Laser decisions

[Matthew Sullivan]

Hello Sawmill

First off, I've been reading these forums for a few weeks now and it is absolutetly amazing. Thank you so much. I am attempting to decide between which laser engraver to purchase. I am debating between the Pinnacle M-25, the Spirit 25 and one by Redsail called the 6090C. I'm sure you know the specs of the m25 and the spirit 25. The 6090C is a chinese made laser, but they have a distributor in Canada ( where I am located ). The 6090C machine is $5000.00 US and has these specs;

24" X 36" work area ( height is up to 11" adjustable)
co2 60 Watt laser
Max speed 32 inches per second
Max Res 1000 dpi
software- easycut 4, directly compatable with corel draw
stepper motor driven
and the 2 side open doors for long items

warranty is 12 months for the machine ( 3 months for the tube )
comes with water cooling, air exhaust and air assist and a 2" lens

Any info would be greatly apprecaited people. I appreciate your time. As you can see the 6090C is extremely tempting I should be ordering my laser sometime this week if all goes well. I've been doing months of research on which one to get, but then this 6090C popped up to me almost out of nowhere.

Thanks again people, keep up the amazing forums. High 5's all around

[Joe Pelonio]

Hopefully you have already read this:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=29400

and considered the comments on Redsail as part of your decision.

I went with Epilog, a major consideration being the local (same state, 1.5 hours away) support. Even now that my vendor has changed to another brand I still have good support from Epilog in Colorado. I'll often have jobs that take several days or a week, and cannot wait too long for help/service/parts and still meet deadlines. If this is a hobby machine, then savings in initial cost may be worth it to you, but in a production shop with only one laser, like mine, local support is critical. From what I have heard both the Pinnacle and Spirit people have similar good support.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I've been in business for a long time. One thing I never-ever do (anymore)... spend money on a tool I know I'll either outgrow or stop using out of frustration/lack of parts and service.

Either of these seems likely here.

Mitch

[Pamela Panik]

Matthew,

After doing lots of research, I purchased a Spirit. When I received it, I had a rep come to help train me. Whenever I needed help, he was a call away. If I can't get ahold of my rep, I call GCC direct, they are always friendly and ready to help. When I had a problem that we thought was the motor, they shipped a new one next day, when that didn't fix it, they sent a main board, again, next day. That solved the problem. Now I'm not saying that there are problems with my system, because everybody is going to have a few glitches, but a company with customer service like that is worth it's weight in gold. Plus, what happens if you need to recharge your tube, need parts or other? Can your sales rep guarantee your satisfaction? I have to agree with Joe, it must be too good to be true.
But, it never hurts to look.

Pamela

[Dave Fifield]

Matthew, my advice is to look very carefully at the driver/s and make sure they work with the operating system and art software that you intend to use. Some of the less expensive lasers may not have the driver features you want/need.

I'm agree with Joe - you really can't go wrong with an Epilog laser. That's what I have (I've had two of them now) and I'm VERY happy with it. The Epilog drivers are excellent (bullet proof and feature rich) and their support is legend-ary (pun intended).

Mitchell has a good point too - buy the machine that you will need in the future, don't get suckered into buying the sarter model and then find you need to upgrade in less than a year!

Cheers,
Dave F.

[Matthew Sullivan]

Thanks for your input guys. I guess I was just folding at the knees, I was weak haha almost gave into it. The reason it was in any way tempting to me is because they have a distributor a couple hrs away from where I live, and I've been talkin Lei for a while, and he seemed like an ok guy. Or maybe I was being sold? haha. Well thanks again, appreciate it. So what if you were to pick from the pinnacle m25 and spirit 25? Any personal preferences? Do the features suit the price difference?

Thanks again guys, much appreciated

Matthew Sullivan

[Rodne Gold]

The spirits are the better machines than the old mercurys , faster with a better motion system and a lot easier to work with and on.
We have 3 of them and 3 Explorers and used to have 2 mercurys.
We dont have the smart box with our spirits , just the honeycomb table.
We havent had em long , but they seem fine so far - time will tell , supposedly 25w but we get 30+ w readings on the tables.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I've had my Spirit 60W for three weeks. My one and only use of a laser, so my basis of comparison is limited. I'll say it was delivered on the day promised, Scott Faulkner at Swiftech (MA) spent 8 hours here showing me the ropes and has made three follow-up calls to see how things are going. So far, I'm happy.

Mitch

[Matthew Sullivan]

Thank you very much, keep the info commin, I love this stuff To throw one more into the mix if you don't mind, what about the pinnacle Accuris 16? 60 inches per second, 30 watt high output, and 11 inches height ( height not a big issue ). Pretty much the same price as the pinnacle m-25. I've heard nobody mention this machine.

Thanks again everybody

Matthew Sullivan

[Matthew Sullivan]

Just an update. The machine is called the Accuris PowerSHARP 16 by pinnacle.

Thanks very much in advance

Matthew Sullivan

[Matthew Sullivan]

Hello all again. I aplogize firstly for posting so many questions so often. Just I am getting rather excited to be getting my machine shortly Once the decision is made that is. I guess what it comes down to, is Accuris vs Spirit for me. The specs pretty much line up, ish. So last post for questions for a while haha, I'll let you guys talk. Thanks so much again, This forum is amazing, I have no idea what I would have purchased without your knowledge. Thanks so much everybody.


Matthew Sullivan

[Mitchell Andrus]

Don't get hung up on how fast the machine is unless you plan to REALLY keep it busy and really tweak the driver's settings for max efficiency.

I've loaded the machine with stuff to be vector cut four to eight projects at a time and have heard the 'finished' beep before I could cross the shop. Literally 5 to 8 seconds per unit cut...

Raster cutting isn't dependent (too much) on machine speed. PPI and DPI sets the pace. I've set up 12 penboxes at a time for rastering and they are done in about 25 minutes. At that rate, the machine sits unused 97% of the time, and I can't sell stuff that fast anyway.

Any bottlenecks in the use of the machine will be in loading and unloading it, not in write speed, so if through-put is a concern, get the largest table you can afford. Loading a tray with 12 items at a time versus 6, that's where you'll pick up speed and efficiency, at least on repeat jobs.

Mitch

[Hale Reider]

I would not put the LaserPro and Accuris on the same page. I originally thought this was a new version of the Spirit or similar, as Pinnacle sells machines made by GCC (makers of LaserPro).

Sign Warehouse is supposedly importing the Accuris cabinet and then assembling them here. Electronics are there own? Another company in Taiwan builds also builds a laser using the same cabinet. I exchanged some Email with them, but they have no support here. Accuris is stepping motors as is Universal. LaserPro is servo motors and the machine is built in Taiwan.

While researching lasers a few months back, it seems that both LaserPro and the Sign Warehouse Accuris are using only Synrad tubes at this time. That left Epilog as the only Coherent user, as Trotec, Gravograph and Xenetech are now using Synrad. Universal makes their own. I was told that Synrad tubes last longer and have last repair issues.

I just bought my second machine and went with Epilog. So far, I am satisfied. Much better results than with the first machine.

Hale Reider

To Be Cherishe.

[Keith Bragg]

Hey Mitch A.
In your post you have a jig for multiple pen boxes was wondering if you care to share your design dimensions corel file etc.

[Joe Pelonio]

Don't get hung up on how fast the machine is unless you plan to REALLY keep it busy and really tweak the driver's settings for max efficiency.

I've loaded the machine with stuff to be vector cut four to eight projects at a time and have heard the 'finished' beep before I could cross the shop. Literally 5 to 8 seconds per unit cut...

Raster cutting isn't dependent (too much) on machine speed. PPI and DPI sets the pace. I've set up 12 penboxes at a time for rastering and they are done in about 25 minutes. At that rate, the machine sits unused 97% of the time, and I can't sell stuff that fast anyway.

Any bottlenecks in the use of the machine will be in loading and unloading it, not in write speed, so if through-put is a concern, get the largest table you can afford. Loading a tray with 12 items at a time versus 6, that's where you'll pick up speed and efficiency, at least on repeat jobs.

Mitch

It really depends on what you are doing. Power = speed when cutting. A large percentage of my production work is cutting 1/4" acrylic, at speed setting 6 with 45 watts. If I had gotten 60 or 80 watts those jobs would go a lot faster as I could run at a faster speed. Still, I agree that much faster and I'd have to spend the whole time changing material, at least now I can work on artwork or other things while it's running and wait for the bell, so overall the extra power would not have been worth the additional cost to me.