[Things]

CO2 LASER ENGRAVING ENGRAVER MACHINE CUTTING 50W WITH UP & DOWN PLATFORM | eBay

I was talking to G.Weike for a while, but unfortunately the shipping costs for a machine from China was kind of impractical for me, at over $1K!

I have been looking at these machines on eBay for a while, they seem to be the next step up from those horrible K40 style machines.

The pro's and cons I see:

Pros:
Decent looking laser head and optical mounts
Pretty typical tried and trusted linear bearing system
Adjustable Z axis
Inbuilt DSP
Decent sized work area
Includes a rotary axis
Ships from Brisbane

Cons:
No belt reduction (Or that I can see)
No honeycomb
Claims 50W laser, but looks like a stock standard cheap 40W tube
Ungrounded US plugs for water and air pump

I think this is probably the best I'm going to get for my budget of around $2-2.5K (Seller offers a 10% discount).

Has anyone bought or used one before? I'd love to hear experiences

Dan

[gweikelaser]

Hi Daniel,
the 1000 cost is door to door price and maily charges at Austrilia port,if you choose the main port like Sydney,Melbourne,Brisbane,etc, the cost will be little.

And for Ebay machine, before we met some customer complain, no after-sale service, just let you know first

Best Regards
Lucy Lee
G.WEIKE LASER
[email protected]

CO2 LASER ENGRAVING ENGRAVER MACHINE CUTTING 50W WITH UP & DOWN PLATFORM | eBay

I was talking to G.Weike for a while, but unfortunately the shipping costs for a machine from China was kind of impractical for me, at over $1K!

I have been looking at these machines on eBay for a while, they seem to be the next step up from those horrible K40 style machines.

The pro's and cons I see:

Pros:
Decent looking laser head and optical mounts
Pretty typical tried and trusted linear bearing system
Adjustable Z axis
Inbuilt DSP
Decent sized work area
Includes a rotary axis
Ships from Brisbane

Cons:
No belt reduction (Or that I can see)
No honeycomb
Claims 50W laser, but looks like a stock standard cheap 40W tube
Ungrounded US plugs for water and air pump

I think this is probably the best I'm going to get for my budget of around $2-2.5K (Seller offers a 10% discount).

Has anyone bought or used one before? I'd love to hear experiences

Dan

[Things]

Hi Lucy, yes, but the problem is the closest port to me is over 2000km away, it's like a 3 day drive


Dan

[Exsecratio]

Member since: 20-Nov-07 in China

Ermmm something doesn't smell very good.

Importing is good for saving money but you really need to go with somebody who has a history of getting things right (Weike etc) or that's a long way away if their after sales is rubbish

cheers

Dave

[Things]

Well, having built my own machine in the past, I am familiar with the whole system, so I figure if something minor breaks down, I should be able to fix it easily enough myself. I am intending to actually upgrade it slowly, like install some eggcrate for the bed, maybe replace the DSP with one from Lightobject etc.

All valid points though, however you're correct about it being handy it's already imported. Although I could probably get awya with declaring a lower value (Although on something this size, it's probably a bit suspicious), there's always the possibility of a $400+ customs fee waiting at the other end of it. My budget barely stretches to $2500 as it is, so I'm a bit weary on importing.

Machine is more of a play around, upgrade as needed type platform for me. Don't really intend on doing commercial work, except maybe some surface mount stencils if I find the resolution is good enough.

I suppose I'll just run the thing flat out during the 45 day dispute period Paypal has, usually that's enough to get them motivated if a part dies

Dan

[GWEIKE-LASER]

Althoughthe machine on Ebay is in low price.
We should notice it's Newlydraw software.
You can find it from the operation pannel.
this is software used on K-40.
Maybe it's upgrade version. But can not compare with Lasercut software(MPC6515 or 6525)

regards,
JENNY

[Things]

To me it looks like it might be one of the thunderlaser DSPs, in which case I think they use PHCAD? Or something like that. I will probably try replace the DSP with the AWC608 from Lightobject, as I have used it before & love it.

[John S.]

Yes I have one of these, looks identical and I'm very pleased with it.

I'm in the Uk and bought a 40W laser from a UK source to get support, wasn't pleased with this laser and returned it.

Bought one of these blue ones bigger in size that the previous 40W and far better made for less money. In the UK they are already in the country so you don't get hit with unknown import tax duties but the shipping, £ 350 in my case reflects this.
Probably their way of not paying ebay fees on import duty ?

I'm certain mine is 50W as i can do work with it the 40W was struggling at.

Mine came with Laserworks 6 and the plus is the machine is the dongle, If I install the software on another home machine in demo mode I can still program parts with it and take them out to the shop on a memory stick. Only short fall I can see is you can't do pictures or bitmaps in demo mode ?

You don't need a belt reduction they have very powerful type 23 motors that pull a 15mm wide belt to carry the axis, If you had seen the 40W one I had with tiny type 17 motors and a 6mm wide belt you would have laughed.

Mine just has a slotted stainless steel bed, works OK, you get marks on it but it's holding up well.

Service is awful, basically work into the price you are virtually on your own. Support comes from China and not country of shipping and they love to pass the buck.
we had a problem where it wouldn't work out of the box, laser wouldn't fire. turns out one of the plugs on the laser power supply whist looking good needed to be pushed harder home.
All we were getting was send us a video of it not working !!

I reckoned up that the saving in price would buy any major unit if needed.

Later on we had a problem with the water flow valve, tap it and it works but next switch on had to tap it again.
Asked China for new valve, got send a video of it not working. After a few emails of the same old, same old and one from me that said "DO NOT PISS US ABOUT" we did get a new valve.

End of the day, would I order another and the answer is yes.

[Things]

Wow, great to know! Very informative

And yeah, I'm realizing the service is probably going to be useless after the 45 day Paypal dispute period, though I suppose having built my own machine before was a good way to learn the ins and outs, shouldn't be too difficult to fix if something goes wrong. Never heard of that software before though, is it capable?

Interesting about the laser power also, looks like one of those "Tongli" tubes I see around on eBay often, didn't think they were typically up to spec, but hey an extra 10W would be nice

Do you have any videos or pics of it? Or anything you've produced with it? Would love to see some sample work if you have any.

Only downside I really see to the lack of belt reduction is the max raster engraving speed, works out to about 10cm/s, which isn't great, but eh, what can ya do

Dan

[John S.]

I run at 200mm/ sec raster but think it can go up to 300, possibly 400

Not got much off this machine as regards photo's, most was of the older 40W machine as i was learning.

This is a concept project where a pattern for casting is built up out of slices of 3mm MDF



Direct engraving onto stainless, no Cermark or anything.



I quite like the software, very simple to use but seems to do anything I want but not done any pictures yet. It's been used mainly for special gaskets that are very hard to do any other way, things like tiny 0.5mm holes in bosses only 2mm diameter.

[Rodney Gold]

Laserworks 6 is a more than capable program/driver/whatever , and to run it you would normally have to use a RDLC320 motherboard , which is also a very capable unit.

[Things]

Direct engraving on stainless? Interesting, must have some kind of coating that makes it a bit less reflective and burns on already.

Just waiting for them to get back from their holiday and I'll order it

[Rodney Gold]

I have done direct engraving on stainless steel with an 80w RECI and a 38mm lens , it is EXTREMELY slow compared to cerdec and somewhat variable. In raster mode , its way too slow , but in vector mode (IE outlines of fonts or single line fonts) it's ok. Heat distorts the metal a lot , you can see it plainly from the back.

Check it out here
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...here-!!!/page9
You might have to register to see photos..

[Things]

Hmm, didn't think this kind of power would effect the metal at all, let alone cause warping from heat. I think it may have a lot to do what the surface of the metal is coated in. If you can get it's reflectivity down, it'd work a lot better. To CO2 wavelengths, almost anything shiny is a mirror!

[Rodney Gold]

Uncoated but a slight brush finish 316 stainless.
No effect on aluminium or brass at all.Never tried any other grade of stainless or any other metals like steel etc...
It's too slow and variable to have any real commercial value.

[Winks]

Uncoated but a slight brush finish 316 stainless.
No effect on aluminium or brass at all.Never tried any other grade of stainless or any other metals like steel etc...
It's too slow and variable to have any real commercial value.

What would be the minimum power/speed/gas to be commercially viable for cutting .25 aluminum and engraving just about anything else?

[Rodney Gold]

1/4" ally? no idea , but I think it will be KW's if it's a Co2 laser
perhaps a 500-650W yag , like this machine , will do it..at a stiff price...
CNC 6mm Aluminium Laser Cutting Machine 2500mm*1250mm,View aluminium cutting machine,HE LASER Product Details from Wuhan HE Laser Engineering Co., Ltd. on Alibaba.com

[John S.]

As Rodney says raster cutting is way too slow, these gauges were vector cut 20mm/s speed and 95% power so not that slow.

I cut a mask to hold 24 out of 1mm card and just pop 24 in the slots and go do something else. No prep work to do first and no clean up afterwards so I reckon the time / material saving is worth it.
Cermark is very expensive here around £120 UK an aerosol and I don't use enough or do a variety of work to warrant this cost.

Rodney is in the engraving business, my machine is just another tool for the workshop.

[Things]

Well, after being dragged this far through, the seller turns around and tells me they don't have any units with the AU plug! Although seeing as it uses a switchmode power supply, this wouldn't really matter for the machine, but it means the air and water pumps are probably 110V, and they wouldn't have them in the AU warehouse.

Off to find another seller then!

EDIT: Or not, looks like he was looking in the Chinese warehouse .. odd.

[Things]

Well, got my tracking number now. For those interested, it ships via Toll Ipec (By road basically) from Eight Mile Plains in SEQLD

ETA is Tues, not bad considering it was picked up on Fri, that's only 1 actual business day for transport, but I know they do work over weekends too, just no deliveries (Unless you pay extra).

I intend to do a full unboxing and setup video of this laser, as I was struggling to find videos of this model on YouTube, I'd like to fix that