Laser for under £2000?

[komatias]

Burning images on wood is easily done with a low power laser. Its cutting that is not.

40W will cut through pine, 50W will cut birch ply. of course it depends on the speeds you run at. engraving can be done quicker than cutting as it only chars the surface.

I have recently bought my girlfriend a the 50W chinese laser from ebay at the bottom of the link you shared. It is easy to use but the software is a bit limited. If they had the 60W at the time, I would have bought that one. Gutted I hadnt seen it :(

Build quality is not bad for the price either. Just be sure that it is in your country already so you do not get slapped with the import duties.

If you want to do greyscale though then you will either have to do it manually by splitting layers or pay more money for a control.

[andy_con]

Have you considered using a high powered 445 diode for just engraving? You could even combine a few together for double power