So ARA attendees, Universals next big thing is...?

[Sean Coyne]

I'm sure somebody has organic and metal materials in one unit somewhere but it's rather rare I would think.

I agree Dave. The coworkers and I were trying to think of applications for this, that couldnt be achieved on two separate machines. Im sure they are out there but it was hard to think of any.

[Rodne Gold]

http://www.eurolaser.tv/index.php?id...5D=Publicvideo

eurolaser_3acomposites_router_laser_knife-016.jpg

[matthew knott]

I guess if you limited on space it might be handy to have one BIG laser that does everything, but the flexx is pretty much the same thing, personally i would rather have 2 separate lasers, that way at least if one breaks you can use the other, plus you can do 2 jobs at once. CO2's are good on pretty much everything Fibers aren't so you would really struggle to find a use for on the fly changes (no doubt someone will but its going to be rare). For fun this year im going to convert a Chinese CO2 to a fiber as i have a spare 20watt fiber source and all optics to create a cheap large format fiber, but i cant even see that getting much use, Galvos much better for fibers in most cases, large format you would probably be better with print or chemical etch !!
Do like the look of the Eurolaser, now that would be a useful tool

[John Champlain]

Wow, as soon as I finish my tunnel into Ft. Knox I'll see about getting one of those.
John

[Kev Williams]

...personally i would rather have 2 separate lasers, that way at least if one breaks you can use the other, plus you can do 2 jobs at once.

Bingo! Those are the exact reasons I have so many machines! First, so I can do more than one job at once! I love it when the planets align and I can get 8 or 9 machines running jobs at the same time! Second, it's nice to have some backup machines. One of the reasons I decided to buy the Triumph was in case something goes wrong with the other machines! (knock on my head).

I'd love a fiber laser, but I'd rather it be its own machine...

[Dave Sheldrake]

I'm with you on that Matt, even on space somebody who can rack up $140,000 is likely to be able to get some more space if needed. I'd say the new ULS is a white elephant in the living room, nice proof of concept but not much else. I'd have the 2m x 3m Chinese 600 watt Fiber at a 1/3rd of that price and just use it to murder out non critical parts, then buy a Glavo and a 200 watt Glass Tube Gantry to go with it and still have enough left out of the budget to get a new car.

A 50 watt max fiber Gantry.....not enough power to cut anything sensible and too slow to be a good marker.A bit of fun but at that price, expensive fun.

I asked my guys yesterday as well Sean, none of them could remember a job we have done in the last 12 years that would benefit from the new ULS.

cheers

Dave

[Nicolas Silva]

$85k+? I'm out.

[Kev Williams]

Hmm. Maybe the NEXT next big thing from ULS will be a half-price sale...

[Dave Sheldrake]

A profiling Z axis (follow head) would be my choice if I could have anything fitted to a basic laser.

cheers

Dave

[Jeff Woodcock]

That is what we are able to do with our CNC router. The Z axis goes up and down to follow the contours of the 3D spindle engraving to maintain the laser diodes focal point on the surface of the material's profile.

It takes two different images to generate two different gcode files and then we combine them to accomplish this. Z axis moves from a heightmap greyscale image from the 3D spindle engraving file and then from the original image that the heightmap was created from, the A axis moves to shade the profile with an analog modulated laser diode. We end up with a X, Y, Z and A on each line in the gcode file to run in Mach3.

Jeff