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  1. #1
    Hi all, Christmas is coming early and my New 100w C02 laser cutter is on it's way. Should be here in a couple of days.
    Will keep you posted on it's quality and performance if anyone is interested.

    al

  2. #2
    It's here. !00w Co2 laser 500x700 work size. Will try and do a video later of it in operation.

    Click image for larger version. 

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ID:	19813Well It's arrived. Here's a few pix
    Last edited by alboy; 05-12-2016 at 03:52 PM.

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  4. #3
    That looks interesting, could you give a few more details about it?
    Where did you buy it? Make, model etc.
    Be interested to hear your thoughts about it when you have used it a bit.
    Cheers.
    Last edited by Greeny; 06-12-2016 at 11:36 AM.

  5. #4
    Hi Greeny

    It is from ebay of course :-) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100W-Laser...25.m3641.l6368

    It's branded as Kehui and my research showed that quite a few people own these and had pretty good reviews. One selling point from this supplier was that the laser was shipped from the UK, no import duties and transport etc to worry about and it arrived within 5 days of ordering. It worked out cheaper and quicker than importing the same model from China !!!

    Initial impressions are good considering the price. I will post some more detailed information as soon.

    Cheers

    Al

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  7. How's the new machine working out?

  8. #6
    Hi Karl,

    well petty much as I expected really, required a bit of tuning and adjustment but it is a Chinese machine so these jobs are normally required. I am hoping to put a video review up soon, time permitting.

    The first issue was a nasty clonking sound when raising and lowering the bed which resulted in the bed not moving on one side, easily rectified by removing the bed and motor transmission where the pulley on the motor wasn't tightened properly.
    The second issue was the laser alignment, spent a while aligning all the mirrors and tube, again this is generally required on most Chinese machines.

    When testing the power output of the laser it would seem that the max output is 90w when used as per the tube manufacturers maximum amperage of 29 milliamp. Could probably get more from it but then the life of the tube would be seriously shortened.

    So far have cut laser ply 3mm, cut and engraved 2,3,5 & 6mm acrylic, card, paper, 18mm softwood. The machine seems to have trouble with anything above 5mm ply which is a bit surprising but this may be down to the lens supplied. I have ordered new mirrors and lenses as I guessed the ones supplied with the machine would not be of the highest quality, this would seem to be the case when testing the laser power output between the mirrors and the final lens.

    Considering the price of the machine it is generally a little better than I expected, all the wiring is neat and tidy, all earthed. There is a water flow sensor that stops the machine from working if coolant flow is not detected, not usually found on budget models.
    The extractor fan is not too bad but you will still get an odour escaping so I would only use the machine in a workshop or garage and not in the house, especially when cutting acrylic.
    The machine did vibrate and rattle a bit but that was only because there are no rubber seals around the opening panels, fixed that with some rubber draught excluder for £5.

    The air pump that comes with the machine is not really powerful enough if you are cutting anything other than thin acrylic, not a problem for me as I have taken the air feed direct from my workshop compressor.

    the RDworks software that it comes supplied with works ok but I only really use it to output the work to the laser I generally use illustrator, corel or aspire for the design work. You load the files in to the machine by either USB pen or direct connect via an ethernet cable i find the ethernet the easiest to do and very easy to set up. you can control he machine from a PC using the ethernet connection but jogging the head around is slow with quite a delay so I tend to use the machine's control panel for that.

    it would appear that the manufacturer (KEHUI) have gone out of business which is probably why there are quite a few of these machines at a reasonable price. My machine will be used in a production environment but only for lighter duty cutting and engraving and I purchased this one as I needed one quickly. If I had more time I would probably go for a Thunder laser as they are equipped for a heavier duty cycle with servo motors and automatic focusing, although the manual focusing on my machine is very easy and takes seconds and is pretty much standard on Chinese machines.

    Again considering the cost of the laser £2,155 delivered there's is not much to complain about. when the laser tube finally loses power as they all do over time (especially if over driven by too high amperage) I shall probably replace it with a better quality tube and power supply. but the current tube is doing the job ok until that point.

    If you are contemplating purchasing a laser and it is a Chinese one, then the one essential upgrade you will need to do is fit an ammeter so that you can be sure you are not putting too many amps through the laser tube.

    Hope this helps, need to know any more just ask :-)

    Al

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  10. #7
    Wow, you did quite a job on it. Update us please when you have the new optics, about what it could cut i mean.
    project 1 , 2, Dust Shoe ...

  11. #8
    Hi Al, that's impressive,
    my son has signed up to buy a glowforge ( a waste of time and money i think)i'm hoping to change his mind so i'm researching options for him. he has a fledgling architectural company started and wanted a laser for model building. i finished a course in cnc/laser cutting sometime back and can see the potential for model building. the course did not include any maintenance or optics setup so i'm wondering is it much of hassle? any info would be greatly appreciated. also is there a chiller required for the tube. and if so , is it supplied? i seem to remember a water chiller to cool the laser tube on the course i did ( trotec laser, lasersaur laser) . i heard that a air jet is also required to stop the material from catching fire, is this true? i spoke to a laser owner near me and he uses an air jet on the material being cut to prevent fire. last but not least , is there an extraction method for the fume supplied? sorry for all the questions but i'm trying to get as much info about the machine you bought because it looks a bargain and i am putting together a costing to convince my son.

    paulro
    Last edited by PAULRO; 07-02-2017 at 02:10 PM.

  12. #9
    Theres lots of laser stuff on youtube - optics setup, tuning cheap machines etc.

    Yes you will need air blast, not so much for fire prevention but to keep the front optic clear of the muck thats produced when cutting. Most of the smaller machines use a large aquarium pump so no great pressure is needed here.Water cooling for small <50W machines seems to be just a small pump in a bucket of water!

    Air extract is needed or at least a very good idea, especially if cutting plastics, usually they come with a small fan but seems most people duct it outside and fit a bigger fan.
    Last edited by Davek0974; 07-02-2017 at 03:01 PM.

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  14. #10
    cheers Davek, they look a great bargain compared to the epilogues and trotecs which are very expensive.
    Last edited by PAULRO; 07-02-2017 at 03:14 PM.

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