Large Format Lasers?

[Kit Dumph]

Alright guys, my company is getting close to requiring a second laser. I have loved my epilog for the most part, and it's nice having the factory only an hour away. Only issue now is that I don't think they offer(perhaps they will do a custom build) a large format laser? I'm looking to be able to do at least 4'X8'. My current products are pieces of wall art that take up the entire piece of material. I constantly get lots of questions if I can go bigger and I'd like to offer this option to my customers.

So the question is, what do you guys recommend? Now that I have some experience with these I'd be perfectly fine with using a US company that imports from overseas. Anything else I should be considering when looking at these?

[Bruce Volden]

Kern Laser!

Bruce

[Kit Dumph]

Any idea on the pricing for the Kern? I just sent them a RFI, but I'm guessing they are pricy...

[Bert Kemp]

I saw one Kern 52" x 100" 400 watt 168K

[Kit Dumph]

168k is going to be far our of my price range for now. Also don't need 400 watts, maybe a 100 at the most just for fun. The 50 Watt I have right now is more then enough for my products.

[Kev Williams]

I've had good luck so far with Triumph, and they sell big machines, this link is to a pair of 4'x8' machines and a 6'x10'er. Have no idea what they cost, but email Yolanda, she'll gladly email you pricing. Even if you don't buy from them, their prices are a good measure of the market in general. The only catch with them is, they have no US suppliers...

http://www.triumphlaser.com/non-metal%20laser%20cutting%20bed.html

Rummaging around Alibaba might get you some pricing too...

[Kit Dumph]

How much downtime and troubleshooting have you had with the Triumphs? I'm relatively handy, but can't afford for malfunctions in time and ruined material at the end of the day.

[John Lifer]

A lot of the Chinese manufacturers offer what you are looking for.
Several of us have purchased thru Ray Fine, Here is a CO2 100 watt 4x8ft bed laser from them.
Don't know the pricing, but give Blanca Yan a holler and she'll write you up a good quote. Competitive with what you can find elsewhere.
Now the big cost will be shipping the monster. I'd bet that is half of your cost. My 1300x900 machine was just north of 25%, Duty and charges was just at 10%.

I don't think you will have any more issue if you program correctly than any other machine. Just don't go Ebay on us. Kiss of death.

http://www.rayfinetech.com/product/product23.html and her email is Yanblanca@yahoo.com Tell her we all sent you!

[Braden Todd]

Love my Kern, thought 400 watts was a lot of power but you'll find a way to always need more!

If you go the import route, I have a great company here in Colorado I can refer you to. Also, may have a company you can check out, they're in China and I have some samples arriving this week.

Good luck!

[Kev Williams]

How much downtime and troubleshooting have you had with the Triumphs? I'm relatively handy, but can't afford for malfunctions in time and ruined material at the end of the day.
My Triumph developed a nasty problem with the X stepper going a bit nuts. I bought another stepper even tho everyone at Triumph tried to talk me out of it. They'd never seen a machine do what mine was doing, and offered the basics trial and error fixes like check belts and bearings, look for loose screws-but the techs were sure it wasn't the stepper, and they were right. Between contacting them and the fix, they contacted ME and said a customer in Mexico was having the same problem. Anyway, I eventually traced the problem to a near-broken stepper ground wire in the drag chain...
348418
The off-the-shelf stepper motors don't have long enough wires, so the simply added to them. Fine and all, but the connections had to make a fairly tight bend when the drag chain rolled up. The other wires were okay but the ground obviously bent back and forth enough times to break. Troubleshooting involved figuring out that the trouble always started at around 17" down, and sure enough, that's the point where the connections were rolling up in the chain. The fix was easy enough, and I carefully pre-bent the connections in hopes it would reduce the stress. The machine has worked flawlessly since, and Triumph was happy to know the cause!

Triumph IS quick to respond to emails, and they're very willing to help. Fortunately, I'm relatively handy myself ;) and one thing I've found in working with computer controlled machines for over 36 years, is that being handy is usually all that's necessary to fix these things. All the problems I've EVER had boil down to bad or loose connection (vast majority of the time), something's loose (about 25% of the time), or the power supplies or controllers die, in which case it's almost always just a costly swap to change out the whole thing.

If you're handy, I think you'd be fine with most any make of big machine :)

[Ross Moshinsky]

Lasers are unique, but if you're looking to just engrave and not cut, think about flat bed printing as at least an option. It's way faster and you can easily get a brand new 4x8 for $80k. It's not the same as laser engraving but with a bit of skill in the graphics programs you can simulate depth which might end up a good way to go forward.

[Kit Dumph]

Thank you for the replies I'll be looking into all of this!