RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] FYI - A New Small Laser Machine

I'm Australian too, and I think their laser is crap.

Anyone on this list should be able to fix the problems caused in shipping with the Chinese lasers - usually misaligned mirrors. That happens to everyone.

I'm biased because I own two. The first had been dropped hard, hard enough to cause the transformer to snap off the laser power supply. I repaired that and found that because it was swinging around it had damaged the tube.

The seller sent me a new board & tube.

The second one arrived just fine. Plugged it in and off I went.

A few of my friends have now brought these, it's interesting to see the minor improvements.

Their main drawback is the software, a huge turd known as MoshiDraw. It's even dongle protected, as if anyone would steal it (and it's useless without the laser anyway, so WTF?). It and the driver board make up a fair chunk of the price apparently.

That said, MoshiDraw does work, the trick is to only use it for cutting, design your stuff in something else (I use CorelDraw). Export to .plt and load that into MoshiDraw.

Or pull the driver, buy a BOB plus a couple of cheap drivers and use Mach or LinuxCNC instead. The steppers are only little NEMA 17s (like most lasers).

There's a few other minor niggles, but nothing that easily sorted. Eg I discovered one of mine was slightly out of square, so I undo two bolt and fixed it. The lens is 19mm, the holder is 22mm or something so the lens may move off centre. Cut a little ring to take up the space. That's the type of thing you need to deal with, nothing major.

Yeah, what do you expect for $500?

I get a lot of use out of these, just now I made a little dispenser for copper tape. I don't take as many photos as I suppose I should, but here's a few random things: http://www.dropbox.com/sh/bmc5r22thcqyhut/AAB0T2QiOe_VFAAMc0yXEx1ea/Laser

I couldn't make any of that on DarklyLabs pissy little thing. Maybe the vinyl stickers (and much slower).

Tony

> How is $510 not affordable for the ebay unit, but the "affordable, under $600"
> for the original post is? Not having either unit, who knows which machine does
> better work. The ebay machine exists, the kickstarter one most likely will exist.
> 40W CO2 for the ebay box, 2W diode power for the kickstarter project.
>
> One is Chinese, one is Australian.
>
> From the little info available about the kickstarter project, it seems the ebay
> unit is cheaper, more powerful, and exists. The posts related to the generic
> PRC 40W laser are slightly positive, but many mention having to sort out
> shipping damage, it seems the mechanics are not strong enough to survive
> international shipping without some things bending and/or without the optical
> alignment getting hosed.
>
> Take care,
> Stan
>
> On 05/14/2014 09:41 AM, Vince Negrete vnegrete@...
> [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] wrote:
> >
> >
> > ha!! How does it "Piss?" WHEN the Ebay price is $510.00 ??
> > Not affordable...
> > But... Its a GOOD-LOOKING CNC platform!! Clean.
> >
> > Vince
> >
>
>
>
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