Ideal Laser Engraver?

[Dave Sheldrake]

If you buy from a UK dealer you have all the rights in UK law

An imported machine may not even be legal in some cases and doesn't always meet UK factory / Business regulations for safety.

[DARRELL WOOTTON]

Thanks Dave, thought so.

I have another question but not sure whether to start a new thread on this. I am going to visit and be demonstrated a number of machines from different suppliers. These guys will know the strengths and weakness of their machines and so they can decide what tests will make their machine look top notch. Like with a lot of products, a salesman will only point out the strengths and vary rarely show the weakness of a product.

Are there any particular test cuts or engravings that will help to point out the strengths and weakness of a machine \ laser. i.e: cutting circles, square triangles etc on a 60W\80W at certain power \ speeds.

Thanks again.

Daz....

[Dave Sheldrake]

You will be surprised, at HPC ask for Chris Jacobs or Simon Mallas, both very clever people...neither of them really interested in making a sale as such so will let you have the full run down of any questions you have

Thing is they supply hundreds of machines in the UK so making one more sale here or there in their bigger picture doesn't really have the pressure that smaller sellers have. You won't get the fluff you get from some sellers (oh you can cut 2 mile thick acrylic with this etc etc) that while on paper is true...in the real world means nothing if cycle times are 10 years

Ask what spares your dealer has, ask them how much spares cost, ask them if they can do call outs to fix it if it goes wrong...those are the important things. Being told "We can get them but don't keep them in stock" is usually a bad sign

[Martin Raynsford]

Looks like you've been receiving a lot of good information here. I would imagine that anyone who can find their way to forums like this and work their way through the information is more than capable of importing direct from China.

Just Add Sharks is the UK reseller for Weike but we're not tied to them as a company, we based our decision purely on the quality of their machines.
We have all of our machines in stock so we're not having them built to order but like any good seller if you catch us on a bad day we're going to be out of stock and the wait from China is so very long. We're not a drop shipper, machines are built to our specifications and we ensure the quality of the machines before we send them out again.

I'm pleased to say we've passed the 2 year mark and have been operating for nearly 4 years now, we even have multiple technicians (all appropriately trained) so we don't have to go out to every customer but we do our fair share because it's important to keep in touch with the buyer to find out exactly what they want/expect.

Just Add Sharks has hundreds of satisfied customers, because of our approachable nature they tend to be artists and crafters who don't frequent these kinds of forums, that makes it hard to find reviews from people that have actually used our services. They need a bit more support than the technical people but we're happy to provide it, we still remember when we got our first machines and how intimidating it can all be, people appreciate having someone in the UK who is responsive.

We do use Yongli Tubes in our 40W and 60W machines, afaik RECI don't go down to that size. We also rate our tubes by continuous power rather than maximum power so I suppose we should start saying >40W and >60W but that feels silly.
We briefly used Yongli 80W tubes, the RECI Z2 tubes were the industry standard but RECI stopped manufacturing them and started shipping the S2 tubes instead. We received a dozen tubes that didn't reach 40W of power which was unacceptable to us, we couldn't ship them out to the customers like that so we switched to Yongli 80W tubes to get us over the hump. RECI S2 are now back up to standard so we're using those again but we monitor the situation and react accordingly. All we can do is be open and honest with people about what's happening.

Martin isn't a laser specialist

It's a tough crowd, I have 15 years experience of manufacturing automated systems like laser cutters, I have a degree in automated systems manufacturing and I have racked up thousands of hours using and maintaining laser cutters. I'm not sure how to become classified a specialist?