As one who has obtained a wealth of information from the Creek, I first want to say thank you to all those taking the time to share your skills and knowledge with others! I've learned soooo much from the archives, but a few questions still remain unanswered.
Basically I'm just a hobbyist and volunteer, currently spending my retired days trying to keep the brain cells firing by making various crafts for dog and other group fundraising and other fun stuff. Am considering purchasing a CO2 laser and am interested in working with acrylics and other plastics (delrin, urethane, etc.), wood, paper, stamps, heat transfer vinyl, leather, anodized and Cermark metals, maybe glass and fabric. Am looking for a versatile system, rather than any type of production machine. Right now I'm thinking in the 40-60W range and I'd like a good bit of z-axis clearance but not really needing a gigantic work area.
At this point I am not looking at the Chinese units and pretty much looking at just Epilog, Trotec, and Universal. A frugal person by nature, but the apparent lack of support for the Chinese units isn't what I'm looking for. I want to make stuff, not spend all my time fixing the equipment. Yes, the husband and I could probably repair a unit (mostly the husband, ex-electronics tech, Navy nuke, and YAG laser user), but I want to put my efforts into using the machine, not getting it to work properly. I was surprised to read some fairly recent posts indicating that the Trotec support is going downhill, this after reading other sources that no longer had Epilog as #1 for apparently the same reason. I am a little concerned if the big three aren't going to provide support after the purchase, then I may as well save money and just go with one of the Chinese units! So any thoughts on current support after the purchase would be appreciated.
My primary question is how one evaluates similar lasers from the different manufacturers?? Was wondering if you send design files and media to each for them to run, but there's no way of knowing what machine and setup they actually used to produce the end product. So, for these manufacturers, does it all come down to features, cost, warranty, support, etc.?? (Not seeing any trade shows in my area anytime soon so guess I'll have to wait if I want a good deal or extras.)
Another concern is software. Although I still have the old CorelDraw x3, I now use the Adobe products and would want the laser SW color mapping and other features to work for Illustrator and not have to jump through hoops to get an Illustrator job done. I've read that any SW package will work, but wondering if as easily as if I were using CorelDraw? I don't mind some initial Illustrator setup differences but wouldn't want to deal with it when sending every job.
I also do some sublimation of items that I'd like to be able to cut out and would be interested if anyone is using any type of registration mark reading SW like Trotec's JobControl Vision??
Thanks!!