ULS ILS Info

[Michael Lang]

Hi,

i'm thinking about buying a ULS Industrial Laser Series. Has anybody any experience with it?

What's the speed of the machine? Can't fand anything on thier website.

What's the quality of cutting wood with it (20mm)?

thankx for any info on that.

Mike

[Mike Mackenzie]

Michael,

What is it that you want to know? I would not consider a laser to cut 20MM (.75-.875) wood. It would be faster to do this with a router. If you decided to use a laser you would need minimum 150 watts and then I don't think you would be happy with the cuts and speeds.

[Michael Lang]

Hi Mike,

20mm wood is the maximum i'd like to cut. most of the time i wanna cut 2-5mm. and sometimes i have to cut acryl.

so thats why i was thinking about ab laser.

the uls industiral laser series seems to me like a good flexible machine but i'cant find any info on speed and output. just the info on thier website.

does anybody know more or has any experience?

thankx

cheers

mike

[Mike Mackenzie]

Michael,

First off let me tell you that I am a sales and service office for Universal. We have the ILS unit here as well as the other system models. as far as speed there are too many variables to be able to give you an accurate number.

For instance the Raster speed of the system is rated at 100 IPS now this rated speed would be just etching onto something like acrylic with very little depth. If you were to engrave into wood your rated speed to get any depth would be some where around 50 IPS and this would depend on the wood and the laser power you were using.

Vector speeds are also very generic from system to system also because of materials being processed. Manufacturers who post engraving / cutting speeds don't really tell you how these numbers were achieved and what materials they were set on.

Your best bet would be to sit down in front of the systems and find out for yourself the speeds you can process your materials with your files then you will have a very good idea on how the speeds equate.

[Mark Winlund]

Mine is 120 watts, and it wouldn't come close to penetrating 3/4"

Mark

[Michael Lang]

Hi,

thankx for your replies. Is there any spec. sheet for speed info. i only want to check out the speeds and posibilities before i call a rep and ask for a demo.

as u all know, there are more systems and laser companies out there that offer good machinies.

the info supply for ULS is absolutely insufficient. u can't get good info. all other companies offer these info on there website.

cheers

[Scott Shepherd]

Michael, I'm not sure what you're looking for specifically that you can't find. Anyone who posts speeds on a website, in my opinion, are simply doing it as a marketing hook to get you in front of them.

In my limited experience, speed means nothing on a piece of paper. It's great that a machine will run "X" inches per second. That's great, now let's benchmark everything against "X". What's it cutting while moving that fast? Nothing. Air.

Every material is different and every laser is different, every laser tube is different. So while the machine might physically move at "X" ips, when cutting wood, what will that now be, X/.7? Is that ebony? Balsa? Which one do you want the numbers for? One might be X/.05 and one might be X/.9.

It's simply impossible to judge a machine and it's performance with any material based on a number that's derived from cutting air.

Also, running machine "A" wide open might yield superior quality results to running Machine "B" wide open. So what's the point? You need to describe your application, set up demos with all the manufacturers you can, and then make a decision based on actual facts rather than facts off of a marketing/sales brochure.

Just my opinion.

[Michael Lang]

Hi Scott,

u are absolutly right. cutting air would be useless (unless somebody pays for it).

the point is: there are 4 dozens of laser cutter manufactures out there and i don't want to check out all of thier machines in a demo to find the right one. for me cutting speed is essential to make money. so i need some kind of a meassurement (like 100ips with 20mm plywood with a 200 watt tube) to sort the machines out.

i managed that with a lot of machines. ULS doesn't offer this information. and that was my question.

[Zvi Grinberg]

Hi Michael,

As Scott wrote - Maximum IPS would tell you nothing.
To cut thick wood you will need any power you can get, and still you will be required to reduce the speed. That is, if you insist that real cutting would happen ;)

In this aspect, a much more relevant detail is the laser power and motion repeatability.

Companies who list the IPS do it mainly for PR reasons.
What they do not tell is that when you have accuracy, quality and repeatability issues, they would recommend the user to slow the machine, even with more "reasonable" numbers. It happened in practice, specifically to prevent "banding" in raster marking.

With Universal, the rated speed is still at the best quality speed. To satisfy your reseasch - on PLS machines it is 100 IPS. I believe ILS motion is faster, however I am not comfortable to quote numbers.

Anyway as was already discussed - your business plan should not rely on the rated IPS. If you want to make it reliable you must do a real benchmark, or at least ask your representative to use the estimator function (ULS drivers have it) - to get approximate numbers for your specific file.

It should also be done on specific laser power that you intend to use.

In my experience, even if you found that one machine is faster than another, it cannot be more than 5%-10% difference, which is absorbed by other points, such as machine downtime, driver's efficiency, good access to operating machine and replacing material and so forth.
In this area, I would point out that ULS driver does not require that you copy the file to cut - from PC to machine's memory (I witnessed a 3-4 minutes large file transfer with another brand).

Another important item in business plans is the cost of ownership, and this has been discussed in other threads.

If you consider ILS, the pass through with optional Automation Interface would yield much more production efficiency than theoretical (and un-used) maximum speed.

[Scott Shepherd]

there are 4 dozens of laser cutter manufactures out there and i don't want to check out all of thier machines in a demo to find the right one.

I doubt there are 48 lasers that will cut 20mm wood efficiently. My guess is maybe 3 or 4, and I wouldn't say they would cut 20mm very well either. On an investment that large, I wouldn't even consider writing a check for a machine that I hadn't seen run my specific application.

A router is going to cut a ton more cost effectively than a laser on something like that, in my opinion, but I don't know your specific application.