Re: Choosing a laser engraver....

what laser engravers should I buy great question in today's video I'm going to give a quick primer on how to start the search in a way that will best set you up for a successful purchase lasers can cost thousands and thousands of dollars and you need to make sure that you understand what you're looking for so you don't make a costly mistake the three most important considerations are budget materials and the amount of free space that you have but since budget is nine times out of ten the biggest consideration when we're all buying something I broke this video down into four different categories based off of price and inside of those four categories we'll talk about the other two considerations material and space because spoiler alert there is no one laser that can do everything and if there was I guarantee you and I couldn't afford it well maybe you but definitely not I and while we're having this discussion I'm going to be working on a custom job for a client I've been putting off for the past week and needs to get done today I'm going to be cutting 250 acrylic keychain patterns I'll show you the process and we'll talk numbers at the end of the video if I manage to finish it first category let's say You have about a thousand dollars give or take to spend on a new laser well you my friend are getting a diode laser oh dude you're getting a diode this right here is my dial Laser the otor laser Master III this type is easily recognizable by the way it looks it's a Bare Bones design just a square or rectangle metal frame with a crossbar and a laser head attached pros of a dial Laser number one the cost this style laser is designed as an entry level system so they come at a much more affordable price than the other style lasers we'll be talking about in this video you can pick up something like this for a couple hundred dollars on Amazon and have it up and running tomorrow without many other considerations second Pro they have a small footprint the majority of dial lasers are roughly two foot by two foot and weigh about 15 pounds so they're easy to set up and move around perfect if you don't have a lot of space to dedicate to your laser third pro it'll allow you to learn the ropes look them majority of your time is going to be spent inside of a graphics program either creating Graphics or editing Graphics you're going to be learning a lot of new terminology like kerf and scan Gap you're also going to be learning about the delicate relationship between laser power and Laser speed and how that dictates the result of your laser work that process that workflow is the exact same whether you're operating on a 500 diode laser or a 50 000 CO2 laser and fourth a dial Laser will allow you to work on the majority of hobby level projects that you see online if you want to engrave drink tumblers slate coasters cut leather patches cut wooden earrings etc etc all of that can be done on a diode laser now for the cons a dial Laser is going to be pretty limited as far as cutting power and Engraving speeds go for a sub 1 000 price tag you're probably going to get a 5 or 10 watt laser and in the world of laser engraving that's not a lot of power so that means slower cutting speeds and slower engraving speeds another con there will be two materials that are somewhat off limits using a dial Laser you will not be cutting or engraving metal however you might be able to mark it there's a technical difference between marking and Engraving but that's a topic for another video second material and this is one that a lot of people Overlook and that is acrylic acrylic and dial lasers don't particularly mesh well because the wavelength of a dial Laser is not optimal for processing it some diode companies will advertise that you can cut black acrylic and other dark opaque colors but you have no chance when trying to cut clear acrylic they just aren't the proper tool for that material before we move on from the sub 1000 laser engravers I want to mention the k40s while doing your laser shopping you might come across a machine that looks like this and cost about four hundred dollars this is called a K40 laser and what that means is you're going to want to kick your laser 40 times before you ever finish your first project look if you're a big DIY guy and you love to Tinker with the hardware this laser might be right up your alley because you're going to be spending more time tweaking and fixing the laser than you will actually using the laser to make things the working area is small the controller is awful the software is awful zero out of ten do not recommend it all especially if you're not particularly tech savvy the job I'm working on today is for a long-term client of mine who operates summer camp craft classes for kids I'm cutting him a bunch of patterns to make a simple leather keychain design and since he's ordering so many I'm sure he's assuming a bunch of these are going to get broken or lost this is what the pattern looks like it's just a standard 1 8 inch thick piece of clear cast acrylic and this is what the finished keychain looks like next category let's say you have 2500 to 3 000 plus but you have limited space maybe you're going to be setting your laser up in a spare bedroom or a craft room somewhere or you're going to need to move it around the different spots from time to time you are going to be looking at getting a desktop CO2 laser I currently don't own a desktop CO2 laser otherwise I'd be sitting in front of it for an intro but for reference if you've spent any amount of time watching laser videos here on YouTube you've probably heard of the glowforge the glowforge is the most recognizable product in the desktop CO2 category however it's certainly not the only one available pros of a desktop CO2 laser are number one they're extremely versatile CO2 lasers are the most popular type of laser and can cut and engrave the widest array of materials anything that you can cut and engrave on a dial Laser you can cut and engrave on a CO2 laser with the addition of acrylic the wavelength of a CO2 laser is perfect for working with all types of acrylic the second Pro the desktop CO2 laser will come come with more power and faster engraving speeds the dial lasers we talked about earlier are going to be in the 5 to 15 watt power range and the desktop CO2 lasers are in the 35 45 55 watt power range that means you can cut faster you can cut thicker materials and you can also engrave at a faster speed the third Pro a desktop CO2 laser comes with a reasonably small footprint these lasers are designed to sit on top of a table and take up much less space than the Standalone laser systems that we're going to be talking about next perfect if you're going to be operating out of a craft room somewhere in your house you will have no problem carrying one of these down to the basement or up to the third floor of your house the cons of a desktop CO2 laser are number one you will have a somewhat limited working area the desktop CO2 lasers are much better suited for smaller projects due to the physical size restraints of the machine if you're looking to create giant wooden wall decorations you might have to skip this option and save up a little bit more money second con some of the newer and more popular models are getting a little bit pricey I understand that they're coming out with more powerful tubes and new features all the time but these desktop CO2 lasers can cost as much as a more capable mid-range CO2 laser next category let's say you have roughly three thousand dollars plus with floor space floor space in this instance means a section of a garage a basement a shed somewhere where you can dedicate some space for your laser system to live because you my friend are getting a mid-range CO2 laser here is my mid-range CO2 laser this is the boss LS 1630 I've had this machine for roughly six years and it's the first laser I bought with my own money and it's what I use to operate my laser business the pros of a mid-range CO2 laser are more power for faster cutting and Engraving speeds in a larger working area we just talked about the desktop CO2 lasers they operate in the 35-45 maybe 55 watt range well the mid-range CO2 lasers usually start around 60 to 70 Watt and go all the way up to like 150 watts and when you have 100 or 150 watt tube now you're really cooking with gas the working areas are also much larger than the desktop CO2 and dial lasers and the more money you're willing to spend and the more space you have to dedicate to your laser the larger work bed you can buy one of the first lasers I started doing work on was a trotec speedy 500 the laser was no joke the size of a car these machines are also much more suitable for the daily wear and tear of running a laser business you can routinely run these machines for 8 10 12 hours a day and as long as you keep up with maintenance they don't even blink that's often not the case for the smaller hobby level machines that aren't designed for this kind of Usage Now the cons of a mid-range CO2 laser number one you're going to need a dedicated space to keep it some of these machines are really big really heavy and you physically can't walk these through your front door and up into your craft room for example my laser weighs about 650 pounds and moving anywhere is an ordeal in the summer of 2021 I moved my laser from a big fourth floor studio in downtown Philadelphia to my garage Workshop here in New Jersey between the logistics of getting it to the ground level and into the street and specifically needing a truck with a strong enough liftgate you couldn't pay me to move this thing again the second con there is often more add-ons required for example you can see here I have the water chiller I have my air pump for air assist you're going to need a larger exhaust fan and ductwork to Route the fumes outside of your Workshop all of these things take up space some of the newer models are starting to incorporate all these external add-ons into the body of the actual laser which is really cool but to get something like that you might be spending a little bit more money than you want so if you're going for a more affordable base model you're going to need to account for all these add-on parts needed to safely operate your laser another con is you might have to make some electrical considerations some of these machines pull some serious electrical power and you're going to want to make sure that you have everything set up correctly so you don't flip Breakers in your house when you're trying to cut some wood panels for example you can see here behind my laser I have a sub panel completely dedicated to all the laser stuff in my garage separate from the main breaker in my house definitely double check the electrical requirements for the laser system you are considering ahead of time and another con is there will be more DIY maintenance this is true of all lasers but especially true of the more complex systems that have more parts for example on my CO2 laser I've had to replace the controller I've had to replace the power supply I've had to replace the water temperature sensor twice and I'm due for my tube to die any minute now because it's close to the end of its operating life oh all of these items cost money some are just a few bucks but something like a new tube can be really expensive and they're also going to cost you time when you need to replace them so keep in mind that the purchases don't necessarily stop once you buy the system alright let's load it up I buy these acrylic sheets pre-cut to a custom size from my plastic supplier and I use these for all of my acrylic products the final category we're looking at today kind of exists on the outside but parallel to the previous categories we looked at maybe you're interested in engraving custom gun parts and knife handles or maybe you already have a CO2 laser and you're just looking to add metal capabilities to Your Arsenal we're talking about fiber lasers here is my fiber laser this is a 60 watt jpt mopa laser from a company called OMG lasers and I use this laser whenever I'm looking to engrave something metal the pros of a fiber laser engraver number one you can properly Mark and engrave all types of metal that's what this laser is specifically designed to do unlike a dial Laser or a CO2 laser you can lightly Mark the surface or do seriously deep Engravings on things like brass coins second Pro fiber laser engraving is extremely fast something that would take me 10 minutes to engrave on my dial Laser I can probably be doing 45 seconds to a minute on my fiber laser what are the cons of a fiber laser system a big con is the workspace is pretty small the lens you have will dictate the working area that you can engrave for example a 300 by 300 millimeter lens is going to give you a working area of just shy of 12 inches by 12 inches second con is you will not be doing any cutting on this machine while it can cut through material with enough passes it's really just designed for Engraving work and as far as pricing goes like with everything there's a range you can get a lower wattage fiber laser for probably in the two to three thousand dollar range and the higher the wattage you want the more expensive the laser is going to be this 60 watt mopa fiber laser cost me about fifty seven hundred dollars shipped directly to me from China and what if you're interested in cutting metal well when talking about laser cutting metal it quickly goes from a hobby setup to a more professional industrial setup for example if we look at this boss HP 2440 system it comes with two laser heads so you can do Organics like wood as well as has cut up to 18 gauge sheet metal however steel is the only metal you will be cutting other metal materials like brass copper aluminum are all going to be off limits if you really really really want to get into laser cutting metal you're going to be looking in the fiber laser cutting systems which are really expensive and outside of the realm of anything I have any experience with so I can't comment on those alright I know that was a lot of general information and some of you might want some specific laser models to take a look at it's about damn time I kind of hate giving these kind of suggestions without having more contexts and also it seems like new lasers are getting released like every six months they're turning in the iPhones so hopefully this list will hold up for at least another year also links to all the lasers I mentioned are in the video description below starting off with the dial lasers in the thousand dollar range I'll list them from least to most expensive on the more affordable end of the scale check out the sculpt fun S6 or S9 a little more Bare Bones as far as features go but we'll get you in the game next up the otor laser Master 3 that's the diode laser I'm using right here good machine for the price does what I wanted to do anytime I want to do detailed photo work I go with my autor because it produces beautiful results next level up in price I would check out the niji max 4. I've been eyeing this one for a little bit now I like that it does the curved surface detection for keeping Focus that's a really cool feature it opens up a whole new world and items you can an offer for Engravings and at the high end of the price point which will take you a little bit over a thousand dollars the X tool D1 Pro this is probably the most prevalent diode laser you'll see suggested here on YouTube in fact I'll be doing a review for this machine very soon desktop CO2 lasers I don't have a lot of experience with this style laser so I'll mention the two that I hear a lot of great things about the OM Tech polar and the xtool P2 if I were in the market for a desktop CO2 laser these are the two I would start looking at some of you might be wondering why I didn't mention the glowforge why why wow wow well I'm just not a glowforge guy one of the cardinal sins for a laser company for me is not offering open software availability I want to use light burn whenever I'm using my laser and glowforge requires that you use their cloud-based software as of right now so that's a no-go for me moving into the mid-range CO2 category I would start by checking out the models over at mon port and om Tech they both have lasers going from 60 watts up to 150 watts at a pretty affordable price tag I have a boss laser so I'll mention boss in this category I've had my LS 1630 for the past six years and the company has been good to me whenever I needed things from them so definitely check out their line if you've got a little money to spend take a look at the Thunder Nova series I see a lot of these on YouTube and it looks like people generally give them great reviews also the Aeon mirror Pro and Nova series I know that the mirror 7 and 9 are technically considered desktop lasers however they are much larger than the desktop lasers I mentioned previously so I consider them a bit of a hybrid and they're definitely priced more similarly to a mid-range freestanding CO2 laser and if you've got money to spend twenty thousand thirty thousand fifty thousand dollars plus you can check out universal lasers epilogue and trotec those are the top of the line machines especially trotec for fiber lasers I don't really have a lot of experience here I just bought my first fiber laser recently from a company called OMG laser great customer service and I love the machine so far no complaints I know I'm missing tons of awesome lasers on this list so if you're watching this and have a laser you really like and want to recommend please add it to the comments section below this video and here is our finished 250 acrylic pattern pieces as far as pricing goes I'll give you a rough breakdown I sell these patterns on my website retail for about seven dollars a piece since my client was ordering such a large quantity and since I've worked with him before I'm only charging him three dollars a piece gross revenue 250 times three dollars equals 750 I buy these acrylic sheets in bulk and they cost me roughly nine dollars and eighty cents each I managed to fit 70 keychain patterns onto each sheet which divides out to 14 cents a piece I had to cut three sheets at roughly 20 minutes run time each so the entire job was about an hour to complete of course there are taxes and a myriad of other business expenses I need to incorporate into that equation to get the final profit but let's just say it was well worth my time all right that's the end of my what was supposed to be a five minute primer but went way over that if you took any value from this video whatsoever I would greatly appreciate if you could just tap the like button it doesn't cost you anything and it helps me out greatly with the YouTube algorithm also subscribe if you're interested in laser content good luck on your laser search

Channel: Justin Laser

Views: 203,785

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Id: TfJh17bBuKI

Length: 18min 8sec (1088 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023