Universal Laser

[Kevin C. Johnson]

Good afternoon everyone,
I will be buying a new universal 50Watt. I have one now and works great, but I want to know more about all the bells and whistles, air assist, vacuum table... what is the thing that I wish a had. I have research but would like to hear from all of you.
The one that I have now has nothing on it a bed thats is it, so I don't know what I missing.
give me all of your collective wisdom.
thats

[Scott Shepherd]

What model are you looking at?

[Kevin C. Johnson]

X2-660 Platform 32 x 18 work area

[Neal Schlee]

Kevin,

We've got a SS X2-660 120 watt system. It's 2.5 years old and is and has been an excellent machine. We have all the options, rotary, air assist (we use clean, dry shop air), removable vacuum table, 1.5" & 2" lenses.

We use the Air Assist on nearly everything. Besides exiting at the nozzle it also pressurizes the laser window and mirrors and it does an great good of keeping these clean. A trick I do is, when using the 2" lense, which is most of the time, I use the 1.5" nose cone instead of the 2" nose cone. The 2" nozzle tends to build up residue rather quickly when rastering wood. For detailed vectoring I'll match the nozzle to the lense.

We run it nearly everyday in production, the only problem we've had is a ribbon cable connector shorted out. A call to ULS and the parts were on the way. :)

If you're buying new, make sure you pressure your Rep to give you a GOOD deal on the base machine, especially with the economy in the crapper. I always try to never pay for options. :D

Neal

[Mike Mackenzie]

Kevin,

I will jump in here and I hope I can explain what each of the accessories will do for you.

1) Downdraft cutting table - works very good for cutting applications it also does a very good job as a vacuum table for light materials. This accessory can be added at any time.

2) Optics protection air assist - this accessory has a curtain of air around each optic to keep debris off of them it also uses a cone and forces air directly at the cut point. We would recommend this for cutting and high power systems 75 watts up. This can also be added on in the field however it is not a simple task. It also requires a compressed air source with water traps, coalescing filter, and regulator.

3) Rotary attachments - specifically for doing round objects these units are like small lathes that clamp the item firmly, they can also be adapted with 3 jaw chucks. They can be run in both raster and vector modes. These also can be added to the system at any time.

4) HPDFO & Optional Len's - This special hpdfo lens is very application specific It allows for the smallest spot size on these type of systems (0.0015). The advantage of this optic is that it still has a 2" focal distance If extreme detail is what is needed you may want to look into this. The other lens are different spot sizes 1.5" (0.003), 2.5 (0.007), & 4.0 (0.013) They all have different uses and are very easy to change in and out.

These are the common options with the exception of the HPDFO all of the options can be added to the system at any time. If you have a good technical guy you could even add the HPDFO to the system once it is in the field.

Hope this helps.