Gravograph LS100 vs. Epilog or Trotec

[Dmitry Beker]

Hi All,
We are looking for an engraving machine for engraving liquor bottles. After speaking with Gravograph, Epilog and Trotec , they told us that the best machine for our needs would be LS100, Mini 24 and Speedy 100.

Before talking to the sales reps, we were under impression that Gravograph is the best company out of these, but surprisingly it seems that they are the cheaper option out of 3. Is there something we are missing to why Epilog or Trotec might be better option then Gravograph even though Gravograph is about on average $3-4K cheaper.

Thanks so much!

[Scott Shepherd]

None of the above? We sandblast liquor bottles all the time. Superior job to lasering. Did a $190 bottle of Hennessy today.

[Kev Williams]

Agree that sandblasting superior to lasering, but for someone like me with no room for the equipment and no time to deal with the steps involved if I did, I have to make do with lasering :)

I've engraved glass with 4 different lasers, the only one that gives me decent results is my Gravograph LS900 (LS100's big big brother)... The little ULS did okay but no rotary. The Triumph is just too brutal, especially with no X axis DPI control other than dithering, which doesn't help much. The GCC also has no X axis DPI control except when vectoring. I've gotten close using the various halftone and dithering settings (which there are LOTS of), but no cigar yet, I get way too much fracturing.

My 900 does great on glass with the right settings. I've engraved over 1400 of these for this place so far, they all look this good- No wet paper or anything either...
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Never tried with a Trotec or Epilog, I just know mine works :D

[Keith Downing]

None of the above? We sandblast liquor bottles all the time. Superior job to lasering. Did a $190 bottle of Hennessy today.

+1 for this if glass is what you'll be doing primarily. I got to try out some of the high end sand carving machines from Ikonics today (and another brand I can't remember right now). It's a pretty seamless solution and at a fraction of the cost of a high end US laser + rotary. I think the machine I was using today was a little over $6,000 and it was a beast. And a big plus now is the photoresist film so you don't have to do any cutting or weeding of your designs.

I was impressed; and a little depressed because I didn't know the alternative to our lasers was that efficient.

[Scott Shepherd]

Some things you just can do in the laser, like these crystal decanters. The shape and thickness of them prevents the use of the laser. These things were SUPER delicate. We did a few of them (I think it was 500). Actual sandblasting of them took about 15 seconds each. Of course masking them took longer, but we had it dialed in, using plastic bags, we cut out an area for the sandblasting, dropped the decanter in the bag, lined up the hole with the mask, 4 pieces of tape and done. When it's done, open the bag, pull the decanter out, rinse off the mask.

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[Ross Moshinsky]

L100 is 18" instead of 24" so that counts for something. LS100EX (I believe that's the number) is a more fair comparison.

I'd look hard at the numbers you're being given. My experience is Gravograph machines are rarely the least expensive of the pack. I will say that I'd put my LS100 against any other similar size machine and I'd guess it will either perform just as good or better. With the exception of the software, it's a far superior machine to my ULS unit.

[Kristian Matz]

I have the LS100ex and the Speedy 400. I know its not a fair comparison because of the different levels of machine, but if the speedy 100 is like the 400, I would not hesitate to go with the trotec. I have barely turned on the LS100ex since I got the trotec. The only thing that I can think of that I prefer on the gravograph is that I you can send jobs to the machine and not have to go back to the computer to run the same job again. You just load new material and hit the go button.

If you have any specific questions I can try to help you.

[Gary Hair]

The only thing that I can think of that I prefer on the gravograph is that I you can send jobs to the machine and not have to go back to the computer to run the same job again. You just load new material and hit the go button.

You can do the same thing on a Speedy - just hit the "GO" button again and the job on the plate will run again. I use that quite often to start a job as well as run a job again.

[Tony Lenkic]

Like Gary stated, to re-run same job press "ENTER" symbol.

Gary,
On speedy 400 does it say "GO" or is it "ENTER" symbol as on Speedy 300

[Gary Hair]

Like Gary stated, to re-run same job press "ENTER" symbol.

Gary,
On speedy 400 does it say "GO" or is it "ENTER" symbol as on Speedy 300

Mine is more of a "Pause/Play" button. I just used "GO" generically.

[Keith Downing]

Some things you just can do in the laser, like these crystal decanters. The shape and thickness of them prevents the use of the laser. These things were SUPER delicate. We did a few of them (I think it was 500). Actual sandblasting of them took about 15 seconds each. Of course masking them took longer, but we had it dialed in, using plastic bags, we cut out an area for the sandblasting, dropped the decanter in the bag, lined up the hole with the mask, 4 pieces of tape and done. When it's done, open the bag, pull the decanter out, rinse off the mask.

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When you say plastic bag, do you mean like a trash bag? or ziploc? or ?? Just curious.

[Mike Null]

I used to use the plaque bags from JDS. I've also used a grocery store bag on occasion. Bags are so much more efficient than the old method of wrapping them in transfer paper.

As much as I love the results of sand blasting, I've discontinued it due to the mess. Now I farm it out.

[Scott Shepherd]

When you say plastic bag, do you mean like a trash bag? or ziploc? or ?? Just curious.

Ziploc. Works like a champ. Cut a hole where the mask will be (larger than the mask so the tape actually sticks to glass), pop the object in, line up the hole, put 4 pieces of tape on it, zip the thing closed, blast away. Makes clean up really easy.

I will say there is a pretty big difference in the higher end cabinets. Their filter systems don't allow for them to cloud up in the inside of the cabinet, so you always have a great view of the object.

[Kev Williams]

Still sounds like a lot of steps... so to sandblast my wine glasses--
remove from box, apply mask stencil (very accurately, explained below), cut hole in bag, insert glass, tape (<how many uses per bag & tape, just curious?), put in cabinet, blast, remove from cabinet, wash, dry (air or towel?), rebox-
vs.
remove from box, place in rotary, press start *twice, remove from rotary, wipe with steel wool, rebox...

Hard to see in the above pic is the '2oz. pour' dash line well below the logo, circled in yellow- the upper line boxed in yellow is a 5oz. pour line...
This is why the logo must be precisely located on the glass.
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*The lower dash line requires a second pass and autofocus. The logo takes 1:17 to engrave, when done, hit 'next job' and 'start'.
The dash takes 17 seconds. Machine 'homing' time adds maybe 10 seconds. Glass in/out takes 15 seconds.
So total time is almost exactly 2 minutes each. As a bonus, unboxing, steel wooling, quick wipe and reboxing is all done while the next glass is running, so those steps add no extra time to the job...

And in case anyone may think the laser's doing a bad job engraving the logo border, it's on purpose!
Left is their logo, right is exactly what the laser gets- The trapezoid effect is to compensate for the diameter change in the glass...
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Vick knows nothing about engraving, but she ran most of our last batch of 600 wine glasses all by herself, all I had to do was send the 2 jobs to the machine. That wouldn't work with sandblasting ;)

I don't get enough glass work to justify sandblasting either. so I'll just keep on lasering as long as the LS900 keeps doing it well... :)

[Keith Downing]

I'm not saying it's bad or wrong to use the laser. But all thing being equal: for someone starting out, only doing glass, they should strongly consider the sandblasting.

The up front cost is less, you don't have to use a rotary, the blasting process takes literally 10 seconds (after setup of course), and most importantly you will generally get better (and certainly more consistent) results. Just my opinion based on what I learned this week. And a fair disclaimer: I don't own a sandblasting machine (yet) and I will definitely still be using the laser for glass.

[Bert Kemp]

I don't get this conversation can't all lasers do this? Put in new material hit start or go or what ever and it does it. My CPOS Chinese Rabbit does it . If I have to make more then one I just put in new material and hit start on the laser .

Like Gary stated, to re-run same job press "ENTER" symbol.

Gary,
On speedy 400 does it say "GO" or is it "ENTER" symbol as on Speedy 300

[Gary Hair]

I don't get this conversation can't all lasers do this? Put in new material hit start or go or what ever and it does it. My CPOS Chinese Rabbit does it . If I have to make more then one I just put in new material and hit start on the laser .

Any laser that holds the job internally should have this capability but since the Trotec holds the job in Job Control on the computer it may not be obvious that you can re-run a job from the laser control panel.

[Scott Shepherd]

Still sounds like a lot of steps...

Not a big deal considering you can make the masks in bulk, making 50 masks in 2 1/2 minutes, etc. I have engraved glass on the laser many times. I have also sandblasted 10's of thousands of glasses. There is no comparison in quality. When I have customers in our lobby, they usually come in saying "I'd like to have my glasses laser etched". How they know that phrase is beyond me, but believe it or not, it happens almost every time someone walks in with a glass job. We have samples in our lobby of the same glass with the same logo done on the laser and sandblasted. We show them the two glasses side by side and we have yet to have a single customer say "I'll take the lasered version".

In the example I posted, you could not laser that wine decanter due to the location of the logo, the shape of the decanter and the thickness of the crystal. The top of it was about .040" thick and those things were VERY delicate. We have broken many crystal wine glasses trying to laser them.

We also don't compete on price. You won't be getting those decanted engraved for $2.00 each. They were higher end crystal decanters and they paid a decent price to have them engraved. They were happy, we were happy, and life goes on.

[Bert Kemp]

Thanks Gary I didn't understand why it was a problem LOL



Any laser that holds the job internally should have this capability but since the Trotec holds the job in Job Control on the computer it may not be obvious that you can re-run a job from the laser control panel.

[David Somers]

Dmitry,

I really havent done more than dink with lasering glass so far. But I am not impressed. And.....when I have been in other people's shops and looked at lasered versus sand blasted glass the sand blasted output was noticeably better. Even from a number of feet back. The last person I looked at for a comparison was a laser engraver in West Seattle. He would do laser engraving of glass, and often made it work OK. But when possible he turned to a small micro blaster he had gotten used. It was faster and engraved better than he could do on the laser. And more importantly it was consistent. The laser was not. I have only heard one person on SMC who says they have consistent, very good luck with glass in their laser. The rest of us are able to make it work, but not consistently. My own way of thinking....and this is just an opinion mind you....is that if you are starting a business based on engraving glass you are probably better off doing sandblasting. The initial investment will be less. The results will be superior, and you have a range of materials you can work on that is quite broad compared with a laser.

For example, the person with the micro blaster will do rocks and pebbles and nicknacks that sell well in local shops. They are deeply engraved, nicely engraved, and look good. Takes him little time to do it during lulls in the shop. He will take the rig out to homes or just into the street to do engraving on windows on a house or a vehicle. He is thinking of buying a larger rig so he can easily go do rock for yards and entries and other places. He does steel and other metals, deep engravings. Ceramics and pottery, the whole range of plastics, including those we cant do in a laser because of dangerous chemicals given off, etc. He is not giving up on lasering. But for this kind of material he found the sandblaster simply did better.

For that all that is worth!!! Good luck with your decision!!!

[Kristian Matz]

I completely agree with this.


I'm not saying it's bad or wrong to use the laser. But all thing being equal: for someone starting out, only doing glass, they should strongly consider the sandblasting.

The up front cost is less, you don't have to use a rotary, the blasting process takes literally 10 seconds (after setup of course), and most importantly you will generally get better (and certainly more consistent) results. Just my opinion based on what I learned this week. And a fair disclaimer: I don't own a sandblasting machine (yet) and I will definitely still be using the laser for glass.

[Mike Null]

I'm on the side of the sand blasters although I hate the process. Too dirty for me but upgraded equipment, I understand, will solve that.

I am doing one job where the laser is clearly superior and that's on tempered glass pan lids. I have to put a logo on a couple thousand of these a year and after a couple of days of painful testing I've come up with the magic formula and I get a high quality mark consistently. I ended up engraving them three times but it's a small logo and takes little time.