1500mW Laser Engraver

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ramaroodle

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Feb 15, 2018
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I grabbed this machine off of Amazon using a $100 gift card that I had to try and engrave names/initials on blanks.
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I also did a little research on these. They are inexpensive because they are made using the stripped down laser and transport systems built into a gazillion blu-ray and cd burners with virtually no modification other than the circuit board. They are basically all the same, so Neje, Meterek, Qiilo, Sixdu, Decaker...etc. same guts. This one came with software that says Neje on it, so it's generic. Here is a vid of someone dismantling one.

I short..It works great once you figure out how to turn it on and how to use the software. As expected, the instructions absolutely suck but that is just a minor inconvenience. Loaded the drivers and the software found the machine without any issues. It seems that 3 things control the quality of your results. Burn time, # of repetitive passes and material you are burning. After a test on cardboard I went right to hard maple. Increase the burn time and the laser slows down and really digs into the material but if you are doing something that requires a lot of detail like a very small butterfly it seems you are better off lowering the burntime and making 2 or 3 passes. Make no mistake about it, you are "burning" the material so you can understand that a longer burn time kinda decreases the "resolution" as it burns the surrounding material. As far as resolution goes, it can print words in sizes too small to even see with incredible detail. It works on pens just fine. (dowels in my test) The software comes with 300-400 images and I was able to grab a jpeg of Muhammad Ail's eyes off of the web and print that. I'm sure there are other software suites that can do more but for me it gives me what looks like the suite of MS Word fonts so I'm good. I got the 1500mw version since I read somewhere that somebody didn't see a difference between that and the 2000mw version. I'm thinking that the 1000mw version would work just fine also. Never got the burn time anywhere near maxed out. Took about 10 mins to make that butterfly logo.

Max image that it can burn is 1 1/2" (38mm) seems to be about the limit. Not sure why I had 3" in my head. Using the provided software (which is basic and easy to use) nothing will print larger than the box provided. When I put type or drawings in that box and fill it the resulting burned image is about 1 1/2" wide. When the butterfly filled the box the resulting image is still only 1.5" wide. Kinda wondering what the next size up is but I imagine it would be spendy as this seems to be the limit of the blu-ray burner hardware.

The Decaker model uses the same laser and transport system and carriages as the others except that both transports are mounted in the top as opposed to the x-axis on top and the y-axis on the bottom. I might just exchange mine for one like Rich is getting as I can see the value in being able to sit the whole machine on top of a workpiece and it's only $95 on gear best.

Now to figure out how to get some type of accent color into dark colored pens. I've been told that after the CA is applied the letters are burned in then wiped with acrylic paint.

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magpens

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Thanks for the details, and thanks for sharing .... good to know about these things.

Did the image creation software come with it ? . I see it bears the name NEJE.
 

ramaroodle

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Thanks for the details, and thanks for sharing .... good to know about these things.

Did the image creation software come with it ? . I see it bears the name NEJE.

Yes.

I may be wrong, but I assume it doesn't account for curvature. Does the image get skewed towards the edges since the blank is curved?


Sent from my iPhone using Penturners.org mobile app

I see no noticeable skew on the dowels I used to test that. Understand that I was testing burn times and other settings so on close inspection it may not look as burned in as I would like, but I saw no evidence of skewing. That was my main concern. So as an example if you look at the dowel the top one could be burned at a faster burn time with a few more passes. The bottom one "lumberjocks" could be burned a little longer or had multiple passes.

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I grabbed it because I have 2 customers who want either name or initials in their pen. I quoted them $20 additional for each pen so I should recoup the expense after not too long.
 
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Roly

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Dec 24, 2017
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Batlow, Australia
Laser engraver.

A little aside, I have had some success with giving my finished pens a coat of CA and then using a diamond drag to carve name and initials in the bodies. After using the drag I backfill with acrylic paint of plastibond or similar and then finish the pen with a normal CA finish.
 

ramaroodle

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Feb 15, 2018
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A little aside, I have had some success with giving my finished pens a coat of CA and then using a diamond drag to carve name and initials in the bodies. After using the drag I backfill with acrylic paint of plastibond or similar and then finish the pen with a normal CA finish.

What is a diamond drag?? If that is a hand tool then that disqualifies me. I have terrible handwriting. :)
 

hcpens

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RunnerVince

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I've yet to test it myself, but I was at a craft show where they were selling the Scorch Marker. Looks like a highlighter. You write on the material, then take a heat gun to it, and it creates a chemical reaction that burns the wood. The demos they did produced some pretty good resolution with very crisp lines. The main thing I'd use it for is inscribing pens, and I haven't figured out a way yet to create a stencil that small. As with ramaroodle, my handwriting is crap, so I need something I can simply "color in."

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Scorch Marker. I've seen the demo, live, with my own eyes, but not tested it for myself. I did purchase one and am still trying to figure out the best way to go about it for pens.
 

Jim Campbell

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Oct 14, 2012
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Moraga, Calif
I just ordered one of these. You mentioned it was a pain to set up. It would be nice if there were a brief write-up on the setup and on how to use the software to make a basic text ingraving.
 
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