Good evening everyone. Well, I took the plunge and I just ordered a laser from China from a company called Bodor (bodorcnc.com).

I figured that I have gotten a lot of information from this board over the years, and I've decided to write an ongoing blog/review of my experiences in this laser purchase.

First of all, let me say that I had a budget. I needed to keep the machine below $6000 and my goal for a laser was one with at least a 48" wide bed. The BCL1309XU that I purchased is 1300mm x 900mm, and is a 130W laser. Here is the link to the machine on their website. http://www.bodorcnc.com/products/Co2...ving/1226.html
I ordered the laser with a few additional items, Four wheel rotary, Three-jaw rotary, extra set of lenses and mirrors.

I have been researching Chinese lasers for quite a while, and have had use of one on a rental basis for several years, and now is the time for one of my own for my own shop. YAY!

I will list the other lasers that I was considering. Some of the other lasers I was looking at was G.Weike, CNCcheap.com, ThunderLaser, Rabbit Laser, and Signstech. All had similar features, some charged for every addon, some included a lot of them.

I decided on the Bodor laser due to a number of reasons:
- Cost was in the range I was able to spend
- 2 year warranty - No other laser manufacturer had done more than a year from what I have been able to find.
- Software is RDWorks and seems to be some of the best laser software out there from China. (I have used lasercut and it is buggy and limited in it's features)
- Their software integrates with all of the most recent versions of Corel Draw up to X7. This was a MUST for me as I detest exporting to DXF then importing into another software. I just want to push a button, set my layer colors up, and start cutting.
- Their laser is WIFI enabled
- They sent me the software to install and test out and I did NOT need a dongle to run the software!
- The software supports dashed line etching, as well as 3d Lasering.
- Their laser is actually designed in Switzerland, and it's not the same design as every other mfg seems to have. The design is not a big portion of the reason, but after getting some photos of the lasers, I was very impressed by some of the subtle features they added into the system.
- I REALLY liked their red-dot positioning system. Instead of a little dot, it is actually a cross-hair.
- It has pass thru for full sheets of material.

The only odd thing that I found was that laser safe glass was not included by default and was a $100 add-on. No brainer for me (and my eyes).

The other thing that really impressed me is that while Hong Kong is 12hrs or so off from me, I was getting responses even when it was evening. In addition, I had some problems installing the Corel Draw addon for RDWorks, they spent 3 hrs (before any financial commitment was made by me) to help me install the software via remote desktop control. THAT is some nice customer service. I have been talking with a very nice woman by the name of Merry Gu at their company, and if she didn't know the answer to a question, she got me a very timely response.

I finally decided, after they got the software running on my computer, that I would purchase from them. I was sent a proforma invoice, and all they requested as down payment to get the manufacturing started was 30$ of the total. The total, including shipping was right around $5200. I know that I will have customs clearance stuff to do, but I've worked in shipping in my past, so will do the customs clearance stuff myself. Calling my local Customs department at my port makes it easy. They will forward you all the information you need in order to clear it from customs yourself.

So, that is my first post. I'm sure I won't be updating this for a little while as the unit has just been put into their production schedule tonight, but if anything else comes up, I will post about it.

Can't think of too much else right now.

Chat some more soon!
Wade