Just pulled the trigger on my 4th fiber

-and my 3rd eBay machine. This one is a 50 watt standard crank tower/table setup with separate control box, pretty much exactly like my first eBay machine. Also getting a rotary so now I'll have 2 of those, I've been getting more and more rotary jobs in lately.

One of my repeat jobs came in again today with instructions to 'engrave deeper, powdercoating fills the engraving'. Been debating with myself for over a week now to buy another, this job sealed the deal... These are stainless parts that I can just tool engrave, but sharpening the tool after every 3 parts gets old real fast. One thing I love about lasers, they never need sharpening! :D

I don't know who I'm buying from, but I didn't the first time either, and the machines have been great (knock on my head!) -

Good luck! Having two of these makes life way easier than only one. I've had to alter some settings going from 20 to 50 watt, but it's fun putting items on both at same time and and really staying busy rather than the wait. I don't think I'll get number 3, it's only me running them. (unless I get a REALLY big order of very deep engraving which is actually what prompted #2)

I'm hoping the 50 is all it's cracked up to be! ;) -I could use a little faster & deeper. I just got an RFQ yesterday, 1100 8-1/2" dia carbon steel rings that need a 40-character ID number around the perimeter .002" deep. That's easy enough for a 30w, but the rotary jobs in general are increasing...

Mine came with a 175mmx175mm lens. Which is great, but for that job, I'd for sure put a 100x100 on it. I've an f63, 75mm focus length which is real close. It will cut, but the metal will actually hit the lens.

This one's coming with the basic 150 'work area' lens, and from the pics it uses the small M52 lens like my other 2 eBay machines. My Triumph came with an M85 lens, but I swapped it to my Ebay2 machine, because, I got a 420 which only comes in M85 (so far), and the Triumph is a single-unit portable, and the case is too close to the lens to make use of it. In fact it's almost too close for a 220 lens-- I've been trying to figure out how if I can make a collar that I can screw into an M52 scanhead to mount an M85 lens. Maybe someone sells one, but I haven't found it if they do!
In M85 I have a 420, 220, 150 and 72mm work-area lenses, and 220, 250 and 100mm sizes in M52's. I just love tuning all these machines to all these lenses. Actually, No, no I don't :D

Machine's supposed to be here tomorrow :)

So Fedex tracking said my new machine was on the truck early Friday morning and would be delivered Friday...

Got an email, delivery complete! So I'm excited-- I open the front door and there's a box on the porch... it contained the rotary.

Nothing else. Fedex and ebay say 'transaction complete!' I sent the seller an email and waited. No Fedex truck, no response from the seller...

So Saturday I called Fedex. Bert hates the USPS. I hate Fedex. Their online assistant is a computer. I call their 800 number, that's a computer. After 10 minutes of figuring out there's no option or button to push for the actual help I need, I yell into the phone "NEED TO SPEAK TO A HUMAN!!!"

Lo and behold, that actually worked. Turned out there was 2 packages (which I'd already figured out) but only one tracking number, for the rotary. It was confirmed that the 120 lb. package was on the truck, should be delivered today (Saturday) by 8pm. Can I get the tracking number? Nope, Fedex CS can't give out tracking numbers. 8pm comes and goes, no laser.

But I found out my seller had emailed me, explained there was 2 packages (lol) and provided me the other tracking number.

Fedex says, it's on the truck and should be delivered today, Monday the 5th. So I was expecting it today.

It came YESTERDAY. Lucky I was even here to receive the thing. Fedex drives me nuts...

Anyway, got the thing hauled down to the basement-- I seriously have no room for any more machines, so it's home is the end the table in the back room--
Attachment 460590
the little PVC side table WAS on wheels and taller, I just cut the legs off so it would be the same height as the big table.
I put the control box on the floor, then found I had to prop it up off the floor so I could use the rotary--
Attachment 460591
The way they wired this, I kinda like, the dipswitch controller is all pre-wired to the rotary, so the
controller sits outside instead of mounted inside. The wired the plug on the control box simply to
supply power to the rotary and controller. Only problem is, the cord length from the rotary to
the plug is kinda short. But raising the box did the trick.

One pleasant surprise was that this machine came with an M85-size lens, which I have 4 sizes of-
Attachment 460592

--one of them a 100/72mm work area-- I can hardly wait to see the damage that 50 watts and THAT lens can do!
And that's the other pleasant surprise, the fact that it is indeed a 50 watt machine! That guy who bought a 100w machine
that turned out to be a 20 or 30 watt unit had me worried. But the first thing I engraved was some simple text on some black anodized aluminum...

Using my tried/true 'just make it white' settings for my other 3 machines produced a gray engraving about .001 deep!
A .008" deep line I'd just done on a bunch of SS parts with my Ebay1 machine that took 9 passes, this machine got it about .006" deep in ONE pass, same exact settings...

:D --I'm happy!

Whoever set up the machine had the sizing and 'squaring' dead to rights, no bulges or angles to fix and a 145mm box measured exactly 145mm both ways.

The red-light-to-engraving alignment however was WAYYYY off! But that was an easy fix ;) Once I got the came-with 150 lens settings tuned up, I copied the parameters files for my 300/220 lens from the Ebay2's computer, and when I redlighted the 145mm box I'd engraved, it lined up, and so did the engraving-- I'm surprised the settings worked that well, but glad they did!

Set the rotary up, it works just dandy. Did some test engravings, found there are some frequency anomalies to work out between 30 and 50 watts, like, to blacken the brass cowbells I engrave with a 30, I MUST use a 150 lens (not enough power with the 220), and best-fast results come from a .01 hatch, 750 speed, 100 power and 62 freq. (don't know why but 62 is more consistent than 61 or 63?)... So using the 220 lens with the 50, I thought it would blacken like gangbusters as the same settings, but nope!? At 60-anything freq it just wouldn't blacken. But once I got the freq into the 40's, I got black. Mid 30's even better. I recently did 2500 brass 'dog tags' on the Ebay1 machine, the 50, at 37 freq, was able to engrave the same tag in half the time, and looks better.The 30 watt machines with freq's in the 30's just engraves brass to yellow. SO, I have some experimenting to do for sure.

Overall I'm very pleased, and *so far* (knock on my head) I'm 3 for 3 with buying Ebay machines :)

Yeah, going from my 20 to a 50 made me alter power and frequency, but frequency just a bit in most cases. I'm still not 100% comfortable with everything on the 50, so the 20 gets used a lot for the little items that Ive done multiple times. But it is really nice having 2 machines.

so I ran a 'deep engrave' hatch routine I use for guns & stuff, on an aluminum piece. I've ran this same routine on my other machines to see how long it would take to laser engrave it deep enough to paint, vs tool engraving it like I normally do.

The 30w machines would get about .006 deep in 5 runs, but depending on adjustments it would take pretty much the same time to engrave as tooling it..

I did TWO runs, and it got to around .015" deep...! A bit slaggy but I can fix that :D This thing sure is going to speed up a few jobs, and will eliminate the need for tool engraving many other jobs I get.

I was just testing it's lower power settings, and it's actually 'gentler' at 0 to 40% than my 30 watters, most likely due to how the power map is set up.