Dan Simone
02-28-2012, 6:35 PM
I just want to give a big thanks to all of the forum contributors that helped me make a decision to buy a Shenhui laser. It was still scary wiring money to someone in China but, if not for the other pioneers on here I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing it. I just want to share my experience in the hopes it will help others too.
Lets see, where to start...
After much deliberation and decision making I decided to place my order on 12-05-11. This was of course after about 20 or so e-mails back and forth between myself and Pascal, the sales rep. I ordered at the time what I didn't know was a custom model SGH-1410. I was told it would take a week to build the machine. That estimate turned out to be way off, although I wasn't upset because I had no expectation that anything would happen quickly. Also, this is to learn on and possibly grow into a side business but, I already have a full time job that pays the bills so I didn't need it right away.
The order I ended up going with is as follows:
SH-G1410 LASER MACHINE WITH 100W RECI TUBE WITH:
CHILLER CW5000
MOTORIZED UP AND DOWN WORKTABLE
Red dot pointer to be coincidental with the beam path
18mm lenses, not 15mm ones
Auto-focus system
focus length is 40mm, not 50mm
Knife edge and honeycomb table
Honey-comb worktable+aluminium knife worktable
X axias switch on top left
Make a removeable inspection hatch at the left side of the machine
stronger blower
220V, 60HZ
Cylinder rotary and Irregular rotary
US$4,700
Extra Parts:
100W reci tube
1
US$620
100w power supply
1
US$300
Belts(one set)
1set
US$50
Reflector lens
3pcs
US$50
Focus lens
2pcs
US$100
Focus lens(focus length 40mm)
1pcs
US$50
Focus lens(focus length 50mm)
1pcs
US$50
Focus lens(focus distance 70mm)
1pcs
US$50
Step motor
1set
US$80
Step motor driver
1set
US$80
Main board
1
US$320
Panel
1
US$40
Bearings
1set
US$100
Red dot
1
US$10
Sea cost
US$500
Total cost not including customs broker fees
US$7,090
Customs broker fees and pickup fee from warehouse ended up being around 850.00 USD and the trailer I rented to pick up the crate was about 75.00 USD for the day so the grand total for the machine to my door ended up being.
8015.00 USD
I ended up using Rogers & Brown as my customs broker. I was neither impressed nor disappointed with their service. They did make sure all of the I's were dotted and T's were crossed. The only complaint I can say is their initial quote was much lower and I worked with three different people from beginning to end that often asked for documents I had already sent to the others. A little more work on my part to stay on top of them but, I definitely didn't feel like I could have come anywhere near close to doing it myself with a full time job. Also, the spare parts I ordered definitely made it more difficult for them as they wanted to make sure they classified each and every spare with an HTSUS number so that it would properly clear customs.
Between Dec. 5th, 2011 and the actual ship date of Jan. 11th 2012 I would e-mail Pascal about once or twice a week to see how things were coming along. He would tell me it was going to ship next week and it always seemed to fall to the next week until it actually shipped. I suspect now this might have had something to do with the custom SGH-1410 I had as the whole chassis was supposedly a different size. My actual cutting dimensions on the machine are 1400mm X 1000mm.
I live in North Carolina so it ended up getting dropped in the port of New York around the 4th of Feb. 2012 and then it was trucked to NC and arrived at the warehouse on the 20th of Feb. Rogers & Brown had already taken care of everything as far as clearing the FDA and clearing customs so all I needed to do was go and pick up the crate from the warehouse. This part might be of great interest to anyone who doesn't want to spend the money on a lift gate truck to their house, I'll go into greater detail below with some pictures.
I ended up renting a special trailer from an equipment rental company here in the US called Sunbelt Rentals. It had a usable bed space of 6 feet X 8.5 feet. The best thing about it is that it has a hydraulic component in the bed that will drop straight to the ground to make loading easier and then you can lift the bed off the ground and lock it back in place. I believe they are simply called hydraulic bed trailers. This was the perfect size as I was able to have the crate loaded with only inches to spare in the 6 foot width and about 6 inches or so in the 8.5 foot length of the bed.
Loaded onto the trailer and ready to go home. :D
225616
Just after tearing the top and back crate pieces off.
225617
225618
You can see the trailer is dropped to the ground in this picture. Really made unloading it a lot easier. Even the forklift operator at the warehouse I picked it up from had never seen one and was pleasantly surprised to find the bed dropped to the ground when he came back out from the warehouse with the crate.
225619
My driveway has a large incline so I was a bit worried about getting it up the hill
225620
I ended up have to jack it up and use jack stands to get all of the items out from underneath it. They must have laid everything in the crate and then used a forklift to set the machine over it. They did a good job of packing it as nothing was broken.
225622
And after some sweat and and pushing both me and my 14 year old son were able to push it up the hill into the garage. It wasn't nearly as heavy as I had expected it to be although it still wasn't extremely easy to push it up the driveway.
225623
Since these pictures were take I was able to take an assessment of all the items and noticed that a few of the spares I had ordered were not in the crate. I was missing my lenses, the linear bearing set, the stepper motor drivers and the spare mirrors. I have sent an e-mail to Pascal who has assured me that they will be shipping these out to me soon.
I have also since hooked up the water cooler, air assist and blower. I already aligned the mirrors and setup the machine. With the help of Rodne and many others on here I have been able to make my first test cuts and engraves on some scrap wood and cardboard.
I ended up going with the 100W RECI tube and one thing I just noticed today was that I can go as low as 5% on power. I know there is a recommended top side to what you should use but, is there a recommended low side. Any down sides to running it like this? I was able to get a faint brown line on paper using 5% power and 50mm/s speed.
Overall I'm extremely happy with everything and I would do it all over again but, not without all of the help from this forum.
So again, thanks to everyone!
Dan
Lets see, where to start...
After much deliberation and decision making I decided to place my order on 12-05-11. This was of course after about 20 or so e-mails back and forth between myself and Pascal, the sales rep. I ordered at the time what I didn't know was a custom model SGH-1410. I was told it would take a week to build the machine. That estimate turned out to be way off, although I wasn't upset because I had no expectation that anything would happen quickly. Also, this is to learn on and possibly grow into a side business but, I already have a full time job that pays the bills so I didn't need it right away.
The order I ended up going with is as follows:
SH-G1410 LASER MACHINE WITH 100W RECI TUBE WITH:
CHILLER CW5000
MOTORIZED UP AND DOWN WORKTABLE
Red dot pointer to be coincidental with the beam path
18mm lenses, not 15mm ones
Auto-focus system
focus length is 40mm, not 50mm
Knife edge and honeycomb table
Honey-comb worktable+aluminium knife worktable
X axias switch on top left
Make a removeable inspection hatch at the left side of the machine
stronger blower
220V, 60HZ
Cylinder rotary and Irregular rotary
US$4,700
Extra Parts:
100W reci tube
1
US$620
100w power supply
1
US$300
Belts(one set)
1set
US$50
Reflector lens
3pcs
US$50
Focus lens
2pcs
US$100
Focus lens(focus length 40mm)
1pcs
US$50
Focus lens(focus length 50mm)
1pcs
US$50
Focus lens(focus distance 70mm)
1pcs
US$50
Step motor
1set
US$80
Step motor driver
1set
US$80
Main board
1
US$320
Panel
1
US$40
Bearings
1set
US$100
Red dot
1
US$10
Sea cost
US$500
Total cost not including customs broker fees
US$7,090
Customs broker fees and pickup fee from warehouse ended up being around 850.00 USD and the trailer I rented to pick up the crate was about 75.00 USD for the day so the grand total for the machine to my door ended up being.
8015.00 USD
I ended up using Rogers & Brown as my customs broker. I was neither impressed nor disappointed with their service. They did make sure all of the I's were dotted and T's were crossed. The only complaint I can say is their initial quote was much lower and I worked with three different people from beginning to end that often asked for documents I had already sent to the others. A little more work on my part to stay on top of them but, I definitely didn't feel like I could have come anywhere near close to doing it myself with a full time job. Also, the spare parts I ordered definitely made it more difficult for them as they wanted to make sure they classified each and every spare with an HTSUS number so that it would properly clear customs.
Between Dec. 5th, 2011 and the actual ship date of Jan. 11th 2012 I would e-mail Pascal about once or twice a week to see how things were coming along. He would tell me it was going to ship next week and it always seemed to fall to the next week until it actually shipped. I suspect now this might have had something to do with the custom SGH-1410 I had as the whole chassis was supposedly a different size. My actual cutting dimensions on the machine are 1400mm X 1000mm.
I live in North Carolina so it ended up getting dropped in the port of New York around the 4th of Feb. 2012 and then it was trucked to NC and arrived at the warehouse on the 20th of Feb. Rogers & Brown had already taken care of everything as far as clearing the FDA and clearing customs so all I needed to do was go and pick up the crate from the warehouse. This part might be of great interest to anyone who doesn't want to spend the money on a lift gate truck to their house, I'll go into greater detail below with some pictures.
I ended up renting a special trailer from an equipment rental company here in the US called Sunbelt Rentals. It had a usable bed space of 6 feet X 8.5 feet. The best thing about it is that it has a hydraulic component in the bed that will drop straight to the ground to make loading easier and then you can lift the bed off the ground and lock it back in place. I believe they are simply called hydraulic bed trailers. This was the perfect size as I was able to have the crate loaded with only inches to spare in the 6 foot width and about 6 inches or so in the 8.5 foot length of the bed.
Loaded onto the trailer and ready to go home. :D
225616
Just after tearing the top and back crate pieces off.
225617
225618
You can see the trailer is dropped to the ground in this picture. Really made unloading it a lot easier. Even the forklift operator at the warehouse I picked it up from had never seen one and was pleasantly surprised to find the bed dropped to the ground when he came back out from the warehouse with the crate.
225619
My driveway has a large incline so I was a bit worried about getting it up the hill
225620
I ended up have to jack it up and use jack stands to get all of the items out from underneath it. They must have laid everything in the crate and then used a forklift to set the machine over it. They did a good job of packing it as nothing was broken.
225622
And after some sweat and and pushing both me and my 14 year old son were able to push it up the hill into the garage. It wasn't nearly as heavy as I had expected it to be although it still wasn't extremely easy to push it up the driveway.
225623
Since these pictures were take I was able to take an assessment of all the items and noticed that a few of the spares I had ordered were not in the crate. I was missing my lenses, the linear bearing set, the stepper motor drivers and the spare mirrors. I have sent an e-mail to Pascal who has assured me that they will be shipping these out to me soon.
I have also since hooked up the water cooler, air assist and blower. I already aligned the mirrors and setup the machine. With the help of Rodne and many others on here I have been able to make my first test cuts and engraves on some scrap wood and cardboard.
I ended up going with the 100W RECI tube and one thing I just noticed today was that I can go as low as 5% on power. I know there is a recommended top side to what you should use but, is there a recommended low side. Any down sides to running it like this? I was able to get a faint brown line on paper using 5% power and 50mm/s speed.
Overall I'm extremely happy with everything and I would do it all over again but, not without all of the help from this forum.
So again, thanks to everyone!
Dan