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Lyle Cheredaryk
03-07-2017, 6:41 PM
Last night I convinced myself to order my new toy.
Bought:
1@ RF7050 80 watt EFR ZS-1250 LASER TUBE
1@ CW5000 CHILLER
1@ Set of SPARE BELTS FOR XYZ AXISES
1@ Set SPARE MIRRORS: 1PCS FOCUS LENS+3PCS REFLECT MIRRORS (63.5mm)
1@ 38.1mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ 50.8mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ 70mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ CHUCK TYPE ROTARY AXIS
1@ 4 WHEEL ROTARY AXIS
1@ SPARE STEPPING MOTOR

Now just the waiting. Time to clean an area in my work shed for it.

David Somers
03-07-2017, 8:34 PM
Lyle....double check with Blanca on your 38mm lens. It requires a different lens cone to function since its Depth of Field is so short. I might suggest having her do a tube assembly for it so you can simply mount the lens into that tube with the correct cone and then tuck it away till you need to use it. Then you arent having to fuss with taking out the old lens and putting in the new lens and swapping the cone as well. Except for cleaning, the less you touch your lens the better off you are. Or at least that is my theory.

Since you ordered a 70mm lens too you might ask her to do a tube and cone for it too for the same reason. The cost is minimal.

Congrats!!!! Hope you really like it! Give Blanca my best!

Dave

Brian Book
03-07-2017, 9:57 PM
Congrats Lyle on the Ray Fine order ..... from what I can tell on mine so far ( haven't fully unwrapped it all yet) a good quality machine for the price.

Brian

Keith Downing
03-07-2017, 10:18 PM
Last night I convinced myself to order my new toy.
Bought:
1@ RF7050 80 watt EFR ZS-1250 LASER TUBE
1@ CW5000 CHILLER
1@ Set of SPARE BELTS FOR XYZ AXISES
1@ Set SPARE MIRRORS: 1PCS FOCUS LENS+3PCS REFLECT MIRRORS (63.5mm)
1@ 38.1mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ 50.8mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ 70mm SPARE LENS AND LENS HOLDER
1@ CHUCK TYPE ROTARY AXIS
1@ 4 WHEEL ROTARY AXIS
1@ SPARE STEPPING MOTOR

Now just the waiting. Time to clean an area in my work shed for it.

Congrats Lyle!

Was wondering what price they quoted you on the CW5000 chiller when including it with the order? And also where you're located.

John MacDougall
03-07-2017, 11:33 PM
Seems to be a lot of love for Ray Fine on this forum! Is there a place other than their site that has more pictures and documentation?

Daniel Norman
03-08-2017, 12:10 AM
Congratulations Lyle, seems to be a number of us who have ordered from Ray Fine recently. Looks like our orders are very similar. This forum was very helpful in choosing what to include in my order. Now we wait.

David Somers
03-08-2017, 7:49 PM
John,

Their web site is pretty poor overall. Not much info. Just Email the sales person we have all been working with and she can get you what you need. Blanca Yan email is yanblanca@yahoo.com. She is very good to work with. Used to be with Shenhui Laser which is where I first heard of her and inadvertantly started working with her after she had moved to Ray Fine. I paused for a bit to do a lot of digging on Ray Fine and how their customers felt about them and ended up buying from her. (Interesting trying to talk to customers about how they like a product when they are all over the world. Google translate and I became good friends! <grin>)

John MacDougall
03-08-2017, 10:15 PM
Thanks David.
I would be interested to hear what your shipping and customs fees ended up being in total. I've seen some horror stories here and on CNCZone.
I find forums like this and others to be invaluable tools for gaining knowledge. Beats the hard way. What did we do before the internet????

Lyle Cheredaryk
03-09-2017, 9:46 AM
David,
I am getting the tube and nozzle with each spare lens so I don't have to mess with changing the lens out in the one tube. I just confirmed this with Ray Fine.
I have been dealing with Bryant Hu from Ray Fine not Blanca. So far he seems to be very good to work with. Quick responses to all my inquiries.

Lyle Cheredaryk
03-09-2017, 9:57 AM
Keith,
Seems I may have deleted my reply to you.
Anyway, the upgrade to the CW5000 chiller added another $400 to the order. Not sure the separate cost of it though.
I am located all the way up here in frozen Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Daniel Norman
03-09-2017, 10:48 AM
Hi Lyle, I forgot to add that choosing tube size was hard for me. I generally believe that bigger is better but that is not the case if you want to engrave. I decided on a 80w tube but a 130w power supply in case I upgrade in the future. This was only about $60.00 and if I choose to upgrade in the future I will not have to by a power supply.
Dan

Lyle Cheredaryk
03-09-2017, 11:01 AM
Daniel,
Not a bad idea to get the larger power supply to future proof an upgrade. I did consider it as well but decided to leave well enough alone for the time being.

David Somers
03-09-2017, 3:56 PM
Hi John!

My shipping cost from Ray Fine to the Port of Shanghai was covered in the purchase cost of the laser and CNC. To ship two crates, one with the laser and one with the CNC, from Shanghai to Seattle, WA was $740.00. There were a slug of Customs and Agricultural charges and fees of various sorts and those added up to about $600 including delivery to my driveway. I am only a few miles from the Port of Seattle though so the delivery charge was pretty minimal.

Dave

Kristian Matz
03-09-2017, 4:21 PM
I also am working with Bryant. I wish everyone I order from was this good....

Jimmy Myburgh
03-11-2017, 10:52 AM
Hi Fellow South African SMCs,

After 5 years of thinking, eventually ordered a RF6040 80w EFR desktop, this week.
Dealing with Bryant and Ray Fine - not a problem, but Freight forwarders/custom clearance in SA and to bring it up to Jhb a major problem,
Anybody that can recommend somebody, would be appreciated, as the machine will hopefully be assembled/crated this week(holding thumbs, reading some of the other posts about quality)
It would also be nice to have contact with others in Gauteng with similar equipment.
Will be waiting in anticipation the next 40+ days, at least many more pages available to read up on and as somebody said; "Never to late to have a happy childhood"

Jimmy

David Somers
03-11-2017, 6:46 PM
Jimmy,

Since you are concerned about the problems Brian just had with quality control on his order you could ask Bryant for specific photos of things before shipping. Let him know this was a result of Brians difficulties. That way they realize word spreads fast and they need to keep their quality control feet to the fire so to speak. You could also ask them to be sure they actually tested your rotary on that machine (assuming you ordered a rotary) and for photos to show it had the connections needed, again using Brian as the reason for this. Much better to have them take time now to assure all is well than to ship it and then have to deal with problems from a distance. In my case, had their been problems, I was prepared for that and was not under the gun to have a working machine with either the laser or the CNC I ordered from Ray Fine. But other folks here that have ordered have business reasons in mind for their orders and delays hurt.

Dave

Jimmy Myburgh
03-12-2017, 4:28 AM
Dave,
Thanks for the good advice, appreciated, will do so, I did order the "chuck rotary" as part of spares order.(not sure that I will use it, but for the price, what the hell)
The plan with the machine is to do very fine and small grey scale logos/descriptions, mirrored engraved on clear acrylic for attaching to black trophy bases.
Bryant asked me for artwork, which I supplied, which they will make a sample for me on "my" machine, when complete, looking forward to that!
I have walked into this with eyes wide open, as I have made use of laser engraving for over 20 years(the 1st machine filled a double garage, had a moving table) a lot of Speedys, Epilog, and others.
I do have doubts over the 80w EFR, maybe a 60w would be better suited, but will have better idea, with the sample and in the first couple of weeks?, months?. with what can be achieved ? Gonna be fun :)
Jimmy

David Somers
03-12-2017, 6:54 PM
Jimmy, What are your concerns with the 80? By itself, the EFR is a very good tube with a good reputation.

What will you be doing your finest engraving on? I have the 80 EFR and so far have been able to power it down more than enough to do very fine engraving on wood and BB plywood that I use on boxes for Christmas Ornaments. Perhaps I am not doing the kind of work you envision and on the materials you envision though?

BTW, when I am trying to do fine engraving with it I try hard to work with vector images, not raster. That can be a pain sometimes depending on what the source of the image is, but my line quality is much finer that way. I haven't spent a bunch of time really digging around on raster work though. One material I do raster though is a material called Claybord, an artists material that is basically a white clay layered on an acid free tempered mason board. I take a photo or art work and reduce it to line art, then use the laser to burn that line image onto the clay surface, burning it away leaving the brown/black mason board exposed. The resulting bord can then be watercolored or tinted as you want. The clay accepts watercolor and acrylic materials very nicely. The 80 watter has worked fine for this. And I appreciate the added capability for cutting wood and acrylic, which is most of what I work with.

John Lifer
03-12-2017, 7:53 PM
I think the 80watt is fine for Engraving onto acrylic, I've done a few pieces, rastered lettering, logos, and vectored some also and you need more than the minimum power. I've complained a bit on trying to do photos on wood, but that is mainly the type of tube, the US metal tubes can just do better at on and off and greyscale... I think you will like it. Btw, yes! Hold their feet too the fire on picts before shipping! I was lucky as I didn't ask or demand.

Jimmy Myburgh
03-13-2017, 3:51 AM
Hi David/John, Thank you, I am concerned the 80w EFR cannot be powered down enough 12-15%, although will have to play with speed. I am referring to engraving things like the South African coat of arms 10mm -3/8" high, and lettering less than 1mm on clear acrylic, the ideal would be metal laser tube, yes, the only little problem - cost.
Bryant did contact me about my quality concerns, recommended/offered to upgrade to "heavy duty" cabinet style machine instead of "economic" desktop that I ordered, with better HIWIN rails, 3 phase stepper motors, fan, etc, for a nominal extra cost, or even a refund, I am impressed, and much happier so far with the decision to go with Ray Fine.
This is going to be interesting,(will also need to find more info on difference between stepper/micro stepper/3 phase etc, just when you thought you know something?) Will keep you updated. Jimmy

Erik Goetheer
03-13-2017, 9:04 AM
Hi Jimmy, I just got my Laser machine a few weeks ago and I'm still experimenting with it on all kind of materials. It has the 80W EFR tube (EFR-ZS 1250 to be exact) and I'm able to power it down to 8% for fine engraving. I first tried 5% but that was too low for the laser to fire. Next step I tried was 8% and that works fine. I experiment a lot with engraving now with minimum power 8% and maximum power 15%, sometimes a bit more. And it looks great IMO, using a 51 mm lens. I suppose a 38 mm lens will even look better.

Jimmy Myburgh
03-13-2017, 10:15 AM
Hi Erik, That is brilliant news, what seem to be vague even from Bryant and EFR is the minimum for firing (8-10mA, 10-15%) Suppose even mass produced can surprise you, hope you are not the only lucky one.
I think they concentrate on delivering the max from the 80w, but at the same time giving a "faster/more responsive/efficient" tube and power suppl (not sure of right terminology) Lets hope that's what it is.
Yes I agree, I also think comparing between the 38 and 50 mm lenses will be worth it, even if I engrave with 38 and cut with the 50 to get the right finish. Thanks for all the input.

Lyle Cheredaryk
03-13-2017, 11:35 AM
Hi Erik,
Yours is the same tube that is coming with my RF-7050-80. Nice to hear it can go as low as 8%. I will definitely have to do some experimenting to see if mine will do the same when it comes in. I also ordered the full range of focal lenses with tubes and nozzles so it seems I may be able to get some pretty fine engraving done.

Steven Taitinger
03-13-2017, 7:03 PM
I just ordered one which should be crated this week or next and I will mention Brian's problems. That of course is concerning to me and I too would have considered trying one of the other manufacturers!

David Somers
03-13-2017, 7:25 PM
Hi Jimmy,

With the glass DC tubes there is a fair variance in the minimum firing power needed from one tube to another. Even a better tube like EFR is the same way. I honestly dont know if that is a function of quality control or inherent in the design of the tube. If Dave Sheldrake is reading this he might be able to answer that. It is variable though based on everything I read here and on conversations with local laser users. I hear everything from 8 to 12%. I will be doing some work on the machine this evening and will try to remember to check my minimum and report back here to add another number to the conversation. And remember, I tend to do more low power vectoring to surface mark things when I want a fine line than I do raster engraving. That is just my approach and probably not the norm.

John Lifer
03-13-2017, 7:46 PM
Well, one way or the other, if you go efr tube, 80 watts is the smallest available in the zs series, if you want a 60, you have to drop to the cl series which is only 3000 hr warranty....Rather than 10k. Lot of difference!

David Somers
03-13-2017, 8:32 PM
So...see if this helps at all. I just tested to see what my low limit on the laser firing was. 8%. That is the 80watt EFR.

And here is a photo of an engraving on Birch Veneer that has been coated with 2 coats of clear lacquer applied with an HVLP sprayer before the wood is cut/engraved.
The graphic is 1.5 inches wide x 2 inches tall. For the things I do this is dandy and a comfortably fine line.

Hope this helps a little.

Dave
356000