Hi-

I recently purchased a 2007 75W Epilog Helix 24x18 machine that has had the laser removed due to governmental requirements to dispose of "hazardous materials" . According to Epilog, I can purchase a new 75W Coherent laser from them for about $12k, or their own house-developed 60W laser for about $6.5k, neither of which is a particularly great price. I'm wondering how much luck people have had substituting cheaper Chinese water-cooled lasers for these ones, or if there are other alternatives as well. I see a lot of complete systems coming from China, and the raw laser components (tubes, power supplies), but I haven't found any examples of someone successfully setting one of these up inside an Epilog. Maybe that's because most people aren't faced with a $6.5k laser replacement because they have a core to trade so it only costs $1795 to repair.

We have a full machine shop here and EE expertise as well, so we can fabricate anything we need to package and interface the laser in the machine nicely. What we don't have much expertise in is the compatibility of these lasers to the Epilog machine, e.g. beam diameter, optical alignment, laser control signals (fire, pulse, fault, etc.).

Has anyone done this?

Colby