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View Full Version : We need a small rotary (probably used). Any suggestions?



Garrett Nors
07-02-2009, 12:33 PM
We're not looking to spend more than a few grand on this. It will basically be for people who want brass plates and various small things. We have a Dahlgren Wizzard 2000ST (I think that's the name) but it's a literal $10,000 paper weight... it's been broken for a long time. (Long story...but to make a point our dealer closed up shop and skipped town and the only support we can find for dahlgren is in london :eek:)

Any ideas? I was thinking of a Xenetech via Engraving Concepts (where we got our laser) but I think it's a little too far out of our budget (again, we're looking for something small and probably used if it's in good condition).

Jacob Hebert
07-02-2009, 12:43 PM
I can't help you on the rotary, but I do know that there is a place in California that still services older Dahlgren products. Maybe that might help?

Garrett Nors
07-02-2009, 12:45 PM
I've heard of them but I never could get any information on them....plus ours is so dismantled and messy I doubt it'd be worth the cost to fix it :(

I would love to just ship it off in a big box and have them fix it up right but I wonder what it'd cost me to do that? Also I need their info, I have no idea who it is that fixes these things.

keith McCutchan
07-02-2009, 2:24 PM
q1engravers.com

Garrett Nors
07-02-2009, 2:38 PM
Thanks for the link...I was the 10,000th visitor haha

Paul Perkinson
07-04-2009, 8:33 AM
http://www.pcncautomation.net/cgi-bin/store/commerce.cgi?product=CNCRouters&cart_id=1246709993.113

Can't vouch for the quality because we haven't received our unit yet, but I've talked at length with the owner on several occasions. He definitely knows his stuff and he has lots of enthusiasm for his work. He runs specials on eBay from time to time and we got a new 24"x36" CNC router for $2995 and then added a separate rotary engraving head for $900. He's spent many years building the big commercial machines (read >$100,000) for someone else and is determined to bring high quality capabilities in range for the smaller guys (us).

Unfortunately we're both engineers so the conversations became, well... pretty long. He shared many of his design concepts that make his machines tougher, more accurate, and easier to maintain than anybody else anywhere near his price categories.

Had already planned to post our thoughts on the machine over on the CNC part of the forum after we've had a chance to play with it for a few weeks or months, but thought you might want to talk to him (Bill) yourself. Again - this is not an endorsement, just something else that may be worth you investigating.

Steven Wallace
07-05-2009, 11:28 AM
Garrett, I used to live in Dallas and worked a temporary job in Austin. Can't tell you how many times I stopped for gas and hot links there in West. Seeing you post brought a lot of good memories back but none of them had to do with that Monday morning or Friday evening drive down I35. Have a good one!

Phyllis Williams
07-05-2009, 12:38 PM
Garrett,
we have 2 Dahlgrens, 2 vision as well as 2 lasers at work. We had someone come and maintenance our vision and we asked him to work on our Dahlgrens, he basically says those are obsolete. He told us we would be better to tape a nickel on them and put them in the trash...:cool: well, we didn't do that...those Dahlgrens really come in handy for small items...

Garrett Nors
07-06-2009, 1:05 AM
Garrett, I used to live in Dallas and worked a temporary job in Austin. Can't tell you how many times I stopped for gas and hot links there in West. Seeing you post brought a lot of good memories back but none of them had to do with that Monday morning or Friday evening drive down I35. Have a good one!

:D You know I get that all the time from every forum I frequent, I don't think you can go past West without picking something up on the way :p

If you're ever through again, go a little further into town (about 25 seconds down Oak) and go to Gerik's bakery, they have amazing stuff there!



Garrett,
we have 2 Dahlgrens, 2 vision as well as 2 lasers at work. We had someone come and maintenance our vision and we asked him to work on our Dahlgrens, he basically says those are obsolete. He told us we would be better to tape a nickel on them and put them in the trash...:cool: well, we didn't do that...those Dahlgrens really come in handy for small items...

I hear that, we didn't really know what we were doing when we got it and we trusted the first guy we found selling rotaries...NOT A GOOD IDEA!!

Live and learn, I guess.

Colleen Williams
07-07-2009, 1:23 AM
If you are looking for a small rotary I can highly recommend the Roland EGX-20. I have one which I use for all of my brass trophy and plaque plates. Not the fastest machine in town but it is a good little workhorse that just keeps chugging along. I have not had one problem with it since I got it almost 3 years ago (okay user error doesn't count....). You could buy a brand new machine for the price of most used ones.