Hi all,
Does anyone have any experience / own one of these machines - GCC Laserpro X500 III ?
I am going for a demo on Thursday and would be interested in your comments / thoughts on this particular machine?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Graham
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Hi all,
Does anyone have any experience / own one of these machines - GCC Laserpro X500 III ?
I am going for a demo on Thursday and would be interested in your comments / thoughts on this particular machine?
Thanks in advance for any help,
Graham
Had quite a bit of bad feedback from units installed in EDU's Graham....X380's etc...nothing but expensive problems they were not keen on fixing :(
Thanks Dave, during the visit it was quickly evident that it wasnt the machine for us.
I am now trying to arrange demos for the following so if you have any info on the machiones below it would be good to hear.
Kent lasers, One Touch lasers and Epilogue
Thanks as always,
Graham
Kent lasers are Chinese parts fitted inside UK made cases
One Touch is Lucy McNaughtons company she started after leaving Hobarts in a pretty public spat (the machines are all standard ULS types)
Epilogue I've never heard of other than Epilog the normal manufacturer? if so I have 2 that don't get used, they are ok, warranty is pretty good and the machines are fair...for me...low power RF lasers are a bit of a waste of money but it all depends on what you are planning on doing really
Thanks Dave.
They will be mainly used to cut mylar stencils so they dont have to be James Bond villan super high power ones (we have 2 80W Trotecs ). Any more Trotecs are out of the question at the moment whch is why we are looking around.
It is an Epilog (bit of a spello on my part). Are your 2 Epilogs looking for a new home then if they are not being used?
I am off to see the Kent and One Touch machines on Friday and am planning a visit to Epilog (bit of a hike for me beiong in Essex) maybe the week after depending on how Friday goes.
If you had to, and in your opinion, can you rank them in order of suitability for mainly stencil cutting?
Cheers,
Graham
Both need a regas and to be honest I can't really be bothered :)
Choice....not much between ULS and Epilog but buying from Epilog themselves is usually more reliable for backup, Lucy has only had one touch for about 4 years or so? something around that but I haven't heard anything bad. so hard call...probably down to price or the deal you can get.
Kent may well be a good company, I don't know anything about them but generic chinese electronics can be had in just about any machine so there is a massive choice of Kent type machines (I'm in the middle of building some lasers myself at the moment, it's really not that hard to do, not selling them though, just some odd size machines I needed)
Depending on cutting area you ever considered a 60 watt Glass tube Galvo? for mylar they work fine, I use one of mine on oilboard for crate stencils, you can pick them up from China for under $2,200 so about £2,000 by the time they hit your workshop?
Hope you can share some pics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sheldrake
X2 on pictures and feedback. I would be very interested in your evaluation.
Not too long ago we had another discussion about cutting mylar, and I'd posted up how I cut thin mylar while floating on water- My customer still couldn't use the parts, which is a combo shim and gasket, due to the rolled edge from melting even under water. Seems Dave mentioned that neither C02 nor fiber lasers are the correct wavelength for Mylar to absorb-- I'd look for the post but Dave's right here :D ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Taylor
It's the bandgap energy Kev, if the material has a bandgap energy lower than the photon energy of the beam then you get a photochemical effect rather than a photothermal effect, in effect just based on the Photon energy you get a lot less carbonisation and the material ablates nicely rather than melting.
CO2 for example has a Photon energy of 0.117eV where as get down to 100nm UV and you have a photon energy of 12.40 eV. There are some other factors such as absorption coefficient and pulse energy (where applicable ) but in general if you can use a system with a higher photon energy you will have more leeway on materials reaction to it and more materials you can cut "Chemically" rather than "Thermally"
A decent quality Green (532nm) is up in the 2.2eV range and the Blu-Ray's 445nm have 2.88 eV so you have a bigger selection of materials that will undergo a photochemical process when you cut them
Lower power isn't really a deciding factor as there is no real way to cross reference say a Blu-Ray with a CO2 other than by a loose conversion to Watt/Seconds, if you have a 120 watt Co2 on watt/seconds alone you can match that with a 5 watt 445nm Blu-Ray (another reason why 445's are so dangerous) based on Photon energy
The bandgap energy of typical Mylar is higher than the Photon energy of both Fibre and Co2 so the process will always be Photochemical if you use either of those
Odd sizes I need for some really expensive materials Matt so I'm building the beds and frames from scratch then adding all the electronics. I need the beds to be 1150mm x 1150mm and nobody makes one so I thought I'd make them myself (Tig welded stainless box section) the raw materials only come from my customer in that size and need to be repeatable so a nice pair of fixed size beds will work well (the sheets are £31,000 each cost to the customer so I don't really fancy scrapping too many) :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt McCoy
I'll probably do a few videos and pics as they get done just for fun as there is nothing restricted about the machines (only what is going in them) (I also really enjoy Tig welding)
Cool -- thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Sheldrake
TIG welding is an art form.