3D Lasering?

[William Desrochers]

I'd like to know if its possible to do 3D lasering with an Epilog or Pinnacle, or do u have to have a whole nother machines?

thxs,

[Rodne Gold]

The Pinnacle will do 3d lasering , it has a 3d engraving section in the driver.
Having said that , good 3d engraving sometimes looks quite impressive , tho we have never really had as call or demand for it as most artwork is not in the correct format (grey shaded , 256 levels) and generating it is difficult. Success in getting good 3d is dependant on materials, woods work best. You dont have much control of depth or of the relief thats generated and the engraving is pretty rough in parts and requires a polishing pass to sort of smooth it. With most laser generated 3d stuff one is limited by the amount of power the material can handle , for example engraving deep into acrylic without cutting cannot allow the melt generated to go anywhere and it just gets messy.The examples you see on mnfgrs websites are "best case" scenarios.
Any laser that works with colours assigned to speed and power can do a quasi 3d type image. All you do is assign different power and speed settings to various colours and can get from 8-16 different depths in a single drawing. This is often a lot better than true 3d but is slower.
I would never make 3d engraving a deal breaker with a laser purchase. If you want to specialise in that you would be better off with a CnC rotary engraver and a program like artcam that generates 3d reliefs and tool paths from 2d images.
Albeit I havent seen the latest artcam , I do believe it does have a 3d algorithm for lasers where it sort of "slices" the 3d relief into layers and engraves the slices rather than try to vary power in a single pass. This would allow you to do far deeper and probably far smoother reliefs.

If you are talking about those 3d images found in crystals , yes , you will have to buy a completely different and far more expensive machine.

[Kevin Huffman]

Great post rodney.

[Aaron Koehl]

William,

The Epilog/Pinnacle lasers won't do the 3D images in crystal, if that's what you're asking.

[William Desrochers]

ya, i was asking about the 3d in crystal & 3d Relief.

Wow, nice post Rodne, you answered my unasked questions,

I know now which machine i want to get.

Thxs,

[David Stevens]

William,


I have a friend that has a pinnicle and they have had nothing but problems so I would tell you to stay away from them,Have you looked at Universal? They will do 3D (Serface 3D not crystal) and they are the best system out there!!

Just a thought

[Keith Outten]

David Stevens,

You really should announce that you are an employee of Universal Laser Systems if you are making comments concerninig a competitor. On another post (see link below) you had negative comments concerning Epilog. Your views may be accurate or not but you owe our members the truth concerninig your employment status so they will understand the basis of your opinions.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=20597

[William Desrochers]

I had requested info from 3 companys:

Universal
Pinnacle
Epilog

& Pinnacle was the first to respond & send me a info package (less than a week), followed by a call the very next day after i received the package asking if i had any questions. They were very helpful. also they post there prices on their site which i prefer when *looking* to buy. (also i was told that the bearings that the laser head runs on were metal, but on all the pics i've seen they look like white plastic?)

Epilog was the 2nd to respond in sending me a info package (a few days after pinnacle's package) But i had to call them myself, i was able to get ahold of the local dealer/distrubutor here in Quebec, Canada, but they wouldn't give me an extact price. just a between this & that. (also i've been lucky to actually get to run an "Mini18" & "Legend32" at work, they are atleast 5 yrs old. i can say i like them,) But wasn't to fond to find out that they have to replace the motor that runs the laser head back & forth every year on the both of them! maybe the newer versions are built diff, i dunno?

(but its the pinnacles front&back doors for odd pieces thats drawing me towards them.)

3rd'ly, Universal has yet to send me any info what-so-ever?

I see that there are employee's of the 3 companies, that are members here in the forum. I'd appeciate it if i could get in contact with you.

What i'm looking is something that i can do vaneer inlays, etch arcylic, engrave wood, etc...

Thxs

[mike wallis]

Hey William,
I just wanted to clairify on the age of the Mini18 you said was at least 5 years old at your work, the Mini18 model has only been on the market since April/May 2004, about a year. I ordered the Mini18 in April 2004 when it first came out and hopefully won't be having any motor issues anytime soon.
I have nothing to compare the Mini to but I am fairly pleased with it after a year. There were a few bugs to work out in the begining but does everthing I need it to do now.
Good luck with your decision.

[Rodne Gold]

William , We have run lasers for a long time and I run 3x Explorers (laserpros) and started out with mercurys (the pinnacle model is a mercury).
We run our machines with heavy duty cycles , almost 8 hours a day continuously.
It's no skin off my nose which laser you get , I live in South Africa and am a user and have no affiliation to any brand but obviously cos I use GCC machines Im biased toward them, so take my comments in that light.
Buy from the guy that gives you the best service , backup and MOST importantly , warrantee on the tube.
You rarely have other issues than tube ones and the tube is the most expensive bit. We have 3 yr warrantees on our sources and have replaced MANY , both synrads and coherents. (and it has not cost me a penny barring downtime) I really find the tube failures a pain but Im really grateful I dont have to pay. I think with 6 lasers over 4 years or so , I have replaced at LEAST 10 tubes or more!!! Mostly one of the RF boards fail , so its not a total tube failure , but we dont send them for repair , my dealer just ships me a replacement one overnight. We were sent instructions of how to repair the RF boards by Synrad and bought the parts cheap , but you need specialised equipment to do the fix. This tube failure is not confined to my machine , others here using different lasers (epilog , trotec , New hermes , universal etc) have all experienced source failure.
I have replaced a few bearings and motors and a display panel but these are not terrible expensive or difficult to do. Prefferable do not buy a laser that uses stepper motors for the motion systems , there are various reasons but the fact that most stepper based systems are not closed loop (IE dont know where they are) makes life difficult and reduces utility.
Power is most likely more important than table size. Most important is speed at acceptable quality. The faster you can do a job at acceptable quality , the better - time is money in laser time. Bells and whistles like stamp making , 3d , and to some extent rotary ability are minor considerations - the rotary attachment of the GCc is not that user friendly but works well. Drivers too are important , they must work well with your software and enable you to fine tune things. One of the best features of my GCC is that ability to start from the centre of an item , IE you can find the centre of a disc/bowl/irregular item etc and start engraving from there. Another nice feature is the ability to manually move the head to the start position and another is the ability to pause , move the head away , inspect the job and restart and the head comes back to where it left off.
Most lasers will do more or less the same thing - I repeat , service , backup and warrantee (NO QUIBBLE WARRANTEE) are the most important!!!!!! In terms of warrantee , no mnfgr will warrant mirrors and lenses , replacing these can be costly so take care with them.

[William Desrochers]

Hey William,
I just wanted to clairify on the age of the Mini18 you said was at least 5 years old at your work, the Mini18 model has only been on the market since April/May 2004, about a year. I ordered the Mini18 in April 2004 when it first came out and hopefully won't be having any motor issues anytime soon.
I have nothing to compare the Mini to but I am fairly pleased with it after a year. There were a few bugs to work out in the begining but does everthing I need it to do now.
Good luck with your decision.

Mike, i think i got some dates mixed up, the Legend was 4-5 yrs ago its a 50w & the mini18 was in 2004 same time as you got yours, right when they came out, its a 35w. I know they legend they've replaced the laser head motor every yr so far, & the table's motor aswell a few times. For the Mini they've replaced the laser head motor twice so far (& shortly after a few months the red laser became a faint light & supposely the auto focus doesn't work? Was told by the other engraver that the table motor needs to be change to fix that?). I'm gonna find out monday, if there was any other parts that had to be replaced often.

[William Desrochers]

William , We have run lasers for a long time and I run 3x Explorers (laserpros) and started out with mercurys (the pinnacle model is a mercury).
We run our machines with heavy duty cycles , almost 8 hours a day continuously.
It's no skin off my nose which laser you get , I live in South Africa and am a user and have no affiliation to any brand but obviously cos I use GCC machines Im biased toward them, so take my comments in that light.
Buy from the guy that gives you the best service , backup and MOST importantly , warrantee on the tube.
You rarely have other issues than tube ones and the tube is the most expensive bit. We have 3 yr warrantees on our sources and have replaced MANY , both synrads and coherents. (and it has not cost me a penny barring downtime) I really find the tube failures a pain but Im really grateful I dont have to pay. I think with 6 lasers over 4 years or so , I have replaced at LEAST 10 tubes or more!!! Mostly one of the RF boards fail , so its not a total tube failure , but we dont send them for repair , my dealer just ships me a replacement one overnight. We were sent instructions of how to repair the RF boards by Synrad and bought the parts cheap , but you need specialised equipment to do the fix. This tube failure is not confined to my machine , others here using different lasers (epilog , trotec , New hermes , universal etc) have all experienced source failure.
I have replaced a few bearings and motors and a display panel but these are not terrible expensive or difficult to do. Prefferable do not buy a laser that uses stepper motors for the motion systems , there are various reasons but the fact that most stepper based systems are not closed loop (IE dont know where they are) makes life difficult and reduces utility.
Power is most likely more important than table size. Most important is speed at acceptable quality. The faster you can do a job at acceptable quality , the better - time is money in laser time. Bells and whistles like stamp making , 3d , and to some extent rotary ability are minor considerations - the rotary attachment of the GCc is not that user friendly but works well. Drivers too are important , they must work well with your software and enable you to fine tune things. One of the best features of my GCC is that ability to start from the centre of an item , IE you can find the centre of a disc/bowl/irregular item etc and start engraving from there. Another nice feature is the ability to manually move the head to the start position and another is the ability to pause , move the head away , inspect the job and restart and the head comes back to where it left off.
Most lasers will do more or less the same thing - I repeat , service , backup and warrantee (NO QUIBBLE WARRANTEE) are the most important!!!!!! In terms of warrantee , no mnfgr will warrant mirrors and lenses , replacing these can be costly so take care with them.

Rodne, thxs again for your info/opinions. you've answered more unasked questions, . & i've learn of some features that i was unawear of like the starting in the center of a piece!

[Gary Shoemake]

Hi

I have a Pinnacle Mercury and have had nothing but success using it. I totally agree with Rodney with the fact that basically all lasers do the same thing. The bottom line is the level of support that you recieve. I can say that with Pinnacle's tech support I usuallly get a same day response. If I try to contact tech support towards the end of business day, the next day. I have sent emails and have gotten one response that was sent about 4AM.

HTH
Gary

[rich shepard]

Hi ALL
I have a Epilog mini and just love it. It does all I ask and have not had any problems,plus my rep has been great even when I screw up and call him on a Sunday.
rich

[Peter Vasic]

We have a Universal V460 and a brand new Pinnacle GCC spirit.

Rodney knows why we purchased the Spirit...even though he Uses GCC he explained to us the reasons why we should try and keep one brand of Laser , but despite his experience and Knowledge we decided to opt for a Laserpro/Pinnacle/GCC spirit..We so dearly wanted to get another Universal, but the dealer and his dropping us like a hot potato when it broke down and his lack of service and help with the software, made our decision up..
We lost over $15,000 dollars because of the distributors non backup of problems caused by the machinery and software he sold...

He blamed the US manufacturer of the laser and the French manufacturer of the software....

we sent emails to the USA manufacturer of the Laser and to be fair they responded to us, which we were very grateful for, but the French manufacturer of the software ignored our emails . ( we went thru seven dongles over a number of months before our machine was productive )

The Australian distributor eventually told us..we were basically on our own..sucked in....thats life,..... accept your situation and move on...


so to answer your question...The Spirit/GCC/Pinnacle/Laserpro is a brilliant machine, the only reason they put them down in the USA is because they ...perform the same or better than the USA manufactured machines....for thousands $$$ less..

Now to our V460 Universal, even though the local distributor dropped us and our plea for help to assist the downtime...it now performs admirably, it is however our second machine...it is 10 watts greater in power than the Spirit,
But the firmware in the spirit allows it to perform at least to the same standard as the V460...so much so that it is the machine of preferance in the workshop.

Corel is used in our workshop as well as our main production software.

It performs brilliantly on both machines...

1. Go for Service
2. Go for price
3. dont be sucked in by B.S. a laser is a laser.

regards
Peter