Fibonacci
Member
The question often comes up regarding the quality of the cheap Chinese laser cutters. I seem to be the only proponent of them, but given where the one I use is located, I have not been able to provide any real documentation on them.
I had some after hours access this week and thought I would make a couple of quick things to demonstrate their capabilities.
These were made on a $3000 machine with a 13"x24" table. This machine has been in use for about 2 years. The only maintenance that has been done on it has been 3 alignments on the mirrors, each after moving the system.
The autobots are done on paper, a piece of mirror, and a piece of 1/8" extruded acrylic. The space invader is a piece on 1/4" extruded acrylic. All of these were done in a single pass.
As far as speed, the autobot takes about 70 seconds to engrave and cut. The space invader takes about 20 seconds.
The software is less user friendly than a quality American system (Epilog, Universal, etc.), but it is also an order of magnitude cheaper.
I had some after hours access this week and thought I would make a couple of quick things to demonstrate their capabilities.
These were made on a $3000 machine with a 13"x24" table. This machine has been in use for about 2 years. The only maintenance that has been done on it has been 3 alignments on the mirrors, each after moving the system.
The autobots are done on paper, a piece of mirror, and a piece of 1/8" extruded acrylic. The space invader is a piece on 1/4" extruded acrylic. All of these were done in a single pass.
As far as speed, the autobot takes about 70 seconds to engrave and cut. The space invader takes about 20 seconds.
The software is less user friendly than a quality American system (Epilog, Universal, etc.), but it is also an order of magnitude cheaper.