Let's see your lasers

[urbanrifleman]

No way to know, on a prefit, unless you have the action in hand at some point.

Yes. Or a barrel.

 

[urbanrifleman]

ebay laser arrived today. Ordered November 5th and arrived December 1st - 27 days. Found some settings that worked on stainless and after adjusting focal length, I tried it out on a stub. Laser seems okay. I will say that the lead screw assembly is VERY cheaply made. It might be fine as long as treated very carefully. The bottom table is light metal and the threads are rough everywhere. It is stable. Did not come with glasses, Need to figure which to purchase. I didn't realize that EzCAD Lite doesn't run on a MAC. I had to dig out an old PC laptop and had some issues with a driver and with the stability of the program. Probably the laptop. The engraver comes with no instruction at all--none. EzCad seems to be set up on the USB but I am a little confused about the selection of laser. I set it to JPT but the original parameters had it set to something different-maybe IPG-YLP.

Knowing that we all like quality equipment this marker is very marginal. Here is a first cut at marking a barrel. All characters are just random.

View attachment 1498478

Which one did you buy?

 

[Henryrifle]

Would I do it again? It's too early to answer that question, and especially so, as I don't have any experience with more expensive but comparable model. As long as the laser does its thing I can fix the mechanical bits that are flimsy, should they break.

The shipping took longer than I was expecting based on seller's communications. Additionally, and I don't consider this a bad thing, there were several communications between me and the seller verifying 110 power and the lens size. I ordered the 110mm lens, but when the seller received the laser it had the 150 lens. It would have taken more time to get the 110 and then I would have had to 'calibrate' the system on my own. I am sure that is easy, but I took the 150mm lens, which, so far, seems fine. The laser came in two boxes. The laser head and box it is attached to was in a sturdy wooden frame inside cardboard packaging. The rest was well packed in standard boxing.

This is the model and options that I purchased:



I did watch several segments of several YouTubes to get going but I hate just copying what others have done without understanding what I am doing. Would sure like to have a book/manual but I do know that over time I'll build my own cheat sheet for the purposes I want to accomplish. Still looking for which safety glasses to purchase...

Hank

 

[urbanrifleman]

With so many things in the world today is just a Chinese crapshoot buying anything. I just found out the fuel pump in my Nissan Titan that was replaced 30,000 miles ago is now burnt out. So I'm going to have to pay to have it replaced and this time I'm going to put the Japanese OEM part back in because all of the other ones are simply junk because they're all made in China.

 

[LVLAaron]

Those little annoying problems is why I was willing to pay more for the quality control. Same deal as precision Matthews. The machines are built and QA’d to their spec… and support.


Having said that if I were going to buy a second laser I’d probably get one straight from China now that I understand how it works.

@Henryrifle im sure yours will be as good as any other.

I really would consider getting light burn ( it has a 30 day trial)


It gets really fun and powerful when you understand the rotary and cylindrical settings.

 

[Henryrifle]

Well, it can go both ways. I'd be reluctant to classify everything from one source as junk and everything from another as quality.

Modern manufacturing has an equalizing effect across multiple sources. Component quality and material selection play a part too but if all of that is equal you are down to labor and shipping costs.

Philosophically, I'd rather buy American for a myriad of reasons, however, we are all very fortunate to live in a time where relative to the value of our currency, prices of sophisticated items continues to decline thanks to technology, wage arbitrage and specialization...

Not arguing - I just have a different point of view.

Hank

 

[Judd]

Hank, I’m 99% sure I’ve got the same laser. The main reason I went the route I did was I did some horse trading and i got about an hour of hands on instruction.

I agree with Aaron on the lightburn, I paid for my subscription and didn’t even go to ezcad. Based upon what I had read and the guy I got it from. It’s been pretty intuitive.

I don’t understand it all and thus far experiment a lot but the lasereverything YouTube has been very helpful.

Aaron, are you using the rotary to do barrels? I haven’t seen anyone do that and I don’t have one but it seems my wife wants me to mess with cups. Appears like the Roto Boss is the rotary to have and looks like there are a few models that would do a barrel. Just curious.

 

[LVLAaron]

I use the cylinder function (right next to the rotary tool icon) for barrels.

For what it's worth, Lightburn youtube has everything you need. The laser everything guy talks 10x longer than he needs to. Lightburn boils it down to what you need.

 

[Judd]

Me too, wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing a cool trick

 

[Henryrifle]

Hi @LVLAaron,

There are numerous YouTube Lightburn videos. Is there a specific channel or series that you recommend?

Thank you,
Hank

 

[LVLAaron]

The official lightburn channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@lightburnsoftware7189/videos

 

[CCM]

A couple of recent jobs..the photos are getting popular. They're on coated aluminum.

 

[senderoll]

A couple of recent jobs..the photos are getting popular. They're on coated aluminum. View attachment 1499084View attachment 1499089

That deer pictures is incredible!! Well done.

 

[Henryrifle]

Downloaded LightBurn. Nice program and it works on Macs! Unlike EzCad it also allows you to open LightBurn and create whatever you want to create w/o being attached to the engraver. I have looked at a few videos and have learned how to get to the specific settings that control the angle, spacing, speed, power and frequency of different kinds of hatch patterns. Looking forward to playing with that but running out of barrel stubs..

Thanks fort the push to better software!

Hank

 

[LVLAaron]

Lens calibration is the only thing you'll want ezcad for. You can do it in lightburn, but ezcad has a pretty easy wizard.

 

[Henryrifle]

Did you run through a calibration for fun or did you purchase a second lens? If the former, what did you find and would you suggest doing that?

Thank you,
Hank

 

[LVLAaron]

I got a second lens. (started with 175, got a 110) The smaller lens allows for faster burning... but the focal length is more shallow, so curved objects are harder.... Honestly the 175 is about right for most things.

 

[Henryrifle]

Good to know. I originally ordered the 110x110 but my system came with a 150x150. Sounds like that is just about right.

I played around with hatching patterns for text and it is crazy how much time you can save or create by changing some of those settings.

Did you use the default 100mm mirror distance in LightBurn for the curved surface or did you actually measure?

Hank

 

[LVLAaron]

Good to know. I originally ordered the 110x110 but my system came with a 150x150. Sounds like that is just about right.

I played around with hatching patterns for text and it is crazy how much time you can save or create by changing some of those settings.

Did you use the default 100mm mirror distance in LightBurn for the curved surface or did you actually measure?

Hank

Measure from the top of your object, to the center of your "laser head"

And you'll lower your head a little bit more than "perfectly focused" - you'll want the focus to be centered in the middle (height wise) of your engraving.

 

[LVLAaron]

If you're looking for lighter work... Here's a review for a new 20 watt fiber, that's only 1,600 dollars right now.