaper, run lightburn (you can use cameras with it), but have minimal official support. Tbh the main support you need are with the tubes and initial setup, but both are very easy to do. Bit like having a saw and being able to change the blade.. Would you call support for that, or learn how to do it yourself?