Is this the MOST cost effective 20w laser engraver 2023! + best DIY upgrades Comgrow Z1 Pro cnc

this is the comgrow Z1 Pro and it is at this point in time the most laser you can get for the least amount of money so let's speed run the features and then I'll show you my calculations of why I think this is the most cost effective laser we have a familiar looking 20 watt module and again this is 455 nanometer wavelength the height adjustment is One locking nut that is very easy to get access to this laser pretty much came pre-assembled there were just two screws to attention controller the controller is simple one button and an emergency stop the y-axis has dual motors either end the pro version comes with leg standoffs for extra height and gives us 150 mil or six inches of workable height this machine comes with a familiar air assist pump but unfortunately came with an inferior foreign plug so I'll be using this six mil line from my compressor instead my six mil compressor line fits the pushing connector on the laser nicely the height is set using this metal block it comes with a cute storage pocket I can confirm that this machine can be controlled using a pad or a phone using an OTG connector and the durable controller app this is what the machine looks like on its maximum speed the maximum speed is 12 000 millimeters per minute so now we'll generate a cut test on light burn and will go from 60 to 100 power and from 100 to 300 millimeters per minute the material is nine millimeter hardwood ply which is the same that we've used on other machines so we can test the difference so we have a respectable 200 millimeters per minute compared to the 30 Watts that we've done they reach about 250 millimeters per minute and if we look at the bank the 21 isn't far off just like before I'd like to cut some pallet wood this is 13.2 millimeters I'm going to cut a disc at 2 000 millimeters per minute let's see well that is a very very clean cut now what I found using these lasers is 2 000 millimeters per minute is the optimum and all you do is do several passes until you've got a clean cut all the way through this was done in 17 passes now that sounds like a lot but it was one minute and 21 seconds and my skills are not that good to get that Precision on a bandsaw steel see what without air assist it's very quiet all right those results are impressive that circle is three thousand millimeters per minute this one is five thousand and this circle here is 10 000 millimeters per minute that 20 millimeter Circle took one minute and 12 seconds let's try carbon steel without air assist we've got 63 decibels so it looks like it might have done something oh and that feels very warm let's see how well its edge with some sandpaper the etching isn't very deep this was done at 500 millimeters per minute maybe 100 millimeters per minute would be a lot deeper I don't think I'd want to risk any more in case the heat takes The Temper out of my scissors so as a bonus on this video we're going to install a live burn camera and a laser Crosshair these are really handy and you can use this on any laser system the first Congress got some more accessories for you so let's see what's contained in these boxes so first of all we've got a decent sized extractor fan and a bit of ducting inside here I've got the fireproof cover all the bits for the frame oh and a light bar interesting [Music] that is a very big cover and measures 710 or 28 inches Square by 510 millimeters or 20 inches high and having a light inside does make a massive difference with these covers so I've demonstrated this before but these are completely fire retardant that's because this is a silicon composite so if you do have like a fire you've got quite a boundary before it affects the rest of your Workshop which is very important so I've been trying to Rack my brains why so much height in here I mean it is roomy if you want to try and reach in and grab parts that's for sure but I also thought we could actually clip a camera to the top here as long as it's a fisheye lens you could get a really good view of the bed there the camera I have unfortunately wants to be just a little bit higher I also thought it makes quite a good grow tent if you're into that kind of thing so I'm going to pack this cover away now and as you've guessed I'm going to include this in the raffle you can win this laser with this cover for just five pounds so what I do is I raffle all the equipment that is given to me now apart from just a select view of course so sometimes I do this for charity but other times I do this to cover my costs so I can give you an honest review so check out those links in the description and any discounts on this machine right I'm going to continue without the cover now for no other reason than it's better for filming and I want to stress the point that having a cover is extremely important with one of these and that's the one what should be an obvious reason that you want to extract all the toxic fumes and gases away and to prevent any glare from that laser these are so powerful now just the slightest mistake you're blinded for life this should be treated like a very dangerous power tool you should be wearing the correct personal protective equipment such as safety glasses and make sure any other passerby isn't harmed by it either so I've just done some tests on this three millimeter Birch ply and as you can see it's actually quite a faff to get the positioning accurate so let's cut out a bracket and install this laser Crosshair so I drafted this in CAD software but you could actually create this on light burn right let's check those results there we are these parts took one minute and 50 seconds that was four passes at two thousand millimeters per minute but anyway these parts should fit together nicely and that is with a zero kerf width and the laser should fit through just like this there we are just like that and now all I'm going to do is add a bit of super glue to the joins I found that these push fit joins basically create a capillary action to the glue what I'm also going to do is glue a bit of tape on the back facing the other way foreign the excess off and you can see I've already put a power adapter on it as well like this is now ready to fit to the machine and I'm going to Simply place it at the top of the laser here now you could obviously use sticky back tape or just glue it directly on if you wanted to so this crosshairs only five volts this works off a USB adapter so to set up the laser first of all we're going to engrave a small box so that we push out of the way now we've got something to reference to so if I align that Crosshair with that box there we are like so now on the side tab in light burn we want to click on the Move option and then we want to click on fire the what that's now done if I move this out the way is it's giving us a little dot where that test fire happened now what you want to do is carefully measure the difference between that dot in both the x-axis and the y-axis to where this square is and now what you're going to do is go on edit and drop down to device settings that's going to give you this menu here and you want to enable laser Offset you then I want to put your measurements in the x-axis that's going across and y-axis that's going away so now if I realign that laser to that box when we click go that should be directly on top of it again so mine's off just a little bit just by one or two millimeters let's try just down here [Applause] oh need to go the other way so after a bit of messing around wherever you put that Crosshair now if I press play you can see the Crosshair goes directly back on the point of zero this now means that setting up is a lot more easily let's say I want a square just here perfect every time so now we've got a laser on a laser let's install the camera this is just a cheap generic USB camera that I got off Amazon right so those are finished now I don't know what happened here though seems to have drifted a little bit all the other parts look good though with nice clean cuts right I'll glue this part together at least [Music] what I've got now is a steel bar and that basically inserts down here there we are like so so I've just got to put a little Bend in it around about here so the supporting bracket the back here is basically held on with t-nuts these slot into the aluminum Extrusion and then lock as they turn I'm basically just going to slot this in here Center that like so all right now that's locked in place this steel bar basically slots in there there you go that's fairly solid so the camera is now installed all we have to do is calibrate it we're going to skip the calibration because it's tedious and we'll go straight to the benefits one great ability of having a camera is its ability to trace shapes if I place that there after updating the overlay we can see the leaf on the page here if I now click on Trace that brings this window up what I'll do is I'll just highlight the leaf there that means I'm only going to trace what's within this box now what I'm doing is adjusting the threshold until that purple line is nice and even all the way around that leaf and now directly on top of that image we've got a tool path so I can now save this as a dxf or PNG and send it to my CAD software or I can basically cut it out as it is foreign so I don't know about you but I think that's amazing so as you can imagine using the camera we can use that to Nest parts and even remote operate the machine and in the near future what I'm going to do is create a full tutorial on using a CNC laser and light burn with all its features I'm going to make it step by step and it should be really easy to follow so if you want to see that then make sure you're subscribed right then why do I think this is the most cost effective laser and is there anything bad for me to say about this right so there is a multitude of ways that we can judge the cost effectiveness of any machine what I'm going to go by however is its ability to cut nine millimeter hardwood ply this is what we've used for all the machines and so it's a good comparison so what I'm going to do is Judge performance by Price So currently the Z1 with the 20 watt module not the pro version that's not out yet but will be when this video is released and it's 670 or 600 British pounds and because it's Prime day I think there are other discounts available so do check it out right so to cut this board most of the lasers apart from a couple are cutting at a rate of 10 millimeters per one Optical watt of power so for example 20 watts does 200 millimeters per minute now that has been the case for most of these lasers except for the 30 watt version they've been cutting at 250 millimeters per minute but the very best it cutting so far is the xtor d140 watt module that's been cutting at 500 millimeters per minute so the d140 watt is operating at 12.5 millimeters per Optical watt whilst the 30 watt lasers are doing 8.33 millimeters per Optical watt which is a lot less so what does that mean price wise so if we take the 600 Quid that this is worth by the 20 watts worth of optical power we get 30 pounds per watt so for example some of the 30 watt lasers they're roughly 1 500 quid well they're 50 pounds per watt the X tool 40 watt is operating at 41 pounds 25 per watt so if we go purely by the ability to cut this board if we go 6 600 pounds divided by 200 millimeters per minute we get three pounds let's just call that the cut value we want that to be as minimal as possible so currently com grow is three if you go for a 1 500 pound 30 watt laser we have six and if we go for the X tool D1 which is 1 650 divided by 500 millimeters per minute we get 3.3 so that to me is the simplest way of figuring out the value to Performance ratio but obviously it entirely depends on what you want to use it for there is so much more that I can do with the xtor D1 that I can't do with this machine and when people have asked for my advice on using it for their business search I've always been pointing towards the D1 so far but you could use that same ratio to the CO2 machines and what you'll find is they're still not as cost effective for example I have the g-wick 50 watt CO2 laser in this Workshop now that's a three grand machine now that performed exactly the same as the d140 Watts so we've got a value rating of six pounds and some of these CO2 lasers are a lot more money so let's say you had three grand to spend you could just buy five of these but I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the matter in the comments section all right let's wrap this up with my final critique there's a lot of effort gone into making this block system this metal holder is quite a lot of work all the work that's gone into making this part just seems pointless to me especially when we've seen on all the other models are just a simple drop down mechanism that's held on by a magnet they literally just Stamped Out of a flat piece of stainless so I don't know why they've gone to the expense of doing all this when it's easily lost and just a faff so for the money I'm finding it hard to find anything wrong with this the only major concern I have is how quiet the fan is you're probably thinking why am I worried about it being quiet well if this fan isn't absolutely bellowing air through this nozzle then it's not going to cool down those diodes very well which means that the diodes will wear out a lot quicker if they're not being cooled properly I have no problem this fan being roaring as long as it's delivering what I do love though is that it's using off-the-shelf aluminum extrusions this means if we want to upgrade the Gantry go a lot bigger you can buy off the shelf and not have to go through a specific company I've actually bought some aluminum Extrusion to do that exact thing except I'm going to do my plan on the table so if you found this video helpful at all then please do drop a comment like And subscribe if you haven't already be sure to check out the raffle if you want to win one I've also put Amazon links for the Crosshair and the camera in the description right so can I encourage you now not to watch YouTube anymore and to get out there in the real world and to forge for yourself a life that's worth living I'll see you in the next episode bye

Channel: Joshua De Lisle

Views: 68,076

Keywords: Joshua De Lisle, laser, laser engraving, CNC, laser engraving machine, laser engraver, DIY, stainless steel engraving, metal engraving, metalwork, 3D printer, stainless, 10w, 20w, plasma, amazing, industrial, manufacture, wow, how to, set up, machine, how do you, tutorial, design, designer, cad, cam, 5w, 30w, 33w, cut, wood, metal, acrylic, desktop, cheap, affordable, best, top, 40w, 50w, co2, etching, home, diy, homemade, workshop, make, maker, craft, comgrow, z1 pro, comgrow 20w, cutter, cheapest, most affordable, upgrades

Id: 1b6Uu0Yy2FQ

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 21 2023