Blasphemy! Another Glowforge Post!

[Bill George]

I think the Rayjet is the low cost Trotec option. The OP can decide which route when he gets back Monday to post.

[Scott Shepherd]

Trotecs are expensive over here Scotty, the Speedy 300 usually runs around $38,000 to $40,000

Understood, but he was comparing US pricing on some models to his European pricing experience with Trotec. Just trying to make sure all was compared fairly. You can certainly get an $18,000 Rayjet, but it won't be the one in the video, it'll be a lot bigger and have a lot more power.

The one in the video is the entry level once which isn't far off on the price point the other two machines listed.

[Art Mann]

In your original post, you mentioned that 6 - 12 months is your purchase time frame. That means you have enough time to wait and see. If Glowforge still exists then and if a majority of users are getting good results, then you can consider it.

[Wojciech Szul]

Likely the most dangerous garbage on the market, 445nm blinds permanently /.../ they are dreadful ,dangerous garbage that should be purged from the laser community

. Totally agree. This crap spreads all around (because are cheap) and what is a worst main target of buyers are inexperienced, unconscious and not educated persons. Quite often teenagers. And they are NOT effective as tools, one lad tried cut 3mm plywood with 5.5W LED laser. It takes 13 passes (!) to cut through. He have EleksMaker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXF5Om8g5jU) which is worth $480 at GearBest. For comparison cheapest CO2 laser K40 (working with ~27W) can cut 3mm plywood with 11mm/s in 1 pass. With similar price I suppose. Weird and SAD he is happy with this dangerous LED toy...

Personally I think there should be post or other clearly marked warning regards LED lasers on this forum.

[Bert McMahan]

Personally I think there should be post or other clearly marked warning regards LED lasers on this forum.

Good idea, though I do wonder if there are any applications where those lasers work particularly well. I mean speaking purely academically- I wonder if there are any exotic materials that cut way better with that wavelength or something. I know there are some plastics that work pretty well with UV wavelengths that fiber and CO2 don't work well on.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Good idea, though I do wonder if there are any applications where those lasers work particularly well. I mean speaking purely academically- I wonder if there are any exotic materials that cut way better with that wavelength or something. I know there are some plastics that work pretty well with UV wavelengths that fiber and CO2 don't work well on.

There are yes but diode lasers like those are typically very poor quality multimode rubbish so can't really be compared to decent equipment in that wavelength. Same with 532's used in inside carving lasers systems, high quality work well, low quality "green" pointers leak IR like a sieve (greens are frequency doubled IR's)

The problem is the way the eye deals with UV and near UV wavelengths, it doesn't focus on the lens of the eye, the eye's lens focuses it at the back of the eye in an area called the Macula Lutea so any damage done by them is usually permanent. .445 has a far higher individual photon energy compared to CO2 as well (there is no way to directly compare the "power" of the two wavelengths other than watt-seconds.

If you take the basic 10,600 CO2, that has a photon energy of 0.117eV where 445nm has a photon energy of 2.788eV, if you convert both to watt/seconds then the 445 can be said to be 24x more *dangerous* than a simple CO2 (without taking into account the mechanism of damage either) (in effect a 5 watt 445 being comparable to a 120 watt CO2) there's a lot more to it involving band gap energies and absorption etc etc but on simple face value 445's are dangerous junk in unqualified hands that do not tolerate mistakes, even small one's.....

[Bill George]

Like I have said before I had a diode laser purchased from China and upgraded at considerable expense, and aside from not fast and not great engraving on wood it was useless. Unless you like to just waste a lot of time. The real danger is the damage to the eye as Dave and others have pointed out. When it was being sold to builders and people who like to experiment with new things they were made aware of the dangers.

You could take a cheap K40 put another $400 in upgrades and have something that worked for less than $1,000 USD.

[Lee DeRaud]

If the OP is looking at spending about $5k, the is a Universal VersalLaser VL-300 with honeycomb and rotary on that auction place starting at $5999.
Might be a good option. and priced about right

Howard Garner

That's a decent price, even assuming it's due for a tube recharge*: new equivalent model is about $15K with a 30W tube (last time I checked anyway), and they're pretty much bulletproof. My VL200 is 13 years old, average "maintenance" works out to about $250/year, in the form of three tube recharges and a power supply.

(*I'd assume any used machine needs it, unless the seller has a recent invoice from ULS showing it was done in the last year or two. They generally last 4-5 years in "hobbyist" mode.)

[Chase Mueller]

.
(*I'd assume any used machine needs it, unless the seller has a recent invoice from ULS showing it was done in the last year or two. They generally last 4-5 years in "hobbyist" mode.)

When you say "hobbyist" mode, what do you mean? As in not using it daily..?

[Lee DeRaud]

When you say "hobbyist" mode, what do you mean? As in not using it daily..?

Yup. No hard numbers, but the tubes seems to have a life measured as "X hours of run-time or Y months of shelf time, whichever comes first".
My first tube died on "hours" about 4.5 years in, the second lasted about six years with lighter usage.

[Kev Williams]

When I bought the GCC from Gary, our negotiations included the possibility I'd need a tube in short order, since the machine was 10 years old. It's now 13 years old, I do use it daily, and it hasn't lost a step (knock on my head)-
My LS900 was built in '03, I bought it in '04 and it's still running like new (knock on my head )
The 1997 ULS I sold to my BIL when I got the GCC, I put a new tube in 11 years ago (which it turned out wasn't necessary), that machine engraves cedar boxes 1/8" deep several hours a day, and it just keeps going (knock on my head! )

--all of these tubes are Synrad's. Whatever their 'use' or 'shelf' life is, I have no idea (and I hope it stays that way)

[Lee DeRaud]

When I bought the GCC from Gary, our negotiations included the possibility I'd need a tube in short order, since the machine was 10 years old. It's now 13 years old, I do use it daily, and it hasn't lost a step (knock on my head)-
My LS900 was built in '03, I bought it in '04 and it's still running like new (knock on my head )
The 1997 ULS I sold to my BIL when I got the GCC, I put a new tube in 11 years ago (which it turned out wasn't necessary), that machine engraves cedar boxes 1/8" deep several hours a day, and it just keeps going (knock on my head! )

--all of these tubes are Synrad's. Whatever their 'use' or 'shelf' life is, I have no idea (and I hope it stays that way)

What wattage are those?
I'm wondering if higher-power tubes last longer because they don't spend as much time running at 100%. My relatively puny 25W is mostly used for cutting 1/4" MDF and acrylic: lots of long full power runs.

(I'm under the impression that ULS used to use Synrad tubes but started making their own at some point.)

[Chase Mueller]

Interesting. Thanks for the reply. Still trying to convince the warden that I need a laser at home. LOL

[Gary Hair]

What wattage are those?
I'm wondering if higher-power tubes last longer because they don't spend as much time running at 100%. My relatively puny 25W is mostly used for cutting 1/4" MDF and acrylic: lots of long full power runs.

(I'm under the impression that ULS used to use Synrad tubes but started making their own at some point.)

I don't know about the rest, but the GCC is 30 watts.

[Gary Hair]

When I bought the GCC from Gary, our negotiations included the possibility I'd need a tube in short order, since the machine was 10 years old. It's now 13 years old, I do use it daily, and it hasn't lost a step (knock on my head)-
My LS900 was built in '03, I bought it in '04 and it's still running like new (knock on my head )
The 1997 ULS I sold to my BIL when I got the GCC, I put a new tube in 11 years ago (which it turned out wasn't necessary), that machine engraves cedar boxes 1/8" deep several hours a day, and it just keeps going (knock on my head! )

--all of these tubes are Synrad's. Whatever their 'use' or 'shelf' life is, I have no idea (and I hope it stays that way)

Just because I'm a nitpicker - the GCC will be 12 years old this August, I bought it in 2006.