Still comparing Universal and Epilog 50 watt (timer and beep questions)

[Pat Matranga]

Hello friends, The Universal model I'm looking at (50 watt) doesn't have a timer on the machine. The rep told me the beep comes from the computer. I have used a couple different lasers over the years and I liked that they timed the job and they beeped when it was done. I'm not sure I would like it without that. Can anyone comment on these features? Also, on the Universal I have to measure the thickness of the wood. I will have employees running this sometimes. If they forgot to enter the thickness that could lead to the lens smashing into the work? If I remember the demo I don't think I needed to measure the thickness with the Epilog. Any comments most welcome. I need to decide and get one on the way. I am new to forums.

[Ben Dalton]

Pat, Our company just purchased a GCC spirit GLS 80 watt after weeks of comparing the universal, epilog, trotec and GCC machines, and we are loving our new machine. Almost universally, the western machines are priced by the laser wattage and how big (bed size) the machine is. The various bells and whistles are then how the different companies differentiate their machines. We tried to get as much of an apples to apples comparison as we could, and from what we found, the universal was by far the most expensive. It was followed by the trotec and then the GCC and epilog machines were nearly the same. Granted we were looking for an 80 watt with a working bed size of around 38 inches by 24 inches, so the big bed size may make a big difference in price--in other words, the smaller machines may be more competitively priced across the board, I don't know. I do know that the GCC machine is comparable to all the western machines, as far as features go, and was the least expensive. The one downfall GCC has is it's support, as GCC is based out of Taiwan. We got around this though by buying from a guy who also services all the GCC machines, and who we were sure knew his stuff. (He helped us fix an older GCC laser we had this last winter, free of charge, and we hadn't even bought the machine from him). Long story short, check out GCC, as they make some amazing machines, and may save you some money. By the way, the 2 machines we own both time the jobs, and beep when they are done running a job. They also allow you to manually or auto focus the optics without measuring the thickness of the material (either with a manual gauge, or an auto-focus pin, both come standard). Hope this helps, let me know if you want to get in touch with our guy.

[Scott Shepherd]

Hello friends, The Universal model I'm looking at (50 watt) doesn't have a timer on the machine. The rep told me the beep comes from the computer. I have used a couple different lasers over the years and I liked that they timed the job and they beeped when it was done. I'm not sure I would like it without that. Can anyone comment on these features? Also, on the Universal I have to measure the thickness of the wood. I will have employees running this sometimes. If they forgot to enter the thickness that could lead to the lens smashing into the work? If I remember the demo I don't think I needed to measure the thickness with the Epilog. Any comments most welcome. I need to decide and get one on the way. I am new to forums.

Pat, whoever is telling you that isn't doing a good job of explaining how the Universal works. The Epilog beeps because once you send the job over to the Epilog, it only exists in the laser. It's commonly referred to as a machine that just takes print jobs. You print it, it goes to the laser, and anything changes you make to speed/power are lost once the job is gone out of the laser.

The Universal has "Job Control". Job Control works completely different than "printer based" machines. Job Control is an active tool that interacts with the laser. What that means is if you send a job to job control, once it's there, it exists in job control. That means if you change a setting on the fly, that setting is recorded with the job. If you want to come back to a job you ran last week on the Epilog and recall the settings for some future use, you can't. On the Universal, you can go back 2000 jobs if you choose to and see every single setting you had at the time. If you want to grab that setting and save it as a material, you can. So you can pull up a job you did 6 weeks ago, save the material settings as a material, and then take a new job today and apply the new material setting you saved to it and you know you're dialed in. You can't do things like that without job control.

On the beep, yes, it's true, the machine doesn't beep. However, you can apply any .wav file you want to the job and when it's done, it'll play through the computer speakers. If you want a beep, put a beep .wav file there and you have it.

On the Z-Axis, the Epilog has to be auto focused or manually focused on a job. The Universal has a programmable Z-Axis. So when you set up materials, you enter speed/power settings, but you also enter the material thickness. If the table is down 6" and you put a piece of 1/4" thick wood in it and his start, it knows the wood is 1/4" thick and it raises the table automatically to be in focus. If you have different thicknesses, there is an auto-focus option on the Universal that shoots a beam across the work. I think I've used that 2 or 3 times just to see how it works. With the Epilog, it's a plunger that's going to come over and touch the work every time.

In my opinion, the Universal is much more of a sophisticated machine. It has a lot more flexibility and it's a lot more powerful from the job side of things. The Epilog is easier to use, but less powerful on that side of things.

It really depends on what you want to do with it. I personally would never buy a machine without job control or a programmable z-axis. However, I know a lot of people that have programmable z-axis machines and have never turned it on and don't even know they have it. If you plan on putting it in, and just running jobs and not getting too involved, the Epilog is probably a good pick. If you want to get involved and really know how to be a power user for your machine and do some amazing things with it, then the Universal is probably your better bet.

Just my opinion.

[Dan Hintz]

Listen to Steve (Scott)... he has, at one time or another, actively worked with the three major machines (Epilog, ULS, and Trotec). At the time I made my decision, Trotec was priced out of my range, so the real decision came down to Epilog and ULS. Both are fine machines, but there were so many little things I liked the way ULS did better... it wasn't a difficult decision in the end. Like Steve, I used the autofocus a handful of times to play with it, but in short order I was adding my material measurements to the job and letting the auto Z-axis take care of things for me. It's pretty neat watching the machine automatically change Z height in the middle of a job because the item you're engraving has multiple levels... saved me a lot of time.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Here are two things that I came across when looking at Trotec/Universal.

1. Sharing/networking the laser has some complications.
2. If your computer freezes while streaming the job, the results are unknown.

If I bought either machine, I'd spend $4-500 and get a computer just to run the laser.

[Scott Shepherd]

Here are two things that I came across when looking at Trotec/Universal.

1. Sharing/networking the laser has some complications.
2. If your computer freezes while streaming the job, the results are unknown.

If I bought either machine, I'd spend $4-500 and get a computer just to run the laser.

1) True, actually, to the best of my knowledge, you can't run the same laser off 2 computers, period.

2) Been running Universal's and Trotec's for 6 years now. Never once had that issue. Not once. That's 10's of thousands of jobs over the years, never once had the machine hiccup because of this "connected to the computer at all times" concern. Nor have I ever seen on any engraving forum anyone reporting it happening not once. To me, that puts that concern to rest. If you wanted to be concerned about something, I'd search about epilog tubes, encoder strips, autofocus crashing, and motherboard's dying long before I'd be concerned about my computer losing it's connection to the laser and damaging a job.

[Pat Matranga]

Hi Scott, This was VERY helpful and all the other replies too. I got what I needed to DECIDE! Breakthrough. I will need to learn how to set up the beep as I really like that.

[Pat Matranga]

Steve, On the ULS I can order a 2" or 1.5" lens. Wood will be my main material. I thought the 1.5" might be better for me as I do both production runs and will do some photos and more artistic items. Same price. Are you in the AAW?

[Scott Shepherd]

I've never used a 1.5". I'm sure the 2.0" would be fine. With a smaller spot size on the beam, you'll need to increase the dpi, so with a 2.0 lens, you might run 500 dpi, with the 1.5, you may need to go to 600 dpi for the same type result. 600 dpi takes longer to engrave. So with smaller spot sizes and higher quality, the time goes up quickly. Also, if you plan on doing photos in wood, 1.5 is way overkill for that. The wood can't deal with that level of quality.

I don't know what the AAW is, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in it

[Dan Hintz]

I don't know what the AAW is, but I'm pretty sure I'm not in it

It's for us Woodturners...




Pat, as Steve said, stick with the 2" lens... it will cover the vast majority of work you will do, particularly if wood is your chosen substrate. I would only add the 1.5" to your toolbox if you plan on high-resolution substrates like anodized aluminum, or possibly if you plan on doing extremely-finescale intarsia work and need to cut veneers.

[Ross Moshinsky]

1) True, actually, to the best of my knowledge, you can't run the same laser off 2 computers, period.

2) Been running Universal's and Trotec's for 6 years now. Never once had that issue. Not once. That's 10's of thousands of jobs over the years, never once had the machine hiccup because of this "connected to the computer at all times" concern. Nor have I ever seen on any engraving forum anyone reporting it happening not once. To me, that puts that concern to rest. If you wanted to be concerned about something, I'd search about epilog tubes, encoder strips, autofocus crashing, and motherboard's dying long before I'd be concerned about my computer losing it's connection to the laser and damaging a job.

Computers freeze. When that happens, what happens to your laser? In the CNC world and the print world, you have print servers and computers designated to running the CNC. Why? Because they want to limit the chances of the streaming data having any drops/issues. We've had this discussion before. I know where you stand. You know where I stand. When you can explicitly tell me what happens when you're running a job and your computer crashes/freezes, then I'd be more than willing to form my opinion around that definitive piece of information. Until then, I know if your computer freezes/crashes while running the job the results are unknown. If you engrave $5 pieces of wood all day, this unknown may not bother you at all. If you engrave $2000 widgets, it may something worth thinking about.

Also you can network the laser, but not the same way as with an Epilog. From what I understand, you share the printer/laser over the network and it will load the job into the job control software.

[Nathan Shaffer]

I will admit that I do not have near the experience that most of the people who have already commented. But if you were to look at the Epilog Fusion you might get the best of what all Trotec, Universal and Epilog have to offer. There is a 38 minute video on youtube that explains what Epilog has added to the Fusion. If I had the $32k (current quote) I might be willing to buy one. The only thing I do not like about Epilog machines is that it seems to be difficult to have repeatability when using the rotary. With my VLS2.3 I can hit the same area has many times has I need till I get the results I am looking for.

The title for the video is "Fusion and FiberMark Fusion Feature Introduction "

V/R
Nathan

[Dan Hintz]

Does the Fusion have the 140ips speed of the Trotec? I don't think so...

[Scott Shepherd]

Computers freeze. When that happens, what happens to your laser? In the CNC world and the print world, you have print servers and computers designated to running the CNC. Why? Because they want to limit the chances of the streaming data having any drops/issues. We've had this discussion before. I know where you stand. You know where I stand. When you can explicitly tell me what happens when you're running a job and your computer crashes/freezes, then I'd be more than willing to form my opinion around that definitive piece of information. Until then, I know if your computer freezes/crashes while running the job the results are unknown. If you engrave $5 pieces of wood all day, this unknown may not bother you at all. If you engrave $2000 widgets, it may something worth thinking about.

Also you can network the laser, but not the same way as with an Epilog. From what I understand, you share the printer/laser over the network and it will load the job into the job control software.

Sorry Ross, I don't live my life by worst case scenario's. The real world facts for us is that in 6 years time, we've never had it happen. If I were doing any basic business calculation or ROI, if I saw the benefits of having something possibly happen versus the financial benefits of all the features, the benefits would far outweigh the risks.

If you want to know what happens if the computer freezes, that's no mystery. That's a known. If the computer dies, then the machine stops working. It loses it's connection to the laser and the job will stop. It's easy to recover for 95% of the jobs, just start the same job back up, reverse the direction and stop it when it gets to the point it left off. I agree, some critical or expensive parts that might be a problem.

However, if you'd like to do the "what if" game, "what if" the electricity goes off when you're engraving on the Epilog?". I've had that happen to me far more times than the computer going down while it was running.

In the real world, it's not an issue. Trotec and Universal combined have more machines out there than Epilog. How many times have you seen it brought up as an issue anywhere, other than in theory? That's what I thought, close to zero.

[Joe Hillmann]

Computers freeze. When that happens, what happens to your laser? In the CNC world and the print world, you have print servers and computers designated to running the CNC. Why? Because they want to limit the chances of the streaming data having any drops/issues. We've had this discussion before. I know where you stand. You know where I stand. When you can explicitly tell me what happens when you're running a job and your computer crashes/freezes, then I'd be more than willing to form my opinion around that definitive piece of information. Until then, I know if your computer freezes/crashes while running the job the results are unknown. If you engrave $5 pieces of wood all day, this unknown may not bother you at all. If you engrave $2000 widgets, it may something worth thinking about.

Also you can network the laser, but not the same way as with an Epilog. From what I understand, you share the printer/laser over the network and it will load the job into the job control software.

On older Universals.

If the computer freezes when the job is running nothing happens the laser will keep on running. If the computer freezes when ut us sending to the laser it will get stuck in the print spooler. If you wait long enough for the computer to finish spooling you will get a corrupt file and the laser warns you. If you ignore the flashing corrupt file display and run it anyways the laser will run just fine until it gets to the corrupt part and it will stop.