[2_many_hobbies]

I only have a $1000 budget so right off the bat "Get a better machine" is off the table. That being said what is the primary issue with the 40W machines on eBay for $700?

What I gather from reading:

1) Flakey wireing, grounding.
A) As soon as I recieve the machine will check all wires, put on ferrule crimps and lugs where needed. Check power supply before firing tube up.

2) Control board is super flakey, software support is terrible.
A) I built my 3D printer to be universal so it can drive the machine no problem

3) The air assist is a $5 aquarium pump.
A) Its in my shop and will be hooked up to a pancake air compressor.

4) Water chiller is only a pump in a bucket.
A) I have a mini water cooler I plan to turn into an active chiller. (PID temp controller already rigged up as this is my spindle chiller as well)

What I have no gathered from reading:
1) Nobody is totally upset with the optics. Their obviously not the best, but good enough once fine tuned.
2) How exactly do you fine tune a machine at 1060nm?? Is their IR reactive paper or something or do you need to rent a power meter?


Given my game plan do you think this machine will be useable? Anything important I am missing?

[herby08]

hi there
for a regular use the machines mechanic with stepper is useful the optic is useful the tube and powersupply can be used but the powersupply is mostly just analog and you can not use PWM.
the stepper driver are integrated in the mother board and worth, if you spend another $ 560 you can easily convert to a DSP controller with real stepper driver and have pretty much a professional useful machine.
greetings
waltfl

[trevorhinze]

I have had a K40 Chinese laser like you are considering for about 4 months now and have a few observations for you....Does it have it's shortcomings sure but it has quickly become my favorite tool and although it is far from the most expensive toy in my garage it is easily one of the most valuable. I bought the version with upgraded (green) inductive limit switches but no air assist. The cost to my door was something like 510 dollars. Air assist is a must but it made my own nozzle from delrin and a thumb screw along with 50 cents worth or tubing. If you aren't comfortable with a lathe then look to lightobject.com where you can buy the nozzle for something like 20 bucks or less. I have made a few changes and mods but overall it is an amazing little machine. I got the USB version that works with some included software that piggybacks itself on top of corel draw(another 260 dollar investment that is worth it) I haven't done a ton of engraving since anything raster is time consuming but I have done tons of vector cutting of wood/acrylic/vinyl stickers/formica/paper products and I have learned a ton just messing around. I will tell you that the included clamp thingy on the bed is total crap and really cuts down on the usable area so I chucked it. I can now work in an area just about the size of a sheet of paper. I am going to buy an adjustable height table from light object soon to eliminate the need to raise and lower stuff with shims all of the time. Bottom line if you dont expect perfection right out of the box and are willing to tinker and baby this thing a bit then I think you will be very pleased with it. This is my first personal laser and I love it. I get to run a 35K laser at work occasional and although this one is much smaller it cuts every bit as well, although not as fast as the bigger one at work, but at 1/70th of the price. Good Luck!

[2_many_hobbies]

Thank you very much for the reply.

I was originally going to build my own but the cost of a 40W in just parts is as much as the Chinese 40W units. I have no problems modifying stuff and between my 3D printer and electronics lab I will be making a full sized machine to transplant the unit into once I am use to its capabilities.

As for a raising bed ever though of putting the bed on two opposing wedges?Attachment 259542 I use this method all over my shop, the raise/lower guides are small 8" drawer slides.

[trevorhinze]

Interesting idea with the wedges. I will have to think about trying something similar if I can come up with a way to do so without eliminating any of the already small cutting area. I have also considered using a scissor lab jack as a lift but for some reason I am drawn to that light object table for its beauty. PS if I wasn't clear earlier I would definitely recommend buying the laser asap....without the air and then adding it since air assist is a must for cutting.

[Bigbird48]

The most important thing is the software your gonna get sucks at best, the machines are built cheap, the rollers on the carriage always loosen up, the belts loosen . The controller is cheap. If you read thru all the post here about these cheap 7 or 800 dollar machine you will see that just about everyone sinks another grand into rebuilding them.Why spend 700 bucks on a piece of junk that won't do what you want to do. That wedge Idea is going to cut your work space so small its will be just about useless for engraving anything bigger then a small wallet.Hey I know your gonna buy it anyway but dont come back crying what a piece of junk it is.

[buddydog]

I got mine from professionalsell on ebay delivered under 500 bucks a month ago. I think the same unit is now 681 delivered in one week from California, but I would gladly pay that for it now that I have had this for a while. Mine had a bad power supply (intermittant "stuck on"),. After a couple of emails back and forth they sent a new one prepaid from China and all was well. After changing it out I examined the old one and as I thought the 5 volt pull up resistor was bad (not soldered to the board). Would have been a simple fix if they had allowed board level servicing. The unit I have has the new control board with the three led display. The controller is the laserDRW software board and I have made piece with it. I will try and write up a tutorial at some point. There is no manual with it and it took hours of dinking around to figure out how to use it (the software). Why a 700$ laser instead of a 2k recycled one? CCGL (cheap Chinese generic laser) 700 + min 15% income taxes $135 +free shipping = 835$ total. You are lasering and learning after aligning and tweaking. Now same machine with low end air assist and maybe a Z table and a domestic email ($2000)+ 15% income tax (300) + 10% sales tax after income tax dollars (200) + 300 domestic shipping + 10% financing since you couldn't afford the total, (280) = 3100$ and you still didn't get a chiller and it's not an Epilog so customer service is still spotty.
Now on the 700 machine you better have some technical smarts but your going to need this for any machine unless you go to night classes for 6 months or something like that. Thingiverse has several 3D printable air assist nozzles to download free and a small compressor handles those duties. This is mandatory! Air assist for cutting and to keep the optics clean. 30 minute print and some cheap hose heated and wrapped around a 1" pipe to take a spiral set, a handful of tie wraps. I like the clamp (contrary to others opinions) but also use the rafter spikes for cutting larger pieces ($.30 each?). I modified my bed with adjustable all thread, springs and some lathe turned threaded bushings and it was ok for a while adjusting each corner one at a time but I want to turn one and have the whole table move evenly up and down and I want to do it for under ten dollars, In other words I want something better. I am printing 4 ball chain pulleys as I write (modified from a parametric .scad on thingiverse) to move all four corners at the same time. I find I am using mine more and more all the time and water temperature is now a problem so a modified water cooler is next on the list. Does the 2000 dollar machines come with an actual compressor water cooling system? I think not.
These are not a business machine. Way to slow I would think and if you speed them up you will probably break them sooner. Replacing optics, spare stuff etc is a good idea over time but from what I've seen the same problems plague the 2K models. Hell I can (and may do) purchase a whole spare machine delivered for 700 bucks and have a spare tube, power supply, lense, mirrors, steppers, board etc. The other thing is I have already been bitten by the "real bigger" bug so maybe 3-4 k might be the next investment and the 2500 I saved on this "get your feet wet" model can be applied towards that.
Read the forums and I have found a 2k machine won't buy that much more service. The laser is a technical thing to run so not just a plug and play consumer item ever! Even if you get something really checked out and it arrives in great shape because some one in the states set it up and will talk to you in English, 6 months down the road you will have some problem and you better be a technical type already. Read the forums and the whining is terrific from folks who have run into a technical problem and are in way above their capabilities and the hand holding from the domestic companies seems to stop with any outfit after a few calls back and forth unless troubleshooting is obvious. Bad feelings and dollars lost follow next. At least with these machines you should have no expectations except you saved enough money to pay for anything that breaks and you still saved a bunch! You had better be ready to change a tube, connect the power high voltage line and troubleshoot an arcing problem. You will be cleaning and aligning mirrors, Belts will need changing and adjustment. This applies to ANY machine. These small cheap ones will teach you and if it's all beyond your capabilities you won't be out that much( a broken one of these just sold on ebay for 300+, I have no idea why.)
If you can afford the 15K for the Epilogue buy it and don't bother mucking around down here at the bottom with us cheap folks, but if you can't and your idea of fun is spending evenings for weeks combing these forums and learning, there is enough here to keep your CCGL running .
Checklist for an actual greater value machine DSP controller, PWM supply, better optics adjustment components including an adjustable 45 degree mirror on the laser lens head. That is one thing I really don't like about this machine. I had to shim the mirror to get it to center the beam in the lens hole! uggh! I think light object has the solution for 65 dollars. I think the fs unit used the original crap holder also. No advantage there. Shimming does work but phony. the machine cuts good and I cut 1/4 plywood no sweat 65% 10mms 2 passes.
Read Herby's posts. Seem to be the best for getting the most from the machine. Strangely I don't really feel the need to upgrade to the DSP and am doing all my design (cutting and engraving) in laserDRW but maybe I will want more later. Air assist 20$ (garage sale compressor), compressor cooled water 75$, oh I bought a good dryer vent hose and cap (25$), manual Z table adjust (15$), Costco lens cleaning kit ($5), all necessary upgrades but all do able on the cheap.
My 2 cents. I love my machine and I don't have any payments. Life is good.

Edit. I do think the upgraded "newer" units are probably a lot better. They don't have the meter or the Moshi software, they do have the 3 digit LED display, an all-in-one power supply that seems pretty good, USB connection, LaserDRW software and board. i have had no "running"issues with theis software. Does what I ask every time whether cutting or engraving. Drawing in it takes a bunch of tedious tricks but I'm retired so what's time when your having fun. If the software just had and "eraser" tool it would be sooo much better. As it is I have figured out how to set up "phantom" white solid objects around the work area to erase parts of my drawing as needed while I am working. I'm to cheap to buy corel but apparently it works with my board and then you can do layers for engraving and cutting. I just engrave first, add cut lines, delete the engraving and then "cut" Not as hard as it sounds once you get used to it. LaserDRW has the ability to import bitmaps and for engraving pictures that is the way you do it. You can combine drawing and bitmaps as you please but then it's all engraving (read slow). Photographs engrave surprisingly well considering no PWM for gray scale. Some manipulation to wash out the photo seems to help.

[mondo50m]

All of the above is just what I have been trying to tell everyone for the last 2 years. That is how old my K40 is. Mine has been upgraded with the DSP unit. You CAN NOT buy a DSP controlled unit for $1300.00. End of story.

Milt

[buddydog]

I just finished up my Z table mod yesterday (4 hours work). Lasered for 3 hours last night and what a joy! Did some engraving and then cutting on some 1/4 inch cedar I had cut on my saw mill and dried by the fire place.. Made a bunch of Christmas ornaments for gifts to my wife's friends in her horse club. Cut some wagon wheels for a jewelry display for my step daughters store, then grabbed one of those small black anodized LED flashlights and engraved my wife's name on it as a gift (and they say romance is dead!). Had to reset the table for each cut and took 1 to 2 minutes each. It was only that long because I didn't plan for any above table control and I have to set the material on the table, make my first measurement, remove everything, pretzel my hand through the clamp hole and move the chain I can reach and make my guess-ta-ment adjustment and re check and repeat 2 or three times but still really easy compared to adjusting each corner one at a time and trying to keep everything even! The stuff under the table is less than one inch total so I think probably more usable vertical adjustment than most other systems. The main downside is the necessity of haveing the fixed bolts stick up through the table so area is now some what limited by those bolts unless what your working with has one dimension that can fit one way between the bolts. I discovered that two things are important if you use the original table: First you have to cut about 1 and 1/4 inches off the back side to clear a shelf built into the back of the cabinet. If you don't do that the table is limited to 3/4 or so inches travel down from the stock position. I used 10-24 all thread for mine and it works fine but if I did it again or made a kit to sell on ebay it would be done up in 1/4-20 and have a topside connection to adjust with (more room lost unless removable). I will have to re-jigger the scad for the pulleys but I want to test this inferior version for a while to see if I need to change anything else and that the 3D parts hold together under the bushing load. I need to look around for some stock threaded sleeves so I don't have to lathe make the table sleeves. That took the most time (threading uck!) and not really perfected but they do work. Like the air assist this is the second most important mod. to one of these machines unless you are just going to do small flat stuff like stamps. Does anyone think a kit of basic parts would be a good deal? The 4 pulleys, 1 idler and the air assist nozzle could sell on ebay for 30 bucks (you can print them for nothing except your time to modify the scads from thingiverse). The prints are about 30 minutes each with a 5 minute setup time and 5 minutes post print acetone brush to give strength and then a little knife/reamer time for each), With all thread, ball chain, grub screws, etc. maybe 60$ (the 3/16 chain has to be close looped to the correct size, takes ten minutes), exchange table?, well you better spend the very reasonable 165$ to light object for their motorized table. With this stuff you still need to be a gear head as you have to exactly position and drill the holes in the base of the cabinet and the laser table, assemble and then the "fiddly" final adjustment (30-40 minutes) of the screws to make sure the lifting is "even" all the way around. So with a well stocked junk box almost nothing to do a good z table with the 3D printed parts. Even with the 10-24 hardware it's very stable but with 1/4 -20 all thread with I think with some fender washers at the cabinet connection would be rock solid. I chose to create my table with the fixed posts and the small loss of table area that entails as I didn't want bolts sticking out below the cabinet. You could design the parts to rotate the bolts fixed to the bushing in the table and have the threaded portion fixed to the base holes but you would need to leave room for the bolts to stick down through the "under" desk/table. Also I don't know if it would be as stable as the way I have done it. You don't want the table moving around from vibration or it will modulate your engraving! Either of these options give the greatest adjustment range over most other systems. I could see how the pulleys/idler could be reduce to under a half inch tall design so that you get the max vertical range.

You want to by a K40 or even the upscale 2500 so called domestic? Well all of this stuff better seem like fun to you and again if your just an appliance operator don't go this route but go to college on this laser running stuff and then invest in a 15K Epilogue and do it as a business and get a 100 bucks an hour, be successful and hire someone to come in at a $100/ hour and fix your machines as needed. No problems.
If you have been a ham radio type all your life, have either a milling machine or lathe with tooling in the garage or both, own an ohmmeter and know how to use it, change your own oil, don't walk into propellers (you don't need to be behind the fence at an airshow), love research, like challenges, well buy the K40. You will love it! If you "think" you want lasering on the cheap, go do all that other stuff (or equivalent) first then byuy the K40 and you won't become one of the "complainers" on these forums.

No one has mentioned the table under the machine. Mine seems pretty stable but remember the optic path depends on the cabinet rigidity to maintain it's alignment so it either would need another 400 lbs of steel OR you need to provide a stable platform. Any moving requires a complete checkout and alignment as needed. This also applies to the domestic recycled Chinese units! No advantage there!!

[buddydog]

Attachment 259842Attachment 259844
First picture is under table towards the rear left. The "problem" blue shelf can be seen . One of four corner "lift" devices: ball chain, one pulley and all thread. 2nd picture some stuff you can make: stamp with design, engraving, misc boxes. Note the rough cedar box and how the corners don't fit. The program I made for the 3/16 birch doesn't work at 1/4" thick without modification and I didn't feel like doing it. I didn't care because I I'll be sanding the corners anyway and it's for a rough looking buckboard. My wifes name is Judy at the front of the flashlight. I blocked the last name with the tape.The engravings are from pictures and the wheels, boxes etc. designed in laserDRW. The medallion was first engraved then the outline and string hole were cut.

[2_many_hobbies]

Awesome info, thanks. Great looking projects too!

I currently have a 3W 445nm that cuts papercrafts and bulsa and here was my "gran scheme".

1) Buy 40W cheepie and learn to use, fix and tune. Over the next year build a 1200 x 600 x 300mm frame and enclosure, put in new linear rails and custom controller. Then I just canabolize the Chinese machine.
2) Build the 1200 x 600 x 300mm enclosure right now and move over my current 3W laser. Next year I buy the 40W tube, power supply, optics, etc from lightobject.

I do not have the money to do both all at once unfortunatly and the enclosure, rails, etc will cost $6-800 by themselves. In the end I would have a 40W with 1000 x 500mm work area for ~$1600.

[buddydog]

Awesome info, thanks. Great looking projects too!

I currently have a 3W 445nm that cuts papercrafts and bulsa and here was my "gran scheme".

1) Buy 40W cheepie and learn to use, fix and tune. Over the next year build a 1200 x 600 x 300mm frame and enclosure, put in new linear rails and custom controller. Then I just canabolize the Chinese machine.
2) Build the 1200 x 600 x 300mm enclosure right now and move over my current 3W laser. Next year I buy the 40W tube, power supply, optics, etc from lightobject.

I do not have the money to do both all at once unfortunatly and the enclosure, rails, etc will cost $6-800 by themselves. In the end I would have a 40W with 1000 x 500mm work area for ~$1600.

One other thing not discussed in this thread: You won't have a 40 watt machine in any event. These cheapies are I hear actually 30 watts on a good day. Great for the stuff we do usually and they seem to run at very low power (I can effectively "print" on paper with mine and often do a first pass at 6% on a piece pf paper laying over the material I really want to engrave or cut to make sure it hits the target correctly. The bigger the tube the harder it is for it to "lightly" engrave or so I have heard on here. Mine doesn't seem to put anything out at less that 5% and it's a bit intermittent there. I don't think you should build the bigger machine to start with anyway, money aside. You will have enough on your hands learning the operation of a fixed tube CO2 machine to start with.

Here is the website to download the software for these machines. LaserDRW is the third one down (red box with the CD disc sitting in front of it.:http://www.3wcad.com/download.asp
After downloading it and getting it installed you can play with drawing shapes etc. Without the dongle you can't do some stuff but you can get a look at it. This is the stand alone program. I think lasercorel is the plug in that works with corel which I don't have. You can get paint.net (don't confuse with MS paint) for free and make designs and save bitmaps that can be imported in the DRW graphs tab at the bottom of the graphs list. No idea why it's located there but thats where it's at. .BMP's can be rotated and blown up or sized down and also rotated in DRW so very useful. I have successfully "cut" with a .bmp but start with the smallest pencil in paint.net or the laser will cut multiple lines. If cutting make the bmp the size you want in paint.net and then don't blow it up in DRW! Use solid "white" objects to overlay areas you don't want to laser. Tedious at best. There is a good tutorial on youtube on DRW basics by some young guy and then you can play with the program to learn how to do more. Learn to work with the panel on the right to size and position things and also adjust the line width (pen width) to cut. You want it as small as possible. I design something, take my computer to the laser and plug in the dongle, plug in the usb cable from the laser THEN turn on the laser and the head first goes to home and then goes to whatever setting I have programmed in to "device initialize" which is located in the "engrave" tab. Don't change the "origin" location while connected to the machine or you can inadvertently make the head start slamming into things if you maybe delete the decimal point for even a second or add an extra zero accidently. Awful sounds and you can't hit the power button fast enough! Not one of the programs better points. Just develop the habit of unplugging the usb before programming the "origin".

[2_many_hobbies]

I see two machines avalible to buy.

The K30 everyone here talks about:
Attachment 260006


One with s much simpler interface (only a current control dial, no LCD or jogging):
Attachment 260004


There is a $200 difference between the unknowen one the the K30 machine, anybody seen the simpler machine??

[2_many_hobbies]

Sounds like my 3D printer. It has no homing switches on X or Y so I need to manually move the head to "Home" and then power on the machine. I know the sound of belts skipping on my printer....

[buddydog]

I see two machines avalible to buy.

The K30 everyone here talks about:
Attachment 260006


One with s much simpler interface (only a current control dial, no LCD or jogging):
Attachment 260004


There is a $200 difference between the unknowen one the the K30 machine, anybody seen the simpler machine??

The first one is the one I got. Key words are laserDRW and USB port. If I remember dkiii was how it was described. Also described as upgrade or latest model. Mine had the second picture in the ad on ebay but the first was what I got. Don't think you want the second one with moshi software. Best offer 500 or 550 with shipping. I would not save the 100$ to get the first one. The sellers I think just warehouse in the US but are on China so can't actually tell you much.

[2_many_hobbies]

Are there any other places to buy these <$1000 machines other than eBay? I have had terrible luck and service from eBay sellers this last year...

[buddydog]

I usually buy everything on ebay since the paypal system protects you so good.I think everyone gets what they ordered as long as it's already in the US. I don't see myself importing anything direct from China except small stuff which is a real bargain usually. The problem is usually something broken or breaks. I did get warranty replacemet on the problem I had which is why I recommend proffesionalsell but who knows for sure. I just except to get the machine and no warranty service No expectations is very important.

[buddydog]

Woah! In the first picture above those are not "jog" buttons like you suggested. I just read back over your post. The display indicates percent power and those buttons set that power from 00.0 to 99.9%. I'm sure the old analogue meter does as good if not better of a job and the old variable resister is fine also BUT with the display you can see what your setting is going to be before the laser is "on". The thing about the old setup is that from what I could tell it says "moshi" draw about the machine and that has turned up to be unstable in several posts.
Someone indicated that the aquarium pump was no good. Mine has worked for many hours just fine. I keep the bucket level with the machine so I can watch and hear the discharge hose as it splashes the water to confirm it's running. If the bucket was below the machine then with the discharge hose out of the water bubbles would be introduced into the tube by siphoning when the machine was off.

[buddydog]

I see two machines avalible to buy.

The K30 everyone here talks about:
Attachment 260006

One with s much simpler interface (only a current control dial, no LCD or jogging):
Attachment 260004


There is a $200 difference between the unknowen one the the K30 machine, anybody seen the simpler machine??

This is the one I bought.:New Operation Panel 40W CO2 Laser ENGRAVER Engraving Cutting Machine w USB Port | eBay
Notice the offer button. Knowing what I paid for mine, don't be shy about making an offer. A couple of notes. Despite what the description says there is no "included software" unless they are counting the dongle and control board. You download the software free from the link I posted above. Also there is no fan to cool the electronics like they advertise, that I could find.Maybe it's really tiny. The electronics is so small and does not make much heat in this newer version I don't think it needs one. Anyway they say one is there but it's not.

[2_many_hobbies]

This is the one I bought.:New Operation Panel 40W CO2 Laser ENGRAVER Engraving Cutting Machine w USB Port | eBay
Notice the offer button.

They do not ship to canada but when I get mine I will definitely try to make a deal. Your link also shows how to align the mirrors which I was wondering about.