Got my new laser today!

[jason harris]

Imported directly from China. This one was from G. Weike. I have only had it unboxed for a short time and not wired/plumbed it all up.

Its looking really good and I cant wait until tomorrow to see if I can get it firing!

I got the 80W version but as it is the new RECI tubes just released a few weeks ago it is the new 90W RECI. Table is 1500x1200 (59"x47"). It takes a fair bit of space in its current but temporary position.



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[Mike Null]

Congratulations. That's a great looking piece of equipment. Hope you have lots of fun with it.

[Ross Moshinsky]

That's a big laser.

What do you plan on using the machine for? How was your experience with G. Weike?

[Dee Gallo]

Whoa, that's a big boy! Have fun and report back with some projects so we can see what this guy can do!

cheers, dee

[Steve Busey]

its current but temporary position. What, you're not going to leave it in front of the bathroom door? ;^} Congrats! Looking forward to a full report when it's online.

[Roger Leiva]

Jason, I join everyone in congratulating you on your new laser.I wish you success, above all, I really enjoyed your machine and is very good.
Roger Leiva (Helix 24 60 watt, Costa Rica)

[Frank Corker]

Jeez that's a monster!

[Jiten Patel]

Wowsers - I can imagine Jason saying in his head "you call that a laser, now this is a laser" in his best Australian Crocodile Dundee accent! Nice one!

[jason harris]

Yes, it is big, very big! Mostly plan on cutting small parts from balsa in sheets that I can only get at 4"x35".

No, not really :) It is a little overkill for what I would most frequently use it for but I will have the odd thing that can maximise the width of it.

I dont use it for a living but it is another tool in the worksop like the lathe, mill, cnc router etc. It can do some things better than others and vise vera. The first thing it will be doing is making some replica aircraft panel parts.

I have the water flowing but not much else yet. I am a little worried about the grounding, as I have a new 3 phase board but this will be connected to the older board which runs off one of the phases. It should be OK but I may just go and knock a steel bar in to the ground for this one, thats probably easier than testing my current ground.

With luck I will be cutting today!

[Jeff Monson]

I shouldn't even respond. So I decided I won't, at the least, type what I was going to say.

Good choice Jason, congrats on the new machine, PLEASE post the progress you make with the machine and how you like it.

[jason harris]

So, it's been two days now. Not a lot done on the first day as I set it up. I was a bit lazy and I have not checked alignment on everything, I will do that soon but for now it's working well.

The chiller seems to be doing it's job. I plugged in my 180 litre air compressor as I didnt want to put up with the noise of those little ones all the time. I must remember to turn on the air all the time though! it does make a difference I have found out. One power with no air will not cut through but the same power with air will. Must remember :)

I have not used the USB key and dont plan to at this stage, I have a spare laptop I have put on the machine for using it. Lasercut seems easy enough to use once a couple of things were learned via google. Too bad that some fonts that I want to engrave do not make their way acroos to it in dxf intact. I have had to remove the text and reinsert it with lasercut to make it work.

I have a quick vid and one picture. I tried some acrylic, this was my first attempt and not very good. I placed it on another piece of acrylic and had far too much power, it cut through both pieces and I could see vapour sliding in between. That stuck them together so you can see the goo around the edges and some fracturing as I tried to pull them apart. Not the fault of the laser, in fact it did a pretty good job I think. The picture doesnt do justice to what is good about it. The acrylic is old and not in tip top shape either. I am almost hesitant to show it incase it reflects badly on the laser. It's all the operator learning :)

The kids wanted something so we did the spidersaurus that I am sure a lot of you have done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHAaGAT47lc

More playing around tomorrow.
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[john banks]

Looks great.

You should be able to automate the air and exhaust through the motherboard and a few relays/solenoids. Just finishing our setup to do this with a few parts delaying it, 3kW compressor remotely installed with all the adaptors, filtering, water traps etc.

[jason harris]

Thanks John, I will do that after I get past the playing around with it phase :)

I am posting a few more pictures of the machine for anyone interested. I have read about the machines coming from different factories and at different sizes and qualities. It seems like other equipment that I own which is chinese there is a difference between the cheap machines and the more expensive machines.

I don't own any 'cheap' machines, my lathe is around the $13kusd mark, similar with the mill etc. All of these I have been happy with and I can see the difference in quality between them and the entry level stuff that makes a lot of machines attractive pricewise to people.

So, I did not know exactly what to expect from the laser. I am still very happy, the fit and finish is better than I expected from other peoples experiences, a lot admittedly have bought 40W desktop machines. There are a few things I notice that are much better than other peoples experiences, e.g. the wiring is very tiday, cable ties, sleeves, different colours etc.

It was easy to trace back and see the machine was in fact properly grounded and using the ground from the wall. Ground is optional in the states but as we run over double the voltage it is not optional and most houses will have a good ground connection. No loose parts, it only required a minor tweak to a couple of mirrors. I have to set up the autofocus. As it came it could not be used, I need to adjust the height but not such a big deal.

Mine came with a end cap to go over the laser where the wire connected. I have seen a few thread about insulating with silicon etc, this seems to be an easy effective way to do it.

It was clean but was covered in the thin film of oil which I needed to remove.

Mechanically I think it is excellent, I could fool anyone in to thinking it was made in any other part of the world.

I am having a little trouble with the software, nothing major. It's easy enough to use but I want to track down a couple of features.

Specifically, how to adjust the width of the cut. I don't want to resize DXF drawings to cater for the width of the cut. Surely there is a setting somewhere to compensate so that when I cut something 3mm wide I dont have to tell it to cut 3.08mm wide to actually get 3mm?

I have read that it has been possible to do 3d engraving using a process including lasercut 5.3 but I cant track down anything. I would like to try it for the roof of a model.

Any tips to that would be appreciated!

Thanks,
Jason


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[Steven Cox]

Specifically, how to adjust the width of the cut. I don't want to resize DXF drawings to cater for the width of the cut. Surely there is a setting somewhere to compensate so that when I cut something 3mm wide I dont have to tell it to cut 3.08mm wide to actually get 3mm?

Hi Jason, I don't have Laser Cut 5.3 but in my software there's a setting called Inside to Outside in the Laser Export parameters. Setting this tells the laser cut to outside of the object. Unchecked it will cut inside the object. Perhaps you have a similar setting in 5.3

Hope this helps.
Steve.

[john banks]

I was told that LaserCut 5.3 doesn't do 3d engraving, but you may be able to simulate the effect with dithering. The response time for varying PWM power on a glass tube with a typical power supply is too slow to run it for most production purposes anyway IMHO.

[Daniel Wolanski]

John,
In lasercut 5.3 the 10th icon from the bottom on the left looks like a peghole for a hanging product. That allows for an outline of your drawing either inside or out. I would screen shot it for you but I am running lasercut 5.3 on XP which doesn't offer screenshot:mad:.

Tip:Make sure you select the drawing first, then the icon can be selected. The out line will be in a different color so make sure you "de-select" the original color when cutting so it doesn't cut both!

[jason harris]

I have a setting 'inner to outer' which is ticked. If I do a 30mm square it is cut to 29.72x 27.79 on the X and Y.

With it unticked I get 29.72 square. This tells me that the setting did not change and the the second cut was just a better one than the first.

I went in to machine options and unticked it. It asked me for a password, I just cliked ok. I didn't do anything else expecting that it would be used when I downloaded the file.

[jason harris]

Thanks Daniel, I will check it out! PS, in XP print screen captures the desktop to the clipboard.

[Daniel Wolanski]

Every time you make a change you need to re-send it to the laser. Hit "download" then in the pop-up "download current". The rabbit laser site has some very good tutorials. http://www.rabbitlaserusa.com/ Try a huge 2mm difference and see how that works.

[jason harris]

Hi Daniel, I did re download each time expecting that was the way to get the changes to the machine. No change seen though..

My wife just flooded my workshop by turning on a washing machine and not checking the plug was in the sink. After I clean up a bit I will do it again to ensure I was downloading each time.

Thanks,
Jason

[jason harris]

Hi Daniel, Is it the 'download CFG' button that I need to press? I have not wanted to because I am not sure if what is in the laser from the factory is the same as the settings in lasercut. I didnt want to possibly overwrite everything and have no way to get back.

I havent yet found out how to export the settings currently in the machine.

[Daniel Wolanski]

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The "download cfg" button is if you make any changes to the configuration of the machine like bed size, acceleration, etc. My machine has two heads and it came with settings showing only half the bed size. I am only using one head for now so I went in and changed the bed size to match my full size of machine.

You want hit the download, then "download current" button. I pulled this from the rabbit laser site. Some really good stuff there to get you up and running in the tutorials.

[jason harris]

Some interesting stuff happening, I dont know what it is.

I am definitely doing as you describe, I did it the first time and I just checked by doing it again and I get the same results.

Whats strange is with it ticked I get almost a square, one side is ~ 0.06mm smaller than the other, which I can repeat with the same results.

Without that option checked it is square but still undersized by about 0.2mm.

When using my router I put in the size of the cutter I am using so that when cutting it offsets the correct amount to cut on the line, not inside it. Surely there is something similar as sizes would be different should it not be configurable rather than a tick mark which does cannot take different spot sizes in to account?

Also, I cut another 50mm square to check it was not the step size for the motors. It's not because it was around 49.8mm, the .2mm short as was the smaller square.

[jason harris]

Actually, contrary to my previous post, there is some accumulative error. As I go to 100mm I loose 0.1mm on both sides. So, I will have to figure out the screen that had pulses for the motors. I imagine it's the same/similar to setting up my router.

[Daniel Wolanski]

Actually, contrary to my previous post, there is some accumulative error. As I go to 100mm I loose 0.1mm on both sides. So, I will have to figure out the screen that had pulses for the motors. I imagine it's the same/similar to setting up my router.


The software allows you to input the amount of the offset. Change the values in the pop-up window instead of using the defaults and you should see a result.

[john banks]

Does this give a 3d effect? Normally 3d means you use the grayscale information in a bitmap to vary laser power. Experienced users of Lasercut 5.3 said they couldn't do this on another forum, so if they can they'll want to know, but I'm not sure if you're talking about something else?


John,
In lasercut 5.3 the 10th icon from the bottom on the left looks like a peghole for a hanging product. That allows for an outline of your drawing either inside or out. I would screen shot it for you but I am running lasercut 5.3 on XP which doesn't offer screenshot:mad:.

Tip:Make sure you select the drawing first, then the icon can be selected. The out line will be in a different color so make sure you "de-select" the original color when cutting so it doesn't cut both!

[Daniel Wolanski]

Hi John,
The button I was reffering to is how to adjust for the kerf of the laser. I do mainly vector cutting with my laser and not much engraving. I suspect there are folks here that know a lot more than I regarding complex engraving using lasercut 5.3 but I don't think it can be easily done.

[Marion Abken]

Jason, that looks super nice...

What are you going to primarily use it for?

Can you engrave Head Stones for graves with pictures, etc.?

[Melody Li]

Hi, Jason,

This is Melody. Glad to work with you and find your post here. I will start my sawmill life now. LoL

[Mike Null]

Melody

Welcome to Sawmill Creek. I am assuming you have some connection with a laser manufacturer. If so, please indicate that in your signature. If not, we are still glad to have you as a new member.

[jason harris]

Melody

Welcome to Sawmill Creek. I am assuming you have some connection with a laser manufacturer. If so, please indicate that in your signature. If not, we are still glad to have you as a new member.

Hi Mike, yes Melody is with G.Weike who I bought it from, I am sure she will do as you have asked.

I know Shenhui gets good wraps around here and I can only say good things about G.Weike as well and Melody who had to sit through about 40 emails and more skype before I bought it! :)


Jason, that looks super nice...

What are you going to primarily use it for?

Can you engrave Head Stones for graves with pictures, etc.?

I don't know about headstones. I know you can do some stones but it's not something that will ever get on my table. I don't use a laser as my primary tool but I did get it to do some things that would be either faster or better looking than my CNC router would do. So it's really there as an enhancement to the workshop.

It will do a lot of panels like this BTW, some pictures are upside down. Blimmin camera phones!

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Also, for the meantime, nothing in the house is safe :) Cricket bat got the teams name on it, I have only tried one photo, I think its good for the first time and my wife's kindle has too many silly vampire books on it so it got the treatment as well :)


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[George M. Perzel]

Jason;
I'm not sure you are understanding the laser correctly. A laser will raster (engrave) or vector cut. I don't know of any that will cut a 3mm wide line-possible to cut same with two parallel hairline lines which are 3mm apart- or defocus and run slow to burn a 3mm trough but inaccurate and messy. What are you trying to do??
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[jason harris]

Jason;
I'm not sure you are understanding the laser correctly. A laser will raster (engrave) or vector cut. I don't know of any that will cut a 3mm wide line-possible to cut same with two parallel hairline lines which are 3mm apart- or defocus and run slow to burn a 3mm trough but inaccurate and messy. What are you trying to do??
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

George, thanks for replying.

I may not have made myself clear. I am happy with rastering for engraving and vector cutting as separate things.

Right now there is one thing I need to configure on the machine to get it to make accurate parts. It seems to be broken down in to two parts.

One, when I ask the laser to move 50mm it actually moves 50mm, not 49.9. I understand that is a configuration option, i.e. pulses per mm (or cm, whichever). I have had to do that on my router so no issues there other than just doing it!

The second is that it looks like the laser cuts on the line, not offset outside the line. So, when I cut my 50mm square, and assuming the laser head moves 50mm, the laser then cuts on the line and I am only getting 49.8mm. I have had different advise, some people have told me that it will always cut on the line and I need to create a toolpath offset from my work by whatever amount, e.g. 0.1mm. Daniel has said there is a setting which I will look in to.

I should be OK by the end of the day, my boys are on holiday but I have them out of my hair for a while to look in to this :)

Thanks,
Jason

[jason harris]

Got the dial indicator out and got it reasonably good for pulses/distance.

Now I figure I can accurately find out how wide the laser is when cutting and offset for that.

I think I am a happy camper now, all set up and ready for work :) Just before that, maybe there is something else silly I can do on another household object :)

[jason harris]

So its been around for a little while longer and all is going well. One of my boys took a set of gears in to the others preschool because he was playing with it in the car and they asked if I could make them something like it.

So I made them up a spirograph which they think is really good for small kids developing motor skills for writing etc. Another small gear set that they can twirl around. Surprised how much the kids like these simple things.

It has not missed a beat yet.

I am really happy with the engraving so far and tried out many small pieces. I was a bit worried that 80W would be too much and then a bit concerned as I was shipped the latest RECI tubes which is actually 90W. In the end I couldn't be happier with the quality for the kind of panels I need to engrave on.

In combination with the CNC router I can see this making some really nice products. Just to try, I was making a dash for a racing simulator. Instead of cutting the frame on the CNC I cut it on the laser from 10mm MDF. From memory I think the setting was around 10mm/s at 80%. Possibly half that speed, I can't remember but it went through it no problem. Whatever setting I used I could have either reduced the power or upped the speed a little. I wouldn't normally do that in the laser as I don't want the burnt edges and I want them perfectly square but it worked and it's something I will probably do in the future for small things as throwing it on the laser is less effort than on the router.

It really flies through 4 and 6mm MDF.


I am getting good results on acrylic. Here are a couple things done so far.. Sorry, the focus on the camera phone is not great but the text is crisp. (really, true! :) )

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[Mike Null]

Jason

Thanks for posting. It appears that you have more than beginner's skill with your drawing software.

[jason harris]

Thanks Mike, I have spent many hours/nights using CAD :) For the gears I actually bought the gear generator that seems to be popular.

[Phill Barnes]

Hi Jason
I am looking around at the moment for a chinese laser and I was wondering ,if you don't mind, can I ask how much your machine cost and how were your dealings with the company? Did you let them organise the freight? It is certainly a very impressive looking machine. How is it performing for you?

Phill
CCE

[jason harris]

Hi Phil, from memory it was $4700, then there were the costs of the accessories but you choose what you want and I thought the prices of accessories were fine for what you received.

It has been going well. Communications with Melody were very good and fast. I live in NZ and the timezones are favorable with China.

I was not 100% happy with the fume extraction connection and they fabricated some new parts and sent them out to me via DHL taking only a few day. So, after sales has been very good. The fume thing was no real deal and I have since found it is similar to other more expensive machines just not what I thought it may have been.

I am really happy with it. I got the new reci tubes and the 80W is now 90W but it still engraves very well, certainly more than good enough for my work.

I have yet to set up the autofocus though, it will be handy but often I am using the same material so it stays in focus between sheets anyway.

For what you get at the price you get I cannot see how you could be disappointed.

I am now replacing a CNC router with a 1300x2500 cnc router from china.

I have just bought from where I know others have bought from and got good machines. I think you are very safe with G.Weike. I am going to use that philosophy when ordering my router as well although I suspect you would get good service at many places but I guess we don't want to take the risk when we have seen good results from one or two.

[jason harris]

Just to add. Yes I did get them to do door to door service. It saved me something like $600USD getting them to do it through their shipping agent rather than walk off the street to a broker for a one off and get them to handle it.

I got two quotes from brokers, they were both around the same. Much more expensive.