First Laser Buy Research Round One

[drr]

I've been looking through the CNC Zone forums for over six months now, and have just decided to join. The amount of knowledge and helpfulness on this site is staggering. Great work, guys.
Anywho, I'm looking to buy my very first laser. I've been working with Universal lasers for about a year now, but, of course, I can't afford one myself. I'm looking for the cheapest possible machine that prints directly from CorelDraw, as hopefully some day I will have more of a business around the laser and be using a Universal. I would like to have one with tube inserts that make the tubes upgradable down the road to the higher quality Reci tubes or some other quality brand. I'm currently searching through all the JiNan laser options, but the varying degrees of given information make it difficult to compare. Any advise would be greatly appreciated! Although I'm sure many of you are getting tired of the begging newbies! But if you do decide to lend a hand, I don't care about bed size as what I currently need to cut/engrave are very small, and I'd like a machine powered at above 30W, but may be willing to go as low as 25W if need be. I'm inexperienced (obviously) with water-cooling, but I think I can rig up my own system to cool the water for the pump without having to constantly refresh ice. But if anyone knows of an extremely cheap water refrigerator, that advise would also be really helpful!
Wow, that's a bit of a long paragraph. I'll put a bulleted list of what I'm looking for in case someone wants to help buy would rather not read through all that guff:

• 30W +
• CorelDraw compatable
• cheap
• preferably tube-upgradable
• preferably easy to fix/replace parts

Thank you all!
p.s. If I manage to get through all the JiNan lasers, hopefully I'll be posting a comprehensive list of all their individual pros and cons.

[swinds]

hi - im my experiance i would get one from your own country - unless you can speak the language from the country you got it from - i got one from china - paid a lot of money for extras etc that were never fitted , false promises and a lot of hidden expense when it gets to your country - then when it goes wrong after 4 weeks the supplier not interested as they the other side of the world and already have your money - i have had my machine ripped apart by a uk engineer and parts replaced by them at my cost as the parts supplied from china were not upto the job, the cooler was not the right one, the power supply was not the one for the tube - the tube lasted 40 hours before it went pop - so when i buy my next machine i will be buying from my own country were i can speak the language and there is a bit of customer service attached - and it was not from a tin pot small company either

[Exsecratio]

Hiya,

Have a quick read of this while I write up direct responses to your questions

best wishes

Dave

[Exsecratio]

• 30W +
• CorelDraw compatable
• cheap
• preferably tube-upgradable
• preferably easy to fix/replace parts

30W+

Most Chinese lasers are 30+ watts, they usually start at around 35 watts and go up from there.

CorelDraw compatible

If you mean can accept Corel output then any machine running LaserCUT 5+ comes with a Corel plugin that works with Corel 12 but if you mean a "Print driver" such as Epilogs etc use then that's a different matter. Very few basic Chinese machines have this facility.

Cheap

No can do, Cheap/Fast/Accurate pick any two is what my late Father used to tell me. Reliability and power usually come at a premium and a premium you won't be paying with a basic machine but then again compared to some of the "western" machines such as Epilog or Universal you could well end up paying 1/10th of the price.

Tube-Upgradeable

Pretty much all of the Chinese machines can be tube upgraded, it requires a new power supply (of the correct rating) and the new tube and not much else. That said there are size constraints as with more power in tubes the length increases. Long tubes don't easily fit inside small machines. Get into the 100Watt+ range and even *cheap* Chinese tubes are no longer cheap....a 150 watt can easily cost you $2000+

Easy to fix/replace parts

Most of the mid to upper range Chinese machines are easy to work on, a bit rough in some places and all seem to be assembled with chocolate cap screws but in general pretty simple to work on. Parts are cheap and running costs are low.

For a first machine I'd avoid RF tubes, lots of money to re-gas and if you need to replace the entire exciter then you just as well buy a new machine.

It's simple economics, it's not possible to pay a little and get a lot, so always be wary of any supplier who tells you that the machine you are buying for $5,000 is really worth $10,000......if it was then that is what they would be selling it for

It sounds like you are looking for an engraving machine? if so then also avoid high power systems...anything over 60 to 80 watts is going to be useless for low power high speed engraving.

It's a buyers market at the moment, take your time and find a supplier you can rely on and then nail them down to a good deal. If they really don't want to play then take your money to somebody that will

best wishes

Dave

[gweikelaser]

Dear Drr,
Here is one of our customer preview for our G.WEIKE LASER ,with all its prons and cons,hope this can help you to choose a better laser .

Polygon Labs » G.Weike LC6090 Laser Engraver/Cutter Review

and for this model,we also have 60w and 16*12' with 40w for your choice,more details please feel free to contact me via my email: han@wklaser.com
Lucy Lee
G.WEIKE LASER
laser engraving machine?laser cutting machine?cutting plotter at G.WeiKe
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