Michael Simpson Virgina
06-04-2009, 3:54 AM
Well I have had my Epilog Mini24 laser for about a month now. It has been running nonstop doing various jobs. For all you noobs out there I thought I would post my initial impressions as well as a few interesting facts.
Noise
-------
When I originally ordered the laser it was my goal to have the laser sitting beside me so I could design and test fit pieces for my Robotics company. Well that lasted about 2 or 3 days. The noise these air cooled lasers make is incredible. Most of the noise is generated by the fans. My mini has 6 high-speed 80mm fans that run at full speed whenever the unit is switched on. Originally I though the noise from my blower would be the noise maker but this is not so.
To solve the problem I have the laser on the other side of the room. It sits in a doorway so the noise is pointed in the direction of another room. This helps quite a bit. I also turn the laser off between jobs. I purchased two of those Belken RF switches. One for my blower and the other for the laser. The switches are located on my desk just under the monitor.
The ULS model that I was demoed was also very loud. However when not in use the fans run at a lower volume. This is something that Epilog should look into doing. FYI I have a very large wood shop with all kinds of tools including a very large cyclone Dust collector. My laser is easily as loud as the dust collector and even louder than some of my power tools.
In a commercial environment the noise is very acceptable. However in a home or office environment it may not be. Keep this in mind. Generally the lower the wattage the less noise the laser will make because it does not need as much air flow to keep the laser tube cool.
Air Assist
------------
When I ordered my laser I was told that if I wanted to use a tank compressor I would have to reverse the direction of the air solenoid or the system would leak. If requested Epilog is supposed to do this reversal for you. Well they forgot and I had to do it. This is done by removing the back panel from the laser and removing a couple of screws from the solenoid. Once the screws are removed you simply rotate the solenoid and reconnect the hose and replace the back panel. Took me all of 10 minutes.
I run a 20 Gal 15 Amp compressor. The compressor is set for 30PIS and a hose runs from the compressor to the laser 25’ away. On the laser stand I have a filter and an additional regulator. Here I set the pressure between 1-10Psi. When I vector cut the compressor will kick in once or twice per evening.
The air assist works well and you can tell the difference when it is not used. One of the reasons I did not choose the ULS Versa model is they do not have a solenoid. This means the compressor will run constantly which pretty much leaves you with using a continuous run air brush compressor which is even more noise.
Printer Driver
-------------------
Again a couple reasons I chose the Epilog over the ULS model. First is that Universal does not yet have a 64-bit driver. Also they do not support a network driver. Both the 64-bit driver and network capabilities work flawlessly with one exception. When I started to use the color mapping feature on the 64-bit printer driver I found that I could not turn off a color or force it to raster. If it was a hairline it would always vector cut. Epilog now knows about this bug and I am sure it will be fixed at some point but since the driver has to be signed by Microsoft I would hold my breath. The work around is to set the power setting to 0 and the speed to 100. The laser will go through the motions but won’t do anything. At this point not sure how to mix rastering and vectoring when using the color map feature.
Raster Engraving/Marking
----------------------------------
At first I was a little disappointed at this ability as I would get all kinds of regular patterns or banding when I raster photographs. However, I later found that this was due to the way Corel resized images. I now use Photoshop for all but my photographic rastering. Photo shop has much better scaling options. You just need to make sure you set the DPI to that of your final engraving before you resize. Once sized I can also save the image and load it into Corel as long as I don’t resize or change the DPI it works (most of the time)
I have done full bed rastering, 24” x 12” at 100% speed and it has worked great. I am very happy with the results.
So far the kinds of things I have don’t rastering on are:
Wood (Business Cards)
Painted Whiteboard (Business Cards, Pictures, Trivets, Coasters)
Acrylic
Glass
Granite
Colored Cardboard
Painted Metal
Matt Board
Laser Tile
Ceramic Tile
Hard Board
Vector Cutting
--------------------
90% of what I do is Vector cutting. This is the main reason I purchased the laser. For the most part I am very happy with the cutting results of my laser. The laser was purchased as a 50 Watt laser, but is very hot for a 50. I use all the 60 watt recommendations in the book. The sheet that came with the laser showed many of the tests as high as 58 Watts and with an average over 56 Watts. This is good because one thing you need when cutting is power baby.
My target material when I purchased the laser was 1/8” Acrylic and Hardboard. I cut both of these at 25% speed and 100% Power. I get very good results. If I want a high quality edge on my acrylic I drop the speed down to 20%. When I cut my acrylic I keep the paper on as it gives me a better finish.
My laser can cut 1/8-1/4 Acrylic, Wood, Hardboard, ABS all day long. I have cut other materials up to 1/2” but it is a struggle. For instance I have cut 1/2" Acrylic but it was slow. More on this later.
Some of the materials that I have vector cut:
Acrylic up to 1/2"
Popular wood up to 1/2"
Hobby Plywood up to 1/4"
ABS up to 1/8”
Hard Board up to 3/8”
MDF up to 1/2"
Cardboard
Bologna
Circuit Boards (2 passes)
Various other Woods with varying results
All in all I will say I am very happy with the vector cutting on my machine. It’s important that you know that if you want to cut 1/2” material you had better get yourself a 100-120Watt laser and then it still might take two passes and the results may be less than satisfactory.
Vector Marking
---------------------
What is vector marking? This is when you set the laser to a setting that will only cut so far into the material. For instance 100% speed and 100% power is great for placing very fast marks on hardboard or acrylic. There is a down side to this though. The Epilog servo system has issues when vectoring at high speed. If you cut a diagonal line or a circle at 100% speed you get little fluctuations in the lines. Even slowing the speed down to 80% will they start to fade. The good news for me is that when I cut at 20% or 30% speed the little oscillations go away. When I do vector marking at 100% speed it’s a quick bit of text so its not that obvious.
What causes these fluctuations is not clear. I have talked to a few individuals that are very unhappy with them and others (Like me) who they don’t really affect. If you are a model maker or a architect designer I think these would be a deal killer. I did cut out some small items in cardstock when I first got my laser and noticed this issue. But for the most part I was happy. It does take away from the precisian when cutting very small parts out of very thin material. In any case slow down the laser and they go away. I have been told that on the ULS machines this problem does not exist. I can’t confirm or deny this but I will say that the edges on the materials that I cut when I did my Demo were not that good. Again which is one reason I purchased the Epilog mini.
Lens’s
---------
My laser came with a 2.0” lens installed. I also purchased a 1.5” and a 4.0” lens. For 99.9% of the work I do the 2.0” lens is perfect. I installed the 1.5” lens and did some cutting and rastering. I found that the 1200DPI setting now seems to show better results. I did not ever see any when using the 2.0” lens.
When vector cutting with the 1.5” lens the kerf is defiantly smaller and therefore you can get a more intricate cut but I don’t recommend it on anything thicker than 1/8”.
One area where I found the 1.5” lens very useful was in cutting the 1/16 – 3/32 extruded acrylic. It puts more power to the point so I can cut it faster with less stress on the part. When doing this I also get less stink.
The only use I have found for the 4” lens is that when cutting 1/2" stock. I get a straighter, cleaner cut. The down side is the air assist is useless and you have to manually focus. Not an issue as with 1/2” stock you have to focus abit into the material anyway. I think a small brass tube could solve the air assist issue.
When cutting out small parts that fit together keep in mind the different lenses will have different kerfs so some parts may not fit together.
As far as changing lens goes. It only takes a couple of minutes. It did take me a while to locate a 5/32” Allen wrench, which is what is needed. You simple remove two small screws and swap out the lens. No alignment just swap and go.
Cleaning
-----------
I have not yet had to do any maintenance other then wiping off the bottom of the lens. Hardboard is some nasty stuff So I have to wipe it off every couple days under heavy use. I use the same lens pads I use for my photography so it’s a non issue for me. It only takes a few seconds. One thing I did pick up at the local hardware store was one of those little mirrors on a stick. It lets me see the lens when I wipe it off to make sure I got all the fluid off.
Software
-------------
The software driver (both 32-bit and 64-bit) has some nice features. For one the ability to go directly from photoshop to engraving without the need for a product like photograv is a plus for me. One think I like about the epilog driver and again a driving reason to why I purchased, is the front panel display. Once you send a job to the laser it’s fire and forget. You can power down your PC if you want.
For instance I had a 24” x 12” sheet with several cutouts. I sent the job to the laser and powered off my laptop. On the front panel I selected the File I had just sent and told it to start by hitting the Go button. When it was done the laser beeped and I removed the cut parts and added another sheet. I did this 17 times. No PC, No Driver. Also note that you can send several pages or documents over . I prefer different documents as they are easier to tell apart on the front panel.
I have a product that when ordered consists of 6 sheets of cutout parts. I print them all from my PC and then shut down the software and or PC. The rest is done at the laser. Note that can save and load your laser settings when in the Epilog driver.
A lot on this board has been said about Job control software. I got a chance to see the latest driver for the ULS machines. Its pretty snazzy. I like the way that the complete job and settings can be saved and they way you can bring up a saved job and look at it on the screen then move it to a different location. This is very powerful. But again you must have a dedicated PC to do all this. The PC also must be very close to the laser. I would love to see something like this done on the Epilog laser as its probably one of its weaker points.
Final Thoughts
--------------------
If I was doing it all over again would I purchase the same laser. The answer is yes. The 24” x 12” bed has proven perfect for me. All the material that I use, comes or can be easily cut into 24 x 12” sheets. For instance I can get a 8’ x 4’ piece of hardboard or whiteboard and cut it down to 16 sheets (minis the saw kerf).
I do wish I had more power though but for the size and budget I don’t think I could get any more power. My next laser will be at least 100 watts.
Noise
-------
When I originally ordered the laser it was my goal to have the laser sitting beside me so I could design and test fit pieces for my Robotics company. Well that lasted about 2 or 3 days. The noise these air cooled lasers make is incredible. Most of the noise is generated by the fans. My mini has 6 high-speed 80mm fans that run at full speed whenever the unit is switched on. Originally I though the noise from my blower would be the noise maker but this is not so.
To solve the problem I have the laser on the other side of the room. It sits in a doorway so the noise is pointed in the direction of another room. This helps quite a bit. I also turn the laser off between jobs. I purchased two of those Belken RF switches. One for my blower and the other for the laser. The switches are located on my desk just under the monitor.
The ULS model that I was demoed was also very loud. However when not in use the fans run at a lower volume. This is something that Epilog should look into doing. FYI I have a very large wood shop with all kinds of tools including a very large cyclone Dust collector. My laser is easily as loud as the dust collector and even louder than some of my power tools.
In a commercial environment the noise is very acceptable. However in a home or office environment it may not be. Keep this in mind. Generally the lower the wattage the less noise the laser will make because it does not need as much air flow to keep the laser tube cool.
Air Assist
------------
When I ordered my laser I was told that if I wanted to use a tank compressor I would have to reverse the direction of the air solenoid or the system would leak. If requested Epilog is supposed to do this reversal for you. Well they forgot and I had to do it. This is done by removing the back panel from the laser and removing a couple of screws from the solenoid. Once the screws are removed you simply rotate the solenoid and reconnect the hose and replace the back panel. Took me all of 10 minutes.
I run a 20 Gal 15 Amp compressor. The compressor is set for 30PIS and a hose runs from the compressor to the laser 25’ away. On the laser stand I have a filter and an additional regulator. Here I set the pressure between 1-10Psi. When I vector cut the compressor will kick in once or twice per evening.
The air assist works well and you can tell the difference when it is not used. One of the reasons I did not choose the ULS Versa model is they do not have a solenoid. This means the compressor will run constantly which pretty much leaves you with using a continuous run air brush compressor which is even more noise.
Printer Driver
-------------------
Again a couple reasons I chose the Epilog over the ULS model. First is that Universal does not yet have a 64-bit driver. Also they do not support a network driver. Both the 64-bit driver and network capabilities work flawlessly with one exception. When I started to use the color mapping feature on the 64-bit printer driver I found that I could not turn off a color or force it to raster. If it was a hairline it would always vector cut. Epilog now knows about this bug and I am sure it will be fixed at some point but since the driver has to be signed by Microsoft I would hold my breath. The work around is to set the power setting to 0 and the speed to 100. The laser will go through the motions but won’t do anything. At this point not sure how to mix rastering and vectoring when using the color map feature.
Raster Engraving/Marking
----------------------------------
At first I was a little disappointed at this ability as I would get all kinds of regular patterns or banding when I raster photographs. However, I later found that this was due to the way Corel resized images. I now use Photoshop for all but my photographic rastering. Photo shop has much better scaling options. You just need to make sure you set the DPI to that of your final engraving before you resize. Once sized I can also save the image and load it into Corel as long as I don’t resize or change the DPI it works (most of the time)
I have done full bed rastering, 24” x 12” at 100% speed and it has worked great. I am very happy with the results.
So far the kinds of things I have don’t rastering on are:
Wood (Business Cards)
Painted Whiteboard (Business Cards, Pictures, Trivets, Coasters)
Acrylic
Glass
Granite
Colored Cardboard
Painted Metal
Matt Board
Laser Tile
Ceramic Tile
Hard Board
Vector Cutting
--------------------
90% of what I do is Vector cutting. This is the main reason I purchased the laser. For the most part I am very happy with the cutting results of my laser. The laser was purchased as a 50 Watt laser, but is very hot for a 50. I use all the 60 watt recommendations in the book. The sheet that came with the laser showed many of the tests as high as 58 Watts and with an average over 56 Watts. This is good because one thing you need when cutting is power baby.
My target material when I purchased the laser was 1/8” Acrylic and Hardboard. I cut both of these at 25% speed and 100% Power. I get very good results. If I want a high quality edge on my acrylic I drop the speed down to 20%. When I cut my acrylic I keep the paper on as it gives me a better finish.
My laser can cut 1/8-1/4 Acrylic, Wood, Hardboard, ABS all day long. I have cut other materials up to 1/2” but it is a struggle. For instance I have cut 1/2" Acrylic but it was slow. More on this later.
Some of the materials that I have vector cut:
Acrylic up to 1/2"
Popular wood up to 1/2"
Hobby Plywood up to 1/4"
ABS up to 1/8”
Hard Board up to 3/8”
MDF up to 1/2"
Cardboard
Bologna
Circuit Boards (2 passes)
Various other Woods with varying results
All in all I will say I am very happy with the vector cutting on my machine. It’s important that you know that if you want to cut 1/2” material you had better get yourself a 100-120Watt laser and then it still might take two passes and the results may be less than satisfactory.
Vector Marking
---------------------
What is vector marking? This is when you set the laser to a setting that will only cut so far into the material. For instance 100% speed and 100% power is great for placing very fast marks on hardboard or acrylic. There is a down side to this though. The Epilog servo system has issues when vectoring at high speed. If you cut a diagonal line or a circle at 100% speed you get little fluctuations in the lines. Even slowing the speed down to 80% will they start to fade. The good news for me is that when I cut at 20% or 30% speed the little oscillations go away. When I do vector marking at 100% speed it’s a quick bit of text so its not that obvious.
What causes these fluctuations is not clear. I have talked to a few individuals that are very unhappy with them and others (Like me) who they don’t really affect. If you are a model maker or a architect designer I think these would be a deal killer. I did cut out some small items in cardstock when I first got my laser and noticed this issue. But for the most part I was happy. It does take away from the precisian when cutting very small parts out of very thin material. In any case slow down the laser and they go away. I have been told that on the ULS machines this problem does not exist. I can’t confirm or deny this but I will say that the edges on the materials that I cut when I did my Demo were not that good. Again which is one reason I purchased the Epilog mini.
Lens’s
---------
My laser came with a 2.0” lens installed. I also purchased a 1.5” and a 4.0” lens. For 99.9% of the work I do the 2.0” lens is perfect. I installed the 1.5” lens and did some cutting and rastering. I found that the 1200DPI setting now seems to show better results. I did not ever see any when using the 2.0” lens.
When vector cutting with the 1.5” lens the kerf is defiantly smaller and therefore you can get a more intricate cut but I don’t recommend it on anything thicker than 1/8”.
One area where I found the 1.5” lens very useful was in cutting the 1/16 – 3/32 extruded acrylic. It puts more power to the point so I can cut it faster with less stress on the part. When doing this I also get less stink.
The only use I have found for the 4” lens is that when cutting 1/2" stock. I get a straighter, cleaner cut. The down side is the air assist is useless and you have to manually focus. Not an issue as with 1/2” stock you have to focus abit into the material anyway. I think a small brass tube could solve the air assist issue.
When cutting out small parts that fit together keep in mind the different lenses will have different kerfs so some parts may not fit together.
As far as changing lens goes. It only takes a couple of minutes. It did take me a while to locate a 5/32” Allen wrench, which is what is needed. You simple remove two small screws and swap out the lens. No alignment just swap and go.
Cleaning
-----------
I have not yet had to do any maintenance other then wiping off the bottom of the lens. Hardboard is some nasty stuff So I have to wipe it off every couple days under heavy use. I use the same lens pads I use for my photography so it’s a non issue for me. It only takes a few seconds. One thing I did pick up at the local hardware store was one of those little mirrors on a stick. It lets me see the lens when I wipe it off to make sure I got all the fluid off.
Software
-------------
The software driver (both 32-bit and 64-bit) has some nice features. For one the ability to go directly from photoshop to engraving without the need for a product like photograv is a plus for me. One think I like about the epilog driver and again a driving reason to why I purchased, is the front panel display. Once you send a job to the laser it’s fire and forget. You can power down your PC if you want.
For instance I had a 24” x 12” sheet with several cutouts. I sent the job to the laser and powered off my laptop. On the front panel I selected the File I had just sent and told it to start by hitting the Go button. When it was done the laser beeped and I removed the cut parts and added another sheet. I did this 17 times. No PC, No Driver. Also note that you can send several pages or documents over . I prefer different documents as they are easier to tell apart on the front panel.
I have a product that when ordered consists of 6 sheets of cutout parts. I print them all from my PC and then shut down the software and or PC. The rest is done at the laser. Note that can save and load your laser settings when in the Epilog driver.
A lot on this board has been said about Job control software. I got a chance to see the latest driver for the ULS machines. Its pretty snazzy. I like the way that the complete job and settings can be saved and they way you can bring up a saved job and look at it on the screen then move it to a different location. This is very powerful. But again you must have a dedicated PC to do all this. The PC also must be very close to the laser. I would love to see something like this done on the Epilog laser as its probably one of its weaker points.
Final Thoughts
--------------------
If I was doing it all over again would I purchase the same laser. The answer is yes. The 24” x 12” bed has proven perfect for me. All the material that I use, comes or can be easily cut into 24 x 12” sheets. For instance I can get a 8’ x 4’ piece of hardboard or whiteboard and cut it down to 16 sheets (minis the saw kerf).
I do wish I had more power though but for the size and budget I don’t think I could get any more power. My next laser will be at least 100 watts.