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Justin Meaux
07-24-2018, 12:38 PM
Hi all! I'm happy I stumbled across this little gem of a forum.

I'm a hobby woodworker and I own a small stringed instrument shop in St. Louis, Missouri. This places seems right up my alley!

I've been curious about laser engraving ever since I saw a demo of a VersaLaser many years ago. The level of precision you can achieve shaping wood and even etching into glass bottles particularly interest me.

Of course, I got a little sticker shock when I finally looked into them. Are there products available in the 1000 - 2000 range? I guess that's asking for too much when I see they generally start at eight. Maybe I could look into a used model, if anyone could give me a hint of where to start looking? Honestly, it would be more of a toy than any kind of production tool. I'm a complete beginner and only have very rudimentary CAD skills.

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Gary Hair
07-24-2018, 1:57 PM
You can find new lasers in your price range but they will be Chinese made and pretty low quality. That coupled with "rudimentary CAD skills" is a recipe for failure and frustration. A used "mainstream" laser won't be as difficult to use but you still need to have your drawing/design skills up to par, and you'll pay closer to $8k to $10k for a decent used machine. I'd highly suggest finding a makerspace type place to rent by the hour and save yourself a ton of money. You may find something that can actually make you some money and afford a nice, new laser!

Justin Meaux
07-24-2018, 3:14 PM
That's a very good suggestion.

I toured a place here in st. louis a year or so ago called 'the tech shop.' They had 4 shiny new laser cabinets from universal laser systems, but they were charging a fortune to become a member. (Kind of rightfully so though. They had every tool under the sun.) You also had to attend safety and tutorial classes which were hard to fit into a busy schedule. I just looked them up and guess what, they're out of business. Looks like there's a makers space trying to take up the void they've left. I'll try my luck with them when they open in a month or so.

What would be ideal is if I could make my designs in my free time, then find someone I could pay for use of their machine. I could hand over the materials and the files and they could run it through themselves for a fee.

Steve Middleton
07-24-2018, 9:04 PM
I'll be interested to see where this leads you Justin. I owned a music store for 20+ years and the more I read the more I realize how little I know. I applaud your initiative!

Scott Marquez
07-24-2018, 9:49 PM
Justin,
As you may start to see from your research, that laser work is kind of the easy part, learning how to design and use CAD is more time consuming. As others have suggested, make your designs then find a laser to burn them on.
Most people in the laser community use Corel Draw, Just an FYI.
Enjoy,
Scott

Justin Meaux
07-25-2018, 11:42 AM
Thanks all for the helpful advice!

Scott, I will definitely take your approach and just start working on the design of what I want made first, then work on the equipment part later.

I do have passable photoshop skills. I've had a little exposure to Corel Draw through that. At least seen people work in it a lot. How do you express the third dimension with it? Like, how deep I want the laser to go into the wood? I see Corel has a CAD program available too. Is that not advisable? Last time I looked into this I was under the impression AutoCAD was the industry standard.

Thanks again for being so helpful!

Gary Hair
07-25-2018, 2:08 PM
There is no Z setting for lasers, unfortunately. Depth will be *sort of* controlled by power, speed, DPI, LPI, and is entirely dependent on the material and there is no way to get consistent results even on the same material. Grain in wood affects depth and evenness of the bottom, moisture content and exact composition of acrylic affect depth and evenness, etc., etc. You'll learn quickly that you never tell someone a specific depth when lasering, it will bite you in the tail EVERY time!

Scott Marquez
07-25-2018, 9:32 PM
Justin,
I have a CAD program and Corel Draw, although I mostly use my CAD program since I am designing and cutting fabric patterns with my laser that I save in dxf format, Corel would be more helpful for similar things and pictures or bit maps, among other things. I just haven’t taken the time to learn it very well.
There is so much to learn in this world, I would suggest that you start reading every post on this Forum. When I first started I think I went back a year browsing through each post, it doesn’t take long before you start to learn the industry language.
Enjoy the journey,
Scott

Bert Kemp
07-27-2018, 7:31 PM
Theres several 50 watt co2 lasers on Ebay in your price range.Now everybody here will tell you stay away from ebay , but the fact is theres a few good sellers on there that sell decent Chinese lasers and stand behind them.I'm not gonna get into the whole Chinese Western machine war here. A Chinese machine will do what your looking to do. There not hard to learn. You do your design work in Corel then save that as a DXF and import that file to the laser.
I have had my Chinese Laser for over 3 years now with no major machine problems and the ones I had were OP error LOL. Take a look do you homework on the sellers read their feedback. Make sure if you buy one you have Ebay and paypal protection. Lots of people have bought off ebay and had good experience, sure lots had bad experience, but I would guess they didn't do their homework first . So for under 2K you can get a 50 watt laser and have a learning experience.. Now get ready for the onslaught of naysayers :D