Laser engraver: taking the low road

[salsaman]

I'm very interested in running my own laser engraver, and am curious about commodity Chinese machines (<$2000) as opposed to more expensive machines like the Epilog Zing (~$8000). My primary interests are cutting and engraving acrylic, soft woods, and other plastics, mostly 1/4" thick or thinner. This would be used primarily for my own projects and experiments, but I would likely offer some services (like "tech tattoos") if I can get something working reliably.

Of course I would prefer an Epilog-- I can only find raves about it searching online-- but the lowest prices are too high for me to consider at the moment. I don't mind having to tinker with a low cost machine to keep it running, but complaints about less expensive machines have me spooked, so I want to make sure to do as much research as possible before making any decision!

I've sifted through the posts here-- great info! I'm also looking at these forums:
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=347
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/forumdisplay.php?f=8
Are there other forums worth checking out?

Most importantly I guess: which vendors or distributors are particularly helpful, and which should avoid at all costs?!

Any information about lower cost machines would be most appreciated

[250 Coupe]

Your question sent me off to eBay and I don't like what I see.

I looked at a Triumph TR-6040H and it looks like it's not well engineered or well built. The second mirror is mounted on a piece of all-thread, the laser tube looks like it's mounted with a single metal strap and the screws for the USB jacks aren't even counter sunk properly. The table height adjustment is a knob on one corner of the table and I don't think it will be (or stay) square to the laser head. There is no cutting grid or vacuum hold down. No mention of dust/smoke evacuation. No rulers on the table. The fact that it's water cooled makes me nervous.

I've no doubt that it can do all the things shown in the listing but wonder how much tinkering it needs and what compromises you need to make.

Michael

[salsaman]

Things ended up working out nicely-- yesterday I bought an old (1994!) Epilog Summit from a sign company. It was on mothballs for years but fired up right away. It came with a PC running Windows98 and CorelDraw, also a rotary attachment, all for a very fair price Compared to the less expensive machines on EBay, this thing is built like a tank; looks like I found a different "low road"!

I'm completely new to this and didn't have time to prepare for the laser's arrival-- I had to act fast!

So far I've installed 3" casters on the cart for easy moving, and the old, slow PC works fine. No clue how to set up the rotary attachment; I mailed Epilog for information, hoping I can get a PDF or printed manual.

Most import is that it's working! I've done some simple testing on tongue depressors, thin acrylic sheet, paper, cardboard, a banana, and a tortilla

So... now to tackle some more complicated stuff:

• How to vent and filter the exhaust? I have it hooked up to my shopvac, which is NOT ok for more than testing... and arguably not OK even for testing. There's a window in the office I could use as a vent outlet, if I need one. Looking at the info on ladyada.net (http://www.ladyada.net/library/laser/equipment.html), I need to investigate products from Electrocorp and Purex; any others?
• How to transfer files to the PC? It's running Windows98 and has every slot filled with extra SCSI and parallel port cards. It does have serial ports and a modem, plus 3.5", 5.25" (!), and a CD ROM drive. USB but no ethernet! Best would be to swap one of the port cards for an ethernet card, but I don't want to upset the delicate balance.
• Looks like I need to buy a halotron fire extinguisher.

What else? Any suggestions are very much appreciated!!

[Philly]

Could you use a USB wireless dongle, then install drop box on the machine(if possible) and share files that way?

[250 Coupe]

You can get a usb-ethernet gizmo or use a USB data transfer cable. There may be issues with drivers for WIN98 so you'll need to do your homework before shelling out your hard earned cash.

http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... &CatId=445
http://www.compusa.com/applications/cat ... 20ethernet

Epilog support has been very good although I must admit that I've not called them in 7 or 8 years. Have not needed to, it's that well built.
You might take a look at the manuals here,
http://www.epiloglaser.com/laser_manuals.htm
They don't go as far back as your Summit but the Legend 24/32 manual shows the rotary fixture I have.

I've only had a few fires, easily put out with a trigger sprayer full of water but I take great care not to drown my machine. My Halon extinguisher has lost pressure so I keep a Tundra brand spray can extinguisher near the machine but the best thing is to not leave the room.

Michael

[salsaman]

Thanks for the suggestion, a USB dongle for wireless or ethernet would still need some drivers, and I can't get USB to even recognize a thumb drive, not sure if it works at all. The CD ROM drive doesn't seem to read CD's either... For now, a colleague is lending me a USB floppy drive for my Mac so I can just use the old sneakernet

The plan is to replace the PC entirely with something slightly newer/faster with a network card. Not sure how to get CorelDraw running on that, but the Epilog driver should transfer fine on a floppy.

I ended up ordering a small halotron fire extinguisher since I'm renting and want to have safety covered, should be delivered Thursday.

I called Epilog yesterday and they were very helpful-- they sent me a Summit manual from an old stack, I pay only for shipping. Looking forward to using the rotary attachment-- I can't figure out where to plug in the Molex connector Glad to hear your Legend is holding up well without much fuss!

[250 Coupe]

Sounds like either the USB updates for 98 may not be installed or it's not turned on in the BIOS.

A floppy drive and sneakernet should work fine, most of my files are under 45kb. I picked up a 100mb USB zip drive for $6 at a thrift store a few months back and there are still parallel port units out there.

I ran a 333mhz P2 with WIn98 and CorelDraw 9 for years. With that setup, I sent the files to the laser via Ethernet. I'm now using a 2.8Ghz Dell with XP and CorelDraw 12 and was using Ethernet until the software quit working, I then put in a parallel port card and a 25 foot cable.

Older versions of CorelDraw can be found on surplus software sites but you do have to spend some time searching. You can try a software relocation program to move your current version to a new PC. I tried one time with PC Relocator but couldn't get it to work.

I'm interested in your extinguisher, I'll have to look halotron up. Well whataya know, the first place I found one for sale at is 15 minutes from my house.

On my machine, the molex is tucked just under the edge of the left hand guide rail. It sticks out about 1/4"

Michael

[Dead_Triumph_Laser]

I should just warn anyone else considering buying from Triumph that there is absolutely NO back up when anything goes wrong.

More depressingly there is no attempt at customer service - denial that any problem exists is more like it.

To be fair when the machine was working it did the job - and the initial comments are perhaps a bit unfair - but my machine only had light use before the problem started.

I ran into problems with the onboard computer - or the stepper motor drivers - or the stepper motors - the problem hasn't been addressed despite a lot of emailing. If you wish to see the problem then visit here http://www.betterbeverage.net/triumph where I have put a video and explanation on the problem I encountered.

Now I appreciate that this may be an old post and that luckily for you you found an alternative.

But it came out on page1 of Google so I thought that I'd just register and flag up the potential problem if anyone else is thinking of buying a machine from Triumph.

If anyone wants to know more please feel free to ask.

Similarly if you wish to distribute this post to anyone who may be interested feel free.

[shobley]

I recently received a Laser Engraver from a Chinese vendor through eBay.
(strong_signstech)

The cabinet is quite well made, and the mechanical fixtures seem to be adequate - however there was a lot that needed to be fixed.

I did a strip-down and rebuild, cleaned all the optics, added proper spring returns to the mirror mounts (I have some "real" mirror mounts down in the basement that fell of the back of a laser harp - I might therefore be replacing them). Then spent a couple of hours futzing around with the alignment.

So far it's working correctly, but the software seems a bit clunky. I may well be replacing the controller with a proper one and hooking up Mach3.

I started a diary here: http://www.stephenhobley.com/blog/2011/ ... -part-one/

Steve

[bcook65]

I myself have been considering getting one of the relatively inexpensive laser engravers to play with.. However I have seen some people say that they need a lot of work to be made useable, but have not seen much on what all is typically done to make them useable. I know many of these are from china but, they are not good to go out of the box?
What all in general needs to be done?
this is the one I am lookng at:
http://www.allimageprinting.com/us/laser_engraver.html

Would greatly appreciate any guidance on this as I would love to get into this as a hobby but dont have $5K or more kicking around