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Philip Kulp
12-05-2011, 8:57 PM
Hi. New member. Ever read that book "Who Moved My Cheese"? I'm Sniffy (If I remember correctly), or at least am going to claim I was that smart.

Sawmill Creek has been a treasure trove of information, and I can tell everybody loves Epilog, or at least they seem to be a favorite.

Laser engraving seems to fascinate me, and project ideas just fly around all over the place. I really want a system with maximum flexibility, so I was thinking of a used Zing 24 with rotary. The -16 is more in my price range, although it's still an ouch. I don't know diddly and plan to spend the next three to five years figuring out if I'm any good or not.

Not an artist, but my neighbor and several friends are too. I can take pictures though! And, every member of my family can participate. Except for the hamster. :) Although, chasing the hamster around the house could make a funny picture.

Home is where the heart is right? The laser will be too. In a converted room. I've seen some mention of CNC routers as a good or better idea in some cases. I'm having trouble imagining router projects though. I think I'll take that as a hint, or at least could use a push if a router is a better idea.

Any constructive ideas? Especially about working inside the house, and gathering stuff on the cheap. I know there are other products out there, lots of great salesman and poor customer service. Looking for some good solid practical advice.

Thanks!

Gary Hair
12-05-2011, 10:16 PM
First, welcome to the Creek!


Any constructive ideas?

The best advice I can give you is to write up a business plan. It's pretty clear that you don't have a business model in place and it's pretty likely that you would fail without a plan.


and plan to spend the next three to five years figuring out if I'm any good or not.
You'll know in a month or two, it won't take 3-5 years.


Especially about working inside the house
Working from the house = great idea, I do and lots of others do as well.


and gathering stuff on the cheap.
This is a really bad idea and not a great way to start a business.


Looking for some good solid practical advice.
fail to plan and you can plan to fail

Before you start down the path of buying a laser you should determine what you want to do with it and what you want out of it. Business or hobby, profit or fun, investment or expense? If it's a hobby, for fun, and an expense, then ignore everything I said. If it's a business, for profit, and the laser is an investment then you need to put together a solid business plan and let it guide you to purchasing the proper equipment.

Just my .02

Gary

john banks
12-06-2011, 7:43 AM
We've been thinking similarly. My wife is starting out with a Chinese laser cutter/engraver, and we've moved house and renovated a workshop and office out of stables to house it all. We have vehicles, we have found some good suppliers of raw materials, planned our marketing and will offer a range of products with an emphasis on prompt delivery, personalisation, quality and artistic flair. We're not depending on bank finance to setup, and do not need an income from my wife to live well, but would like one. Although new to lasers, I have the transferable engineering/electronics skills required to setup and maintain the laser and own other businesses. We've applied for grant assistance and been approved too and overall our setup costs are a fraction of a domestic RF laser that we were considering. She has not run a business before, but has an MBA and has worked in companies as a new product development manager, project manager, commercial manager, pharaceutical scientist and pharma sales. We haven't written a business plan, but considering the above it is effectively in our heads. We aim to succeed but it will not get us into debt if we fail so it will hopefully be an enjoyable, interesting and relatively low stress career option for my wife to produce interesting stuff that people want, and despite the recessionary headwinds we believe we can offer such a range of products and still make a profit to make it worth her while working. We've analysed possible product offerings, sales volumes, cost of goods, profit margins, contingencies, running costs, product mix etc. Spreadsheets get bashed around repeatedly to work it all out, but we don't have to go to a bank or investor to prove it all, just prove it to ourselves so we don't waste our time and our hard won savings. To put a new business plan to a bank now will be TOUGH, and even if you buy a cheap machine and do a lot yourself, there are far more costs that you may not have considered, depending on your experience in business.

Main remaining tasks are to learn the machine and materials when it arrives, and perfect products before opening a website and offering them to the market. Our main remaining question at present is how to get some tax relief on renovations to the stable, and whether there is a way to effectively claim some rental income from the buildings we've set aside to run the business from, but that needs more thought from the accountants and the nitty gritty of all that depends on locality.

It sounds like you may be a little earlier on your path even though we're only really on the first step or so, but before committing anything, my wife went on laser engraving/cutting courses and we went to see machines. It is about 7 months since we came up with the idea, and it will probably be 10-12 months from initial idea to offering our first product.

Hopefully the above gives you a few ideas on which to consider, which can form part of a business plan. Remember, we are new to lasering and our machine hasn't even arrived yet, but I'm experienced in business in other areas and haven't failed at anything yet :)

Dan Hintz
12-06-2011, 8:07 AM
I can tell everybody loves Epilog, or at least they seem to be a favorite.
I think it's a good mix... ULS, Epilog, a few scattered Trotecs and GCCs, and a growing number of Chinese systems.

If you want to see something in action, let me know and you can stop by... Sykesville is only 20-25 minutes away.

Joe Hillmann
12-06-2011, 11:16 AM
One huge recommendation I would like to make, is, go see the laser in action to make sure it can do what you want to do with it. Before I took over, my company bought 3 brand new lasers (over about 7 years) all without making sure they could do what was needed and all three were a huge dissapoitment. The first one was a CO2 when a yag was needed the second one was a bigger CO2 when a yag was still needed and the third one was a Chinese YAG that was just too slow and under powered. When I took over I spent 18 months learning about lasers, what they can and can't do and going to medical and DAC trade shows with samples in hand to make sure the laser I ended up with could do what I needed it to do. Although I had a very specific product to engrave and knew how what I wanted for a cycle time when engraving.

One thing about the epilog they can engrave faster than a universal (because they use servos instead of steppers) if you aren't trying to engrave deep but according to some of the complaints about them on the forum here it seems like they don't do very well at high speed vectoring. (I don't own a epilog so the vectoring part isn't first hand knowledge, but have watched them engrave and they can rastor much faster than my universals)

I would also suggest taking Dan up on his offer and go see his machines running.

David Fairfield
12-06-2011, 11:52 AM
If you want to get into lasering as a hobby with benefits, and you have disposable income to buy a laser, I say just go for it. Enthusiasm and a flurry of creative ideas will carry you a long way. A well maintained, used Zing might be a really good choice, too. High quality machine, very reliable, excellent tech support. A laser might well be the coolest toy you'll ever own. It never gets boring.

If you are getting into this as a business, expecting to turn profit and manufacture an inventory which sells like clockwork, you should think things through carefully. A laser is not the money making machine that the laser salespeople like to make it out to be. If you are doing production runs, or larger objects, you might wish you had more capacity and power than the Zing.

Dan Hintz
12-06-2011, 6:10 PM
One thing about the epilog they can engrave faster than a universal (because they use servos instead of steppers) if you aren't trying to engrave deep but according to some of the complaints about them on the forum here it seems like they don't do very well at high speed vectoring. (I don't own a epilog so the vectoring part isn't first hand knowledge, but have watched them engrave and they can rastor much faster than my universals)

Sorry, but steppers vs. servos is a red herring and has been beaten to death here in years past. ULS and Epilogs (modern versions, possibly not so on 10+ years older) operate at essentially the same speed... and even if they didn't, the drive type would not be the cause.

If you want a high-speed engraver, go with a Trotec Speedy... those things are twice as fast as Epilog/ULS.

Philip Kulp
12-06-2011, 7:46 PM
Thanks for all the great support and suggestions! This is to be a hobby, creative and fun, something I can do at home, work at being the best, let my family and friends contribute ideas, and hopefully oops make some money sooner or later. Desperately want my daughter who is 9 to be self-employed, maybe this, maybe something she comes up with on her own. Money is not the objective, at least for now. No business plan, gonna do self financing. Have friends with what I see as complimentary businesses (t-shirt artist, sand-carver, tattoo artist, photographer, tile mason, brick mason, landscaper/hardscaper, jewelry maker, cake decorator, etc) who can mentor me. Just need good practical advice for no MAJOR mistakes. Lot's of little mistakes OK!

David Fairfield
12-06-2011, 7:58 PM
Sounds good to me!

I think you might be able to get some data on the used Zing, by calling Epilog tech support with the serial number. So you can confirm the seller's info on how old the tube is, at least some basic stuff like that to minimize your risk there.

Dave