Brand New to Site and Laser Engraving

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Hi I just found this site this morning and wish I had found it months ago (it would have saved me alot of research time). I have just retired from the Coast Guard and am starting a gift and engraving business. I have ordered a Laserpro Mecury 25 watt and just got a call from the shipping company that it will be here tomorrow. The rep will be here next week to set it up and provide training. I am new to engraving and want to make sure that I get the most out of the training is there any thing that you all would suggest I ask about while he is here? Also any lessons learned from those of you that have already started and are running your business would be greatly apprecated! I have spent a good part of this day reading the threads on here and this looks like a great site, I am very happy that I found it many questions that I have been wondering about I found answers to here!

Mark Fitzmorris

[Bruce Volden]

Mark, There are a lot of knowledgeable folks here at the creek who will be more than happy in anyway they can to assist you and answer question, share files etc. Good luck in your endevours. Where are you located??Bruce

[Dave Jones]

I'd suggest trying to get your hands on a small assortment of materials that you might be wanting to engrave, and slap together a few simple designs so you can have the rep use some of those while teaching. The designs and materials he brings may make your laser look great, but once he leaves you'll be using your designs and your materials.

One tip I picked up here that I think is great is to have a notebook next to the laser and each time you experiment with new material, write down the power and speed settings that worked best, and any comments about the results. If it's a material you don't use often, you might forget the details by the next time you use it.

[Mitchell Andrus]

One word of advise... If you plan to make money, even spare cash to supplement retirement, understand that you are running a business first, and engraving stuff second.

I retired at 40 and now 10 years (and two careers) later I'm busier than ever because I don't just build furniture, I build loyalty. I sell service, pride and value.

Remember also to allow those who retail your work (assuming you'll be retailing through gift shops, trophy shops, etc.) to make a profit. They'll keep you busy only if you share the wealth.

Mitch

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Thanks for the advice and kind words, I am looking forward to learning from all of you!

Bruce I am located in Suffolk VA.

Dave your tip about a notebook sounds like a good one that I will make sure to follow.

Mitchell your business advice is very sound and again I will make sure to follow it.

Thanks,
Mark

[Rodne Gold]

I know the mercury well , I second the advice to get materials of your own and a few designs. What I do suggest is to spend more time on the Driver , it's characteristics and strategies to position stuff in the laser and how Corel/whatever interacts with the driver than on the design package itself.What I mean is not to get caught up in how to put a circle withing a rectangle and have text follow the circle and so forth , rather get to grips with where you must put the circle on the page and what colour to make it so that the laser adopts some strategy with it. IE mopre on how to output your design than the way to do the design.
Pay particular attention to demonstrations on machine maintenance. Do not get too involved with bells and whistles like 3d engraving or stamp engraving with the rep , leave that to if and when there is spare time.
Go thru the way to use the rotary attachment 5x , its not intuitive , buy some glasses to use on it. Make sure you can work it without help.
Get some cerdec and practice metal marking , in the gift industry a lot of ppl have metal items.
Get the basics down pat , also get him to show you how various setting influence engraving time and quality.
Do not spend a lot of time on the machine menus (not driver based , but in the hardware itself) like linking files and changing job ordering etc. IE dont spend time on hardly used arcane stuff
Do not let him leave untill you have executed at least 3 different jobs on your own right from design to finished product without ANY help from him.
It's a great machine , very reliable and ideal for your application.

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Rodne,

Wow great info thanks alot! You now have me thinking about things that would have never accured to me! How long have you had the Mecury? Any quirks that you have run into?

Thanks

[Rodne Gold]

I had a few mercuries some time ago and upgraded to explorers and have just bought 3 spirits which are descendants of the mercury. There really are no quirks with the machine. One of the nice features is the ability to move the head by hand to an area you want to engrave and start from there. You can pause a job , move the head out the way to inspect it and continue again , the head goes back to where you moved it from. Make sure your air assist is both moisture and oil free , it passes thru the lens box and oil/water can contaminate the lens and damage it.
In giftware , you are faced with a ton of small jobs on to differing items as well as large runs of corporate gifts etc.
So your biggest problem will be positioning templates and jigs for items or templates for the item itself. I suggest buying a scanner and scanning the object and importing it into the graphics package , that way you get a real life size outline of it. Modeling clay and wood blocks of various sizes make good jigs. A set of V blocks is great for pens and cylindrical objects
blocks with a V cut into them so the object sits like this \o/. Make sure the laser is aligned 100% when delivered. The Alignment can go out quite easily with the mercury as its mirror housings are not the most solid etc - make sure the dealer shows you the diagnostic menu and some basic alignment so you can do it yourself if the dealer is a long way from you. Check the Autofcus with the physical gauge provided and tune it (on the laser itself it has a facility to do this) Ask the dealer to show you how to use cluster for objects where there is a lot of unengraved space between em. Your ideal is to cut cycle times of engraved items to the minimum whilst maintaining quality.
I found the GCC manuals less than ideal - the rotary attachment is , imho , a weak point due to its clamping facilities and its complex way of using it. Do not leave your vector cutting table to get dirty or let the cells get knocked out of shape , clean residues with acetone or thinners and straighten bent fins regularily.

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Rodne again thanks for the great info I am indebted to you and all that have posted! I just found out that I will not be getting the machine today, the delivery man called to get my location and to ask how I planned to get it off the truck. It weighs 522 lb and his truck does not have a lift gate! A quick call to jorlink and hopefully it will get resechedualed with a truck that at least has a lift gate!

[Kamal Omar]

Hi Mark,
hopefully your system is running well!
mark.. do you need sombody to assist you in this job,
7 years experience in working with Laser machines, corelDRAW, and applications as well as technicals and maintenance ?
with a very stronge background in different applications of Laser (CO2 and Nd:YAG as well)

if yes, please post your reply to this mail for more details:
kimo_spirit@yahoo.com

and wish you all the best with your new machine!
Kamal

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Kamal,

Thanks for your generous offer. I would be foolish not to listen to advice of you and others on this board as you all have much more experience then I do. I look forward to learning from all on here.

[Dave Fifield]

I find it hard to believe that a 25W laser engraver with a 25" x 18" work area has a shipping weight of 522 lbs. Are you sure that's right Mark?

My old 35W Epilog 24TT weighed 96 lbs (by FedEx's weighing scales) when it was all packed up to ship to its new owner. How come the Laserpro Mercury is so heavy?!

Anyway, all the best with your planned business venture. I have heard that laser engraving cellphone cases is really big right now....so you might consider that angle too.

Cheers,
Dave Fifield

[Rodne Gold]

Dave , its a floor standing model and comes in a seriously big packing crate , you need at least 3-4 guys to offload it from a height.
It's made from fairly heavy duty stuff and the dfimensions are 1125mm x 720mm x 1005mm , unpacked.

[Dave Fifield]

Wow! It is a big 'un! I took a look at the specs online just now Rodne - seems like it's a really solidly built machine with lots of room for upgrading to higher power etc. Nice!

You be careful moving it Mark!

Cheers,
Dave F.

[Mark Fitzmorris]

Dave,

I too was shocked when I heard the weight! I quickly called jorlink (the dealer) and was told that a good portion of that weight is the packing crate it is shipped in! Still have not recieved the machine ( I am hoping for Mon). It will be interesting getting it into the office!