[Michellewong]

I agree with some of what you say. That being said if I send you several thousand dollars, and the machine breaks in 30mins, I expect you to bend over backwards to make me happy. If you want to grow US business, you have to somewhat conform to our standards. I would have realistically expected a new tube of the same or better type than I had in 3 to 7 days. If EFR can't provide the tube, then as a business owner I am sending a cheaper one on me, with a replacement coming from EFR in 30days. I would battle with EFR to recoup my costs if I had to do that. If you want to fight it out in the US market, it takes work.

Hi, Jdmarti1 and everybody here

It's a quite big honor to know your guys here.
After finishing all the posts here, I feel a little sorry for Nolan and I am afraid that I can't agree all your comments here.
Yes, we agree that USA is almost the best in every field. And let me tell you one thing. Synrad is from the USA, and they make good quality RF laser tube.
As we all know, RF laser tube is much more expensive than co2 glass laser tubes from China, and do you know the after-safe service of all those big RF laser
comapnies when there is product defaulty?
1. You have to pay all the shipping cost for sending RF laser tube to them and for they send it back to you, as well as one more time customs charges when there is quality problem;
2. Remaintenance time is 30days no matter you are in hurry or not. And we are sure this process doesn't need 30 days at all. One week is far more enough.
If this is what you called USA standard, I am sorry, I don't give a **** to it. Or maybe the USA companies just like to give worse service than to USA locals.

Regarding the advice from Nolan that he wants to send SPT laser tube instead of EFR, you guys believe that there is price difference so that he wants to send a bad quality at lower cost. ok, let me ask you one thing. If you were Nolan, and you knew all the guys here keep an eye on you and whatever you say here is vita to your reputation, would you send a bad laser tube to ruin your reputation again? I guess, the answer is no. I am sure, none of you is that stupid, as well as Nolan.
In addition, this is a good chance for Nolan to rebuild his as well as his company reputation here again.
Will he be that stupid to send a laser tube which he has no confidence in it at all to risk again? And obvious again, the answer is no.

So gentlemen, pls kindly think it over with your mind and make a wise decision and give a try to new things.
Otherwise we will not Jargua at all today since I know that their cars even can't get started in winner in Europe in 1960s.
Have a nice day!

[KeithOKC]

Dear Keith,
This is King, general manager of Thunderlaser.
First, I must say sorry about this unhappy case.
Although we have tried to provide good product and good service from the past years and therefore win some good name and get support
from many customers, this case has proved that there're still a long way for us run before we can provide better service and better product.
This means our QC process and our management system still need to be improved a lot.
And for this , we, the management team have the whole responsibility.

Therefore, for your case, we will do the below both:
1. refund the UDS1,350
2. send a new EFR ZN-1650 tube

And learned from this case, we will upgrade our QC process and after sales service:
1. upgrade our tube testing process: our current way of testing the laser tubes is : a) starting current test. b) power test. c)beam quality test. d)stability test. e) power attenuation test. f)age test. g)power attenuation test. All these tests are done before installing to the machines. And in the future, we will also add age test after installing to the machines and also add final checking for the laser tubes to reduce the failure rate.

2. upgrade our after sales service: if a tube fail when customers receiving the machines within 1 month, as long as it's not a man-made factors. We will send out a spare tube at once. And if after discussing, the customer and our tech person both agree to buy a tube from the third party at a reasonable and fair price, we will pay for the tube.

3. If some customers need a certain brand tube which we don't have in stock, we will need some more time to test the new tubes to make sure the quality and meantime, we will stock some spare tubes for fast after sales service.

Thanks so much for your understanding and suggestions.
We will work harder to improve our quality and serivce from now on. And we believe that with the help of you and other customers,we can do better!

with best regards

King
General Manager

&Whole Thunderlaser Staff

Thunder Laser Tech Co.,LTD.

I would very much appreciate if you did this. This would be excellent customer service if you did both as you said. I would also recommend you to others.

Dear Keith,
Therefore, for your case, we will do the below both:
1. refund the UDS1,350
2. send a new EFR ZN-1650 tube

I have re-sent Nolan the invoice again as requested. Please let me know the next steps to accomplish #1 & #2. Thanks, look forward to resolving this!

[AmyThunderlaser]

Hi Keith
This is Amy from Thunder Laser, Nolan's colleague.
please confirm the shipping address with Nolan,
then we will arrange to ship a tube to you.

and please tell us your bank account information or Paypal account,
then Nolan will ask our financial colleague send the money to you. ok?

wish you enjoy a nice day.

[Gozzie]

Good job Thunder Laser !

This situation is what makes one company stand above the others.

This is King, general manager of Thunderlaser.
First, I must say sorry about this unhappy case.
Although we have tried to provide good product and good service from the past years and therefore win some good name and get support
from many customers, this case has proved that there're still a long way for us run before we can provide better service and better product.
This means our QC process and our management system still need to be improved a lot.
And for this , we, the management team have the whole responsibility.

This statement and attitude is what gains loyalty and customer confidence. I have always made positive comments about Thunder Laser build quality.
Now I can also make positive statements about your commitment to customer service. That's a recipe for success in my opinion.
I will continue to support and recommend Thunder Laser and your products.

I admire the way you that you listened and took action to correct this situation. That shows a willingness to be the best in a highly competitive market.
To me you are still number 1.

Gozzie

[Nolan Yang]

Hi Gozzie, thank you for your support, we will try our best to provide good services to our customers, we can understand what is good services clearly from this matter.
Yes, you can make positive statements about our commitment to customer service, and all of your advice is very helpful for us. :wave:

[Bigbird48]

I'm Glad to see that Thunder Laser is making it right with Keith. But I really don't think it should take 5 days of Public haggling on a forum and who knows how many emails Keith had to send. Thunder Laser should have corrected this problem on the first email. If they didn't have the right tube they should have sent a free replacement till the correct tube was available. With the lost production time that Keith has incurred he probably could have bought 10 tubes. I'll be watching Thunder Laser Closely until I'm ready for my next laser.

[Gozzie]

I'm Glad to see that Thunder Laser is making it right with Keith. But I really don't think it should take 5 days of Public haggling on a forum and who knows how many emails Keith had to send. Thunder Laser should have corrected this problem on the first email. If they didn't have the right tube they should have sent a free replacement till the correct tube was available. With the lost production time that Keith has incurred he probably could have bought 10 tubes. I'll be watching Thunder Laser Closely until I'm ready for my next laser.

I don't think anyone would argue with that. The damage was done and for that I feel bad for Keith.

That being said I think Thunder Laser did the right thing by publicly announcing that they were wrong.
To me that's pretty honorable and I respect them for it. It shows their willingness to improve.

Gozzie

[jdmarti1]

I don't think anyone would argue with that. The damage was done and for that I feel bad for Keith.

That being said I think Thunder Laser did the right thing by publicly announcing that they were wrong.
To me that's pretty honorable and I respect them for it. It shows their willingness to improve.

Gozzie

I agree with Gozzie. No company gets it right every time. How they try to learn and adapt means more to me.

[Nolan Yang]

I would say this is a learn process.

[Mike Carrigan]

Keith,

This has been an unpleasant first experience for you with Thunder Laser. Given this whole matter stems from the failure of a single laser tube it maybe worth pointing out (to all who read) that glass CO2 Laser tubes are fragile at the best of times, then factor in that they have a high failure rate. We see 15% fail on average in NZ within the first 50 hours of use - it is only that low because Thunder Laser test them weeding out defective ones they find with their current testing methods before they come out on a vessel with machines, ie we do not air freight them. For what they cost we recommend to our clients in NZ that they carry a spare, regardless of shelf life. Putting it another way, what is the opportunity cost of not having a spare? We have simply found that a spare tube is the best form of insurance against downtime. This then allows time to facilitate a replacement under warranty.

RECI, SP, EFR, SPT etc all have life spans in hours stated, but in the thermal shock vacuum of reality we see all these makes and models of Chinese glass CO2 Laser tubes lasting anywhere from 5 hours to 9 years. (Both of those are outliers). Most clients achieve 1 to 2 years plus, depending on usage and environmental conditions.

​To all the folks following this review. ​Thunder Laser has IT​S​'s full and continued support, they ​are a great company to work with. We have found them dedicated - always striving to please, which shows throughout this review. Without doubt they are continuously improving repeatedly showing that they stand by their product ​with all their ​lasers with ​New Zealand customers.

​Regards
Mike Carrigan

ITS -- C02 lasers & CNC
Authorised distributor Thunder Lasers
New Zealand

[abyss]

I'll know more in a couple weeks once I have more experience with it, and learn more of the software. However, I can say I am VERY pleased with the cutting quality of the Thunder Laser with the EFR ZN-1650 tube in my initial tests.

You have few machines in your workshop. Have you tried to cut/engrave same job on them and compare time/power and quality?

[KeithOKC]

You have few machines in your workshop. Have you tried to cut/engrave same job on them and compare time/power and quality?

Hi Abyss I have not as of yet compared all of them. Been up only a few days now.

I will say the cut quality is excellent. On engraving we are working with Thunder laser on it, it's not quite to the RF level yet. Cutting is the main thing we are doing with the Thunder Laser so that is the biggest thing for us. RF lasers (universal, epilog, trotec) allow a little more fine tuning of the cut (you can adjust frequency and ppi on RF lasers). Overall we are very happy with the Thunder Laser with the EFR ZN tube's cut quality, and so far so good, I would recommend them.

[abyss]

Thanks Keith.
Thunder Laser products looks interesting and if they will no change policy in next year I will go back to them.

[Bigbird48]

How bad is it engraving, from everything I've read your not going to get great engravings with a tube over 80 watts on a Chinese Laser.

Hi Abyss I have not as of yet compared all of them. Been up only a few days now.

I will say the cut quality is excellent. On engraving we are working with Thunder laser on it, it's not quite to the RF level yet. Cutting is the main thing we are doing with the Thunder Laser so that is the biggest thing for us. RF lasers (universal, epilog, trotec) allow a little more fine tuning of the cut (you can adjust frequency and ppi on RF lasers). Overall we are very happy with the Thunder Laser with the EFR ZN tube's cut quality, and so far so good, I would recommend them.

[KeithOKC]

Hi bigbird. As for the engraving...I think most people who had never seen the difference, they wouldn't think much about it on woods and such. I have the ability to directly compare the two so I get to see the difference more up close. On some other substrates like glass though it might be more problematic. I'm not using it for glass so that doesn't apply here.

The Chinese laser has little lines in it in between each row, and/or where they overlap (in my limited testing). See my attached photo, this is what I was able to get it after some tweaking. If you look very closely you can see the little lines where each row of the beam meets. **NOTE: The built in camera of my phone smooths some of them out so they are harder to see in the photo than in person.** Using a 2" lens at 800 speed here. Looked the same at 900 speed which is near the rated max speed for the Thunder Laser. If I did the same with an RF laser with a 2.5" or even a 4" lens you wouldn't be able to see where the row of each beam met at 300 dpi. (roughly 0.08 interval from what I'm told) The RF laser would also be faster at engraving. It's not the power limiting the engraving speed here, I'm only running at 1/2 power. It's the speed the laser can move at. Does that answer your question?

[Bigbird48]

It does answer the question. But sometime when your not busy I'd like to see the same test done on your trotec 80 watt .

Hi bigbird. As for the engraving...I think most people who had never seen the difference, they wouldn't think much about it on woods and such. I have the ability to directly compare the two so I get to see the difference more up close. On some other substrates like glass though it might be more problematic. I'm not using it for glass so that doesn't apply here.

The Chinese laser has little lines in it in between each row, and/or where they overlap (in my limited testing). See my attached photo, this is what I was able to get it after some tweaking. If you look very closely you can see the little lines where each row of the beam meets. **NOTE: The built in camera of my phone smooths some of them out so they are harder to see in the photo than in person.** Using a 2" lens at 800 speed here. Looked the same at 900 speed which is near the rated max speed for the Thunder Laser. If I did the same with an RF laser with a 2.5" or even a 4" lens you wouldn't be able to see where the row of each beam met. The RF laser would also be faster at engraving. It's not the power limiting the engraving speed here, I'm only running at 1/2 power. It's the speed the laser can move at. Does that answer your question?

[KeithOKC]

Two other things I should note about engraving:

One is swing. The head swings far past the engraving area on a Chinese laser (does this on all brands that I know of), the faster you engrave the farther it swings, which means you have to bring the engraving further inside your project if you are going faster. Limiting your engravable area by a couple inches on the sides beyond the normal area. US machines don't do this. They stop in a predefined location regardless of speed so your engravable area doesn't shrink when you go faster. Not a big deal since you likely aren't engraving to the edge anyway but you did ask about differences so it's worth mentioning.

The second is the Interval or scan gap. I think I can increase the resolution by decreasing the scan gap further. However it would double my engraving time to say drop it to .05 or .04 interval vs the .08 interval I used on this sample board photo. Not worth the trade-off. I'm happy with the results on the wood you see at the .08 interval.


Minor update on cutting which is mostly what I'm doing:
Day 3 (Running 8 hours a day): I'm still really impressed with how it's cutting, no issues so far. The 5200 water chiller is also working perfectly keeping it at a nice and consistent 17c.

[KeithOKC]

Bigbird see the comparison images below of an 80w Trotec vs 130w Thunder I did today per your request.

Top is a Speedy 80watt 5 minutes 38 seconds 55% speed 100% power
Bottom is my 130watt Thunder Chinese laser 12 minutes 27 seconds 0.07 interval 800 speed 27 power (about 20% of my max power)

Some notes:
1) If you look closely you will see the wood grain in the Trotec, in the Chinese Thunder Laser you see little lines instead of the wood grain. I'm told 0.07 interval is the Chinese rough equivalent to the 333 dpi I'm running on the Trotec. The Chinese is nice, but you can see the Trotec is much smoother.
2) I'm also told my 130w Chinese is at a disadvantage on resolution because a 130w chinese beam is fatter than a 80w. So if I had a 80w the chinese engraving might be sharper.
3) 2.5" lens on the Trotec. 2" lens on the Chinese
4) If you look from the left the Trotec is at the Edge on the top and bottom. The Chinese this is as close as I could get it to the left edge without a frame slop error. Of coarse I could move the piece of wood even further into the machine, but this clearly shows how much slop/overrun there is on the honeycomb. Typically you won't engrave all the way to the edge so this is not a big deal, but worth noting for comparison sake.

[gfacer]

You should be able to go a little lower on the power, although that varies from Tube to Tube it seems, mine could go to 10-15% of max and still fire properly....times would not change, but it would be a little less dark. Really, Trotec looks light and chinese looks too dark, but I realize that's reading too much into a quick test.

Also, on the overrun, that is a changeable setting in the control firmware (on mine anyways), you might be able to tighten that up, perhaps with acceleration values, since you have servos. The trotec must manage without as it can vary the pulses per inch as it slows down at the edge.

[KeithOKC]

Hi gfacer on the Trotec I change the ppi to change the color of the engraving. Higher ppi setting darker the burn but the depth stays the same.

I realize Chinese glass tube lasers don't have this setting but is there any setting you can change to vary the darkness of the engraving beyond lowering the Speed and power?

You should be able to go a little lower on the power, although that varies from Tube to Tube it seems, mine could go to 10-15% of max and still fire properly....times would not change, but it would be a little less dark. Really, Trotec looks light and chinese looks too dark, but I realize that's reading too much into a quick test.

Also, on the overrun, that is a changeable setting in the control firmware (on mine anyways), you might be able to tighten that up, perhaps with acceleration values, since you have servos. The trotec must manage without as it can vary the pulses per inch as it slows down at the edge.