Ready to Buy Laser Machine -- But How Much is a Fair Price to Pay??

[Bill Cunningham]

One note to Rodney's post.. in a few years, the way all other stuff is going, the American companies will not only be 'competing' with similar quality machines, they will be having 'their' machine made in China as well.. The American market simply can not compete with Chinese labour costs, and like anything else, when the quality starts to match, the work will go 'off shore'..
Then, just as it did with Japan, (Most of us that are old enough to remember the 50's, remember when "made in Japan" meant junk?) the standard of living in China will rise, as well as 'their' manufacturing costs, and thing will begin to balance out until the 'next time'. Only, with China it may take a lot longer that it did with Japan, because it's highly unlikely China will ever be 'occupied' as Japan was..

[Rob Bosworth]

Kim, which one? I've got a batch of Epilog Summits sitting in my storage area, and I know I paid tooooooo much for them. However, if I hold on to them long enough, $$$$$$. (Sure, just like my Nordik Track!)

[Jeffrey Levine]

Hi Cindy, I was recently in your same position (actually I posted the original question on the thread you referenced). I wound up getting the Epilog Mini24 and very happy with the machine and the deal I got. Maybe I could have scoured the earth for more price quotes, and scratched & clawed to do a little better, but I felt like I did enough to make myself comfortable and then just decided to go for it. I work with a number of entrepreneurs / innovators / inventors (as a matter of fact one of the uses for my machine will be to help create parts for prototypes for those purposes) and I appreciate all the challenges they face, how hard they work, and how important it is to support them because of the amazing things they can accomplish. I consider Epilog, as well as some of the other manufacturers, to be very innovative and so if it turns out I paid a couple of extra bucks and supported a good company doing good things, I can live with that. I hope these companies can stay in business and keep doing good things as they face tough market conditions. Whenever you buy something where past, present, and future R&D is factored into the price, it can be hard to judge what is “fair.” I just tried to get reasonably comfortable with the market, wrote the check, and moved on to now enjoying the amazing things these machines can do.

[David Fairfield]

Hi Jeff, same here got a Mini 24. When I was looking to purchase new, I scheduled demos for Epilog and two other manufacturers but only Epilog's sales representative kept his appointment.

A salesman who kept his word, plus the finesse of the engraving focused my interest. The sales guy also provided me with references to other local customers who were doing similar work to what I had in mind, and I called them. Everyone was happy with their machine, and that gave me more confidence.

I did a little negotiating based on my research into prices of other new and used machines, and I'm happy with the deal I got.


None of these manufacturers builds a "perfect" machine, as you can see from the threads on this forum. Bottom line, at the price I paid, I'm very pleased with what mine can do for me.

Dave

PS Regarding chinese machines, I recently "saved" $100 on a Chinese thickness sander, and now I really regret not buying an American made one. Yeah technically it "works" in as far as it reduces the thickness of the stock I run through it, but no two boards sanded to the same thickness. However, its very heavy cast iron and makes a really great door stop.

[Scott Shepherd]

I think Rodney made a great point. As consumers, we probably don't put things into perspective as much as we should. I used to work on the shop floor, building high speed machinery, 10 hour a day, 6 days a week. I went out, bought a pair of $150 boots (15 years ago), and went in to work the next day. Most of the people made fun of me, told me I was an idiot to spend $150 on a pair of boots. They said they could get boots for $35 all day long.

Funny thing is that all of those guys went home beat, with sore feet and aching backs. I went home feeling good, no pains. So what's it worth to you?

If you paid $5000 more for a machine that will last 5 years, that's $1000 per year. That's $83 a month or $3.84 a day, based on a 5 day week. So $4 a day. The question is, is that machine that's $5000 more going to save you $4 a day over the machine that's $5000 less expensive? At $120 per hour shop rate for laser time (in our shop), that's 2 minutes. I can say without question my laser saves me far more than 2 minutes a day compared to it's less expensive competition's similar model. If you'd prefer to use $60 per hour for a laser rate, that's 4 minutes. If it saves 4 minutes a day because of ease of use, speed, less maintenance, then it's probably worth considering.