Not a good start... :(

[Dan Hintz]

I received my Chinese laser (eBay, not direct from China) Tuesday and unboxed two of the three smaller boxes... power supply, water pump, fan, tubing, etc. Nothing special, but nothing that screamed POS.

Tonight I unboxed the main cabinet, and that's when things took a slight turn downhill. Lots of rattling, which is never a good sign ;) I now have a small pile of various-sized screws, lock washers, etc., an aluminum knob that I have no clue what it goes to,
and the first mirror (closest to the laser tube) fell out during shipping... it's a complete loss after being scraped along the face over 1,500 miles of shipping.


Okay, so in the grand scheme of things these are minimal items, and the seller should have little issue with sending me a replacement mirror, but it annoys me nonetheless. After I get a new mirror, I still have to hook everything up and try out the tube itself, the water pump, etc.

My thoughts on it so far? The cabinet is beefy enough to last for the long haul. The electronics still use through-hole construction almost exclusively (I found a few surface-mount resistors on a, surprise, DIP-chip retrofit board). They tried to do things correctly with heatshrink, but they ended up melting the insulation off of the wire itself in at least one spot. The working area is surprisingly small considering the size of the cabinet... they could have either doubled the working area or shrunk the cabinet by at least 1/3rd. There is a connector on the back with no apparent use, but I have not tracked it back to its source yet. The holes for the water lines are barely large enough to get the supplied lines through, and no rubber grommets are provided to prevent chafing against the metal chassis. The machine was designed for the European market, so they included a 120V-to-240V converter... a bit larger than a computer PSU with the screws missing from one side of the cover.

More thoughts once I get it up and running...

[Ricky Gore]

Good luck, just keep on working on it. I'm sure you'll get it together. I know the Chinese lasers can be a pain, but it seems a lot of people are happy with theirs once they get it going. It reminds of the old computer days. You used to order it and then build it when you got the parts & plans. :) In some ways it's better, because you will know your machine inside & out when it's done.

[Micheal Donnellan]

any chance of a few pics so we can see what it looked like.

[Dan Hintz]

any chance of a few pics so we can see what it looked like.
I don't know if this site will hosts pics (someone feel free to chime in... I believe it does), but I can take some this weekend.

[Joe Pelonio]

You can either attach them to your post (very limited file size) using the file attachment below the text posting area, or click "insert image" icon above
the text entry area and link to your internet storage.

[Dan Hintz]

Anything in particular people want to see?

[Sam Yerardi]

I design lasers but I'm a little unsure what you mean by the mirrors being damaged. I assume you are talking about a CO2 laser since you indicate a laser tube. If so, are you talking about the galvo mirrors?

[Dan Hintz]

I design lasers but I'm a little unsure what you mean by the mirrors being damaged. I assume you are talking about a CO2 laser since you indicate a laser tube. If so, are you talking about the galvo mirrors?
It's not a galvo system, just your typical flying head. There are three front-surface mirrors. The first (the one that fell out and was heavily scratched) directs the beam towards the gantry edge, the second towards the flying head, and the third down towards the focusing optics.

Yes, CO2.

I received an email earlier today from the seller... he apologized for the damaged optics (even though it wasn't really his fault) and is sending me a new mirror.

[Dan Hintz]

Some more thoughts... the table height is set by way of an aluminum knob attached to the top of one of the leadscrews poking upwards through the four corners. It's too close to the table surround leaving practically zero tolerance. Instead of a setscrew, they used a standard panhead screw, so that catches on the table surround with every rotation (requiring a hard turn to get it past each time). The leadscrews poke up through the corners unprotected, so I would have preferred some sort of scissor jack underneath instead... you get what you pay for, I know. The action isn't completely smooth, but it's manageable.