First off did not see a section for laser build logs so just picked this one. If this is not the right spot feel free to move this thread.

Been drooling over the Ebay Chinese laser engravers for a while since they were in my hobby budget range. In all my watching I was always hoping someone would post a 300x500mm machine without all the extra bells, whistles, and cost so it was more around 2x the 200x300mm machines vs the 4x to 5x there were. Was about to give up on this acquisition when I found out the 200x300mm machines had NO Z adjustment. Just for grins posted on Craig's list looking for a used or broken laser cutter / engraver. Got one response from a guy ~3.5 hours away that had a old ULS 25PS. Story I got was he bought it from a high school as a parts machine for his other ULS 25PS. Right off the bat it had some issues like no laser (he kept it as a spare for his machine), unknown electronics (did not power up), mirrors and lens were shot (coating burned off in spots), and very dirty (High school shop then stored in a shed nuff said). After some negotiation came to an agreement and packed it up and hauled it home.

First thing once home tore the machine completely apart and cleaned everything. Some scraping, simple green, and a scrub brush later got most of the black and gray gunk out. Let the part dry in the sun then started hauling everything inside for reassembly. Other than some random missing screws and washers all the electro mechanical parts were there and seemed to be in very good shape. The Y gantry and Z lens assembly has almost no play in it and both slide very smooth in their runners. All 3 stepper motors Ohm out properly (will try and run them for real once I get drivers up and running). 2 of 3 home switches were in good shape the third (Z) got hit at some point in time and had a busted mounting ear.

At this point my next order of business was to get the axis moving and figure out if the electronics were salvageable.

Some photos are attached and I have started a youtube playlist for the timelaps video of cleaning and reviewing the state of the machine here: [WRP] Laser cutter rebuild - YouTube