Recommend me a Laser cutter.

[Jess]

We brought a HPC laser. They import and service Chinese lasers. They are more expensive than importing one yourself but as a company are reasonably reliable

An increasingly common trend for Chinese sellers I've noticed seems to be holding their wares in EU (including the UK) based warehouses, removing many of the usual worries of importing, whilst as a buyer you're still paying imported-from-China prices.

The result as far as we're concerns is that HPC laser's lowest end model (the LS3020 pro) is £1,125 (with shipping of £12.95+VAT) which appears to be very similar in both look and specification similar to ones that are £405 'all in' (including shipping etc.) As someone who's interested in acquiring a laser cutter (who isn't, apart from those who've got one? ), that £735 premium is hard to swallow, especially if I can also expect to have to get my hands dirty either way.

Worse, if I go the way gianluca_g suggests (and ripping the existing controller out seems to be a rather common suggestion with these!), then I'm taking it apart and retrofitting it; and £700 buys a lot of fixing and retrofitting. On the other hand, if £735 is the difference between ending up with working hardware, and ending up pouring lots of precious time and good money into a bad purchase then it's it's worth every single extra penny - all 73554 of them!

I dont need a very large machine.

Large is in the eye of the workshop owner. Seriously, though, given you know what you want to do, you can just look at the working area and know whether it'll fit. The cheapest machines seem to be able to cut an area of about the size (well, a little less) than an A4 sheet. A larger machine, like the one that komatias linked, will do more like twice that - two A4 sheets (aka A3).

Depending on how much engraving/cutting you're hoping to do, you might find the larger machine works out cheaper in the long run. The larger cutting area means you may be able to get more efficient use out of your material (less important for ply, more important for leather?) and, of course, the more powerful laser should allow you to get jobs done slightly faster.

Ive seen some crappy ones on ebay etc that look like they would fall apart as soon as you look at them and other that look a bit more substantial.

It's difficult; whilst it's often a good guide, I've bought enough polished turds in the past to be cautious. They looked great, but the internals were cheap trash. Equally, I've found enough rough diamonds to hold out hope!