What's your idea of the perfect laser engraver?

[Robert Ray]

I am always looking over the features and specs of new laser engravers, looking for the perfect laser. I have a list of desired features I'll share.

1) Place and engrave red dot pointer.

2) 100 watts of air cooled power.

3) .001" cutting kerf or finer with a 1/32" or better depth of focus.

4) 24" or wider table with feed through doors.

5) internal light to illuminate work

6) Focus lens protected inside air assist nozzle assembly

7) Solinoid activated air assist with the type of valve that the air can be toggled from nozzle to exhaust, so moisture can't build up from compressing the air.

8) Soilinoid controlled dust sweepback that toggles as above.

9) Encoder equipt servo motors instead of stepper motors for motion.

10) Laser reflected auto focus instead of mechanical plunger autofocus.

11) Internal software for alignments, calibrations, and tests, including a 3 point autofocus table leveling script.

12) Quick change electronics components and laser head behind an easy access cover.

13) Electronics and laser compartments isolated from dust entry.

14) Flat work area cover with gas piston assisted hinges, that is sized such that a replacement can be cut on the machine itself in case it breaks or is scratched up.

15) Software files included for cutting spare parts like the lid, home flags, lens cover shrouds, etc.

What is your list of feature features for the perfect engraver?

[Scott Shepherd]

36-24-34 That's what my perfect laser engraver would look like

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Kenneth Hertzog]

one that work each and every time and does exactly what you want it to do with out error. never needs any parts or repair and everything I want to put into it will fit.

what means the most to me is AMERICAN tech support
and when I call someone they can speak and understand english.

ken

[Joe Pelonio]

one that work each and every time and does exactly what you want it to do with out error. never needs any parts or repair and everything I want to put into it will fit.

what means the most to me is AMERICAN tech support
and when I call someone they can speak and understand english.

ken

I agree on the support, but I also do understand that anything with moving parts is going to have parts wear out eventually. Kenneth, was your tongue in your cheek when you wrote that?

I'd be happy if the parts would last at least 5 years under heavy use. But then they haven't managed to do that with cars yet and they have been working on it for over 100 years.

[Kenneth Hertzog]

Joe

Robert wrote about the PERFECT laser
My idea of a perfect laser is listed.
You can bet I know better
I didn't have mine a month and the off/on switch went bad.
It was really nice to call colorado and have them send the parts out.

And Joe if cars lasted as long as we wanted them to they would never
sell another new one. Being a certified state insp machanic you would be
suprised what i've seen wore out.

ken

[Tom Winters]

What is the perfect laser system?

This question has been a hot topic between my business partner, Dean Novakowski, and I. The debate still pushes forward. We are in complete agreement on what we should do to our machines using the resources we have available.

The problem we face is where to start? We are a smaller sized company that can potentially have a huge outreach in the market. We do have resources that are not easily obtained by anyone. The meaning behind that comment is that we can add a lot more to our machines than what will be listed in this post .

Our machines are imported from China. Yes, they are CHINESE! NO, this does not mean they are junk. I really get sick from reading posts about how terrible chinese machines are. Quality is only an issue when you by pass steps. If there are machines out there not working, made in china, and replacement parts and proper technical support can not be found then a step was missed when purchasing. That topic will be left alone. That is not my dispute.

So we have chinese machines, and a small sized budget. Even if 90% of forum readers do not agree with the quality topic, the majority should agree with me in that no matter how good a machine is, there is always room for improvement. We have already pushed for the development of:

100 watt and 120 watt CO2 Glass Tubes (we now have them)

RF Units up to 100 watts (we now have them)

NEW Software (we are wrapping up the devolopment of a driver system with Link Motion)

With our small budget, should we:

A.) Focus on the development of Sealed CO2 glass tubes that have 10,000 hrs and will only force us to raise our prices at a slight incline. (Including RF units with wattages up to 700 watts)
B.) Push for servo motors to be released with our machines sooner rather than later
C.) Have the auto-focus come stock with our machines and get rid of the focus tool
D.) Besides for the focusing, adapt more user friendly ways of running graphics, operating at different parameters, and performing daily/weekly/monthly maintenance checks
E.) Develop more sturdy honeycomb vector tables
F.) Forget about the above mentioned for now and focus on bringing these machines into our inventory and not make customers wait 30 - 45 days

Dean, our current customers, our future customers, and myself would appreciate feed back. The question, "What's your idea of the perfect laser engraver" is now asked by me. I want to provide someone their dream machine, but I will be honest in saying that we are still aways away from that . I want to thank you in advance. I hope this message does not offend anyone, for I have no hidden motives. There are many professionals on here that have been doing this longer than Dean or I. Your thoughts are highly valued.

[Scott Shepherd]

Interesting that so many of the "perfect system" options are already on a lot of machines, yet the one thing missing from the lists is price.

You can already get most of those options, but you can't get them for $3000.

[Stephen Beckham]

Tom - I'd leave the auto focus off... I took my plunger off several months ago and have been a lot better off. What I would like in lieu of would be the z coordinate up on the screen while in focus mode. I sent this suggestion to Epilog when they added the x/y coordinates (no word back yet). The autofocus was nice when I was new - but now it's a nuisance. Plus - when you do a run of 30 items exactly the same, I don't need it to focus 30 times...

Anyway - like everyone else - I use a lot of items like plaques, plates or glass - also plastics from Romark etc... if I knew the z coordinate, it would become second nature to move to a z setting for 1/16 plastic or another z setting for 3/4 wood plaque etc... No tools involved.

With that in mind - why can I use a focus setting in the driver. Set the speed/power and z setting for items. Yea.... I know naysayers - I would still have to focus from time to time. Heck I do it every time right now. But I'll use the same two as examples 1/16" plastic or 3/4" plaques - if I knew the setting for z - I could push it to the laser, no plungers, no focus tools etc...

[Stephen Beckham]

Another thing I'd like to have on my Epilog is that darned rotator - 'rotated' - it would make the bats no problem if I could stick them out the front door. They made the mini where it's not possible to stick it out the side - even if you cut holes... So my rotator is limited to items less than 18" inches on a 24" bed...

So - I guess this post would be about better pass through capability.

[Tom Winters]

Thank you Steve. The auto focus issue is always brought up to us. Most big name machines in the United Stated have this feature included in all of their machines. Many think that this is must because they do not realize that the time involved in manually putting a laser beam in focus and automatically putting a beam in focus take the same amount of time. Thank you for shedding a different pro vs. con upon me that I did not realize about auto. focus trying to focus per item.

[Jack Harper]

Interesting that so many of the "perfect system" options are already on a lot of machines, yet the one thing missing from the lists is price.

You can already get most of those options, but you can't get them for $3000.

Scott,

Lower price sounds good, however, think of the consequence of lower prices. If machines become equivalent to nice printer prices, everyone will have them and we won't have the business. While price is sometimes hard to swallow, it is a barrier to entry for competition. I myself considered this heavily in deciding my choice of laser. I knew that if I went the distance on a more unique machine, capable of things other lower priced machines could do, I could set my self apart from in the field of competition.

[Richard Rumancik]

Tom - I'd leave the auto focus off... I took my plunger off several months ago and have been a lot better off. What I would like in lieu of would be the z coordinate up on the screen while in focus mode. I sent this suggestion to Epilog when they added the x/y coordinates (no word back yet). The autofocus was nice when I was new - but now it's a nuisance. Plus - when you do a run of 30 items exactly the same, I don't need it to focus 30 times...

Well, personally, I like the idea of optical autofocus, and yes, I stopped using the mechanical autofocus on mine as well. There was another thread that touched on this. With optical autofocus I could zero on the surface and then have the digital readout show the deviation. With higher quality plaques from the same batch, you might get away with focusing once. If you are engraving items such as knives or wood novelties you will see a lot of variation, especially with imported items. If I load 10 knives with wooden handles I often find 5 different thicknesses. With a 1.5" FL lens you don't have very much depth of field so you lose quality if you don't pay attention to focus. It would be nice to have a very fast optical focus, as well as on-the-fly re-focusing. If I could define focus points or workpiece area in my file then it could "probe" these points first and then create a "topological" map of the work zone and adjust as required.

Or how about if I drag the carriage (and optical autofocus sensor) over the four corners of a workpiece (say a plaque) by hand and it collects data and finds an average for the surface and then sets the focus appropriately.

[Richard Rumancik]

What is your list of feature features for the perfect engraver?

I want to see the control panel show actual speed in inches per second in real time. With inexpensive accelerometers these days it is not out of the question.

Also, I want the laser to do a self-calibration of actual wattage at startup, and display actual watts being delivered from the laser on the control panel during a job. A Synrad power meter costs $250 or so. We need an inexpensive $25 sensor that will allow a quick calibration within 5% so we know what the laser is actually doing during a job.

Quoting speed as a % of maximum, and power as a % of the wattage available (based on when the laser was new, which has a tolerance of maybe -0%/+20%) was fine 20 years ago. We need something better now.

As it is there is no reliable relationship for laser settings between different manufacturers, or even within a manufacturer's line of products.

[Rodne Gold]

1) Combination Galvo and flying head for super fast processing
2) Combo Yag and Co2 for multiple material processing
3) Look ahead optimization that will cut cycle times
4) Skip white space that works
5) Auto alignment
6) Auto power compensation for constant power delivery all over the table
7) Roll and flat processing ability , ie capability to cut materials on rolls
8) Optical registration system so that one can print crtop marks or some other mark and take from another machine to be lasered precisely.
9) Auto gas/air assist so one can have more control of pressures and type of gas used.
10) Sealed optics for low maintenance
11) Variable AF - ie changes with respect to material height during the job
12) 3d interolation and the ability to add axes
13) Easy loading/unloading system for multiple jobs
14) Extra large non volatile job buffer
15) Vacuum table and a decent vector cutting table
16) Fire supression
17) Motorised air assist directability
18) Ability to "tilt" beam (beveled cutting)
19) Variable spot size while doing a single job
20) Variable lens focal length

Oh and it must make coffee and toast in the morning

[Mike Null]

A number of the more sophisticated features along with some incredible software are available on this machine from Japan.

http://www.keyence.com/products/barc...ad6714d95e721a