Help with researching choosing a laser cutter

$359 - 8 in x 12 in table area. Nice size for modeling. 40w will cut most thinner materials. Biggest issue I've had is cutting modeling plywood. Seems the laser 'light' doesn't like some of the glues and resins (reflections I think). However that is just a matter of cutting a few pieces and then remembering the good stuff from the bad stuff. If you order materials online - order from a company that is known to supply laser folks, they usueually have the 'good' stuff'. Learning how to manipulate the data to get the cut or engrave that you want is also a consideration. You probably don't need another hobby! Russ

Ebay $359 Laser

I used to work at a Laser manufacture, so I'm a little biased to them, but like you said, they are easy over the $4k range.  I'd say get the most powerful CO laser in the cutting area you want.  It may be rated at 40W, but that's going to be cold and very short duration.  As soon as it warms up any the power will drop, and the power drops naturally with age too.  A 40W is really just for etching and maybe cutting "soft" materials no more than 1/8 inch thick.  Plywood would be a hard material, so 40W will have issues cutting it.  And it's not that the glue reflects the laser, it's just that the glue may be invisible to the laser at that wavelength so the laser has no effect on it.

ChiloquinRuss posted:

$359 - 8 in x 12 in table area. Nice size for modeling. 40w will cut most thinner materials. Biggest issue I've had is cutting modeling plywood. Seems the laser 'light' doesn't like some of the glues and resins (reflections I think). However that is just a matter of cutting a few pieces and then remembering the good stuff from the bad stuff. If you order materials online - order from a company that is known to supply laser folks, they usueually have the 'good' stuff'. Learning how to manipulate the data to get the cut or engrave that you want is also a consideration. You probably don't need another hobby! Russ

Ebay $359 Laser

Russ

OP here and I have a few questions

The cutter you reference is this the one you own or would recommend?

Where do you purchase your materials at? What would make something the "good stuff"

Not sure what you mean by the learning statement at the end. Is this something that takes considerable amount of time learning and other resources?

Thanks!

Dave

a lot of the cutters use CorelDraw as the 2D modeling software.

I bought a Full Spectrum laser (one of the $3500 jobs) before they started showing up on EBay.  The laser tube that is in the $359 machine is very similar to the tube in my machine so my material comments are directed to the 35 or 40 watt tube versus the cost of the particular machine.

I've ordered from Laser Bits and they are a little pricey but just Google laser cutting supplies and there are a few suppliers listed.  Check their reviews.

laserbits

The comment about the plywood is based on my experience.  I can easily cut up to 1/8th inch stuff provided it is a good quality ply like BB (baltic birch) that they use for boat building.  Most hobby shop wood will work, lumber stores wood will be suspect until you try it.  If you need to cut 1/4 inch stuff or greater then you are in a different scale than I am.  I use my CNC machine for the 1 1/2 inch scale stuff, but the laser is for my ON30 stuff.

Product testing only needs to be a very small sample.  The process of laser cutting requires no hold down of the material so just sticking a little piece in the machine and giving it a go is all that is required.  Initially I made up a sheet that was basically a like the old fashioned tv test pattern and cut that to see what the results might be.  But that was just to see what the machine will do.  Most machines come with some sample files to play with.

Most of my laser cut structures were actually designed using PowerPoint!  It's all just squares and lines after all!    Russ

Do any of the machines work on MAC (Adobe Illustrator) software? Corel Draw doesn't make a version for MAC and has no plans to do so. I used Corel for 15 years before switching to MAC. I loved the software and wish they make a MAC version. If I want to work with a  Windows emulator I could load it on the MAC, but it's more complicated than I want to get into now.

Trainman2001 posted:

 If I want to work with a  Windows emulator I could load it on the MAC, but it's more complicated than I want to get into now.

The Parallels Windows emulator just works. Not cheap, but it solves the problem once and for all. These emulators have come a long way in recent years.

For a little education, check out this:

https://www.youtube.com/user/SarbarMultimedia

He has done a great deal of data collecting and modifying a Chinese cutter. I don't even own one and found it very enlightening - tubes and mirrors.

Trainman2001 posted:

Do any of the machines work on MAC (Adobe Illustrator) software? Corel Draw doesn't make a version for MAC and has no plans to do so. I used Corel for 15 years before switching to MAC. I loved the software and wish they make a MAC version. If I want to work with a  Windows emulator I could load it on the MAC, but it's more complicated than I want to get into now.

I know ULS had software for the Mac at one time, but their machines are not cheap.  The biggest thing will be device drivers.  You could probably use PlayOnMac to run Corel, but that wouldn't help with the driver issue.  Parallels, VMFusion, and DOSBox would be the best for that, but then you'd need a copy of Windows as well.

The problem is not Parallels or Boot Camp, but the requirement to get an ISO version of Windows. That's a clean version that is complete. This is not available commercially, but must be obtained from MicroSoft and isn't cheap. Add to that complication that my MacBook Pro doesn't have an optical drive, which is available as a add on for more money. Bottom line, while it's possible it's complicated and expensive for me. It would have been much easier if Corel would have bit the bullet years ago and created a native OS version of their great program. Considering that MAC is the leading platform for graphics and the arts, it makes on wonder why Corel decided to go as they did.

Back when playing around with Virtual Box, Windows 10, and something for hacking Toyotas, I found out Microsoft has VMs, possibly in ISO form, for IEx and Windows Y, that can run for 30 days, and then you do something, and they run another 30 days, or just reload the original, install your software again. The purpose of them is for web developers to try their software on various versions of OS and IE.  .... And ... of course I have no clue where they are.

Sorry don't know if VirtualBox works on a Mac.

And it turned out, I just needed to download an updated install to get the Toyota hacking software to work in Windows 10. And it turns out, there's not that much to hack if you want to keep it clean. I just wanted the doors to stay locked when the vehicle is put in Park (long story).

I had an alert for this thread sitting in my inbox since last year and I need to update this it. My IT genius daughter-in-law was able to load VM Fusion on my Mac. I was then able to download an ISO version of Windows 10 and get it running. I was then able to activate my five-year hiatus CorelDraw and get an upgrade price for CorelDraw and PhotoPaint. I am now successfully running it on a MacBook Pro and it's great! Having now run both Illustrator and CorelDraw at the same time, I can say with no reservation that CorelDraw is a better drawing program than Illustrator... much better and they should make a real native OS version.

First of all, I can scale and dimension drawings without paying additional monthly rentals for Illustrator add-ins. Furthermore, CorelDraw has critical, context sensitive information about a shape, margins, pages sizes, pen sizes, etc., always in the control bar of the screen with easy access. I don't  have to search for additional docks to find these things. It's easier to size images. It's easier, much easier to work with guides. In fact, guides in Illustrator are ridiculous. If you don't lock them, they attach to the object you just drew so if you move the object, the guides more with it. Then you have to remember to unlock them to more them. Bad!

In Corel, guides are on their own layer all the time and are independent of the objects on top of them. It's also much simpler to actually find out where those guys lie on the page and how to adjust their position. In Illustrator, this was so difficult, that if I want to move the guide a 1/4", I would create a 1/4" rectangle and move the guide to its edge and then delete the rectangle. As I said, "Ridiculous." I am an experienced graphics user having worked with CorelDraw Ver 1.0 in the early 1990s. I know what I'm talking about here.

I haven't found a single thing that Illustrator does better than Corel and have found a lot that is much less convenient.

Lastly, Corel is a purchase that includes Photopaint, and the upgrade was $200.00 ONCE!. I was paying $240 a year for Illustrator and did not get PhotoShop. That would have been more per month. And that's every year, year over year. I've already saved $40. Next year I save $240. I don't even have to upgrade Corel since it does everything I want and much which I don't ever use.

Now... regarding using it on a virtual machine... I had to figure out about the file saving. It didn't want to save files on the shared directory accessible by both instances (Mac and Windows). After some experimentation I found that if I created and saved Corel files to specific Windows directories, it saved perfectly and fast. There are some frustrating key stroke differences. Corel doesn't recognize the Apple backwards delete key, so to delete on Corel I have to hit FUNCTION + DELETE. The Apple delete does work on Windows mail as it does on Apple. Also Corel doesn't recognize the Apple COMMAND KEY. To do any functions I have to use CONTROL and the function (for example: CONTROL + C for Copy, instead of COMMAND + C). These are not limitations, just annoyances, since I still do lots of things on the Apple side of my computer. I'm becoming quite a chameleon.

So there you have it. After waiting three years to do this it finally got done and I'm very happy.

As an example of just what I could do on CorelDraw, these images were created entirely in CorelDraw Between 1997 and 2008.

The Q2 also has a tender, but I can't find it. I did this one while on long-term assignment in Cincinnati. I also built my Gloor Craft coaling tower while at that rental apartment. It was done entirely on a 1997 laptop. This was an honorable mention in CorelDraw's world wide art contest in 1998.

The J1-A was done in 1998 at home on a desk top computer.

This was done for my grandson's room. The first two drawings were done entirely from taking measurements from photos and (in the case of the J1-a) from measuring my 3rd Rail brass engine. The F-3 was drawn overtop of a line drawing found in an old Mainline Modeler magazine.

The engraver I am setting up is 40"x 40" area 15W laser engraver.

The software takes any scanned photo and will etch that into most unreflective materials.