Thread: Greolt's Laser Build

Shocked that the entire tube was not wrapped as the centre and more fragile section was unsupported. As for length maybe they gave you an extra watt or two of power. lol.

Daniel

When I looked at these which was some time ago and the same seller they quoted 1,000 hr service life - I see they advertise these as 8,000 hrs.

Know anything about that?

The normal or cheaper style tubes no longer quote a lifespan.

I have heard reports that they have a limited shelf life even if not used. However you can get a 40w tube for less than $200 delivered.

The tube I got is a RECI brand tube. The RECI website makes them sound great. But I guess that is the job of advertising.

Beijing Reci Laser Technology Co., Ltd.

As far as I can tell one of the main differences is that the cheap tubes ends are sealed with epoxy.

The RECI tubes have supposedly the glass directly bonded to the steel ends.

I read on other forums that people ordering Chinese laser machines are often paying extra and specifying RECI tubes in them.

Apparently the limiting factor of lifespan is that they eventually lose the gas contained inside.

The expensive laser machines like Epilog, Trotec, etc have metal cased lasers which can be returned to the factory for regassing.

That is as much as I know and would not guarantee any of the above is accurate.

Greg

Sounds plausible and good to have a take on it. As transport is a fairly major cost it would be better to have the odds on your side with a longer life unit.

No doubt you are doing heaps of research sorting it out so expect more questions from the less informed.

Good going greg. The tube could be relapsed by a neon sign maker over here - maybe?

Rodney from down here has a laser running and the optics are critical. You also need to have the laser configured to cut the centre of the work so when we sorted this out on his unit we got some really nice cuts. Will post some outfitted work. 80w should do a lot of good deep cuts.

Built the skeleton of the cabinet today.

Couldn't help temporarily putting the X and Y in to see what it looked like.

Amazing work Greg. I don't know how you build so fast!!

Can you advise the size of the work area and what type of jobs and materials you intend to use the machine for?

Cheers
David

Originally Posted by berrybuilt

Can you advise the size of the work area.....

It will have a work area of a bit over 900 x 450 and should get jobs as high as 300 under the head.

.........and what type of jobs and materials you intend to use the machine for?

Perfectly reasonable question, but I don't really have a good answer for it.

A lot of people build a machine because they have a particular task they want to achieve.

I am a bit odd, I just want to build a machine.

It should cut things such as Acrylic, plywood, mylar, to name a few. And it should be great for engraving a variety of materials, including glass.

I plan to build a rotary axis for engraving bottles, glassware etc.

Greg

I have to agree making the machine is enough challenge to want to do it and sure beats watching TV.

An acrylic gearotic clock would be a good project and nice smooth edges.
In fact any gears cut would take a fraction of the time verses machining them.

Frame looks good.

Look great Greg. When its running i'm sure there will be plenty requests from this forum. lol. Maybe the local scrap bookers may be interested. Either way it looks great and is coming along quickly. Will be watching with a keen eye.

Daniel

Howdy Greg looking good how do you think you going to go on alignment this is where I came unstuck when trying to align it all I used a laser pointer mounted worked well for its purpose.

What are you going to use to run it, DSP?

I am not expecting too much difficulty aligning the laser. Been very careful in the design and build to get all the alignment geometry right.

We will see when the time comes. I may rue having said those words.

As far as a controller goes I intend to use Mach initially. Then when everything is working, I will get either a Light Object or Retina Engrave controller.

I am leaning towards Light Object at the moment. However I am not so keen on the fact that it only works with Corel and Autocad.

Corel Draw is OK but I use free CAD and don't want to have to get Autocad.

So that may push me towards Retina Engrave, which works with any program.

Greg

Retina Engrave seems the go I like the look of it as well and would probably lean that way more myself.

Originally Posted by rodm

When I looked at these which was some time ago and the same seller they quoted 1,000 hr service life - I see they advertise these as 8,000 hrs.

Know anything about that?

Rod, our laser tubes are lifed, they say 2000 hrs and or 1 yr per tube, apparently they degrade even when not being used, so in the ideal world you work the guts out of the machine.

Steve