Hi everyone,
We run a small business in the UK printing and selling edible cake toppers, which are essentially wafer paper or icing paper A4 sheets which we create designs for and print as we require them for orders.
We have been looking for sometime for a solution to being able to offer a pre-cut service to our customers so that they don't have to get their scissors out, which can be very fiddly when it comes to butterflies and flower designs which are popular, and often results in us receiving negative feedback as a result.
We have found on the eurolaser site that there is now tech which enables the laser machine to automatically locate the edges of a design by adding recognition marks to it which are located by a camera, this then allows the machine to know where to make the cuts based on the file you have loaded on your PC (they call this an optical recognition system), as we get through around 100 sheets a day at the moment this is certainly something we would require, as unfortunately no 2 prints are alike in terms of alignment from our printers, and I don't have the time to sit and align designs by myself.
I have contacted eurolaser and am waiting for them to get back to me with a quote for a laser with this tech however I'm not holding out much hope as it looks as though their systems are going to be too expensive for us. In the mean time we have contacted some UK suppliers who have quoted for machines that are unfortunately our of our budget which is around £7K. I know £7k isn't much, but right now that's all we can afford, so we have looked to Chinese companies for a solution. One company in particular seem to be offering similar optical recognition system as eurolaser. They are called 'Goldenlaser', and they call this tech 'CCD'. Is CCD and the eurolaser optical recognition system the same thing?
I haven't got the first clue as to what we would require from Goldenlaser in terms of power etc, and the language barrier isn't helping me to understand what we should be asking for. From what I have read online it seems that a fairly weak laser will do the trick with regard to our product, however, if we are splashing out on a machine like this, I think it may be worth getting a strong(ish) laser so that we can use it for other applications and move our business into more sectors such as acrylic jewellery, and possibly stone/glass engraving to get more fingers into more pies.
Can anyone vouch for Goldenlaser? Do you have any suggestions for the type of machine we would require? Can you recommend a machine in our budget from them/another manufacturer with the CCD system? Or would it be best to stay away from lasers totally when trying to cut wafer paper/icing paper?
Thanks in advance for any advice, please let me know if you need any more details?
Joe