Looking to add a laser cutter to my garage. When searching the forum, all the discussions regarding laser cutters seem to be 3 - 4 years old.

Does anyone have any recommendations for an "affordable" laser cutter? I see lots of 40W units available for <$500 of which I would be willing to pay, however with no experience with any, I'm looking for a little guidance from those who have already been down this road.

Primary use would be to cut custom parts for some of my larger builds, I don't believe any of the parts i'm looking to make would exceed 12".

If there are units out there over $500 which I should consider due to features, reliability, power, etc. please let me know.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

MP

The K40, 40W Chinese on Ebay, Amazon etc are for the most part OK as long as your expectations are reasonable. The newer ones seem to come with a digital control based on percent of Laser power which has a range of 0 - 100% but it's NOT calibrated to Laser tube or even a 40W laser in particular. If you want your laser tube to last you should keep the tube current in the 13ma-15ma range but there is no real way to tell what that is as they come since 0% isn't guaranteed to shut the laser off and 100% is most likely way more than 15ma or what the tube can handle for any amount of time. Because of this most upgrade the machine to add a 0-30ma analog meter to the front panel. It's cheap, easy and worthwhile.


You will also see all sorts of complaining about the exhaust fan, which on some is truly terrible but mine actually has a very nice exhaust setup so no need to upgrade that for me.
I got this one off of eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Upgraded-40...53.m2749.l2649

Basically everyone throws away the software that comes with these lasers. Many use Inkscape to draw the vectors needed for cutting and K40 Whisperer to control the laser, both are freeware.

The clamp that comes with these machines is just terrible but it's easy to remove. There are a number of videos around of upgrades that people have made to support the material in the machine and they are all simple enough and not expensive to bui


Some of the videos about upgrades and complaints are simply wrong and posted by people that don't know what they are doing but there are also lots of good videos out there and if you start watching them it quickly becomes apparent who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't. Watch as any as you can stand and see what makes sens before you start changing anything.


I've only had mine for a couple of weeks and it's working quite nicely but they aren't something you buy and just use. You need to maintain alignment, keep mirrors clean, probably before each job, spend time learning power settings and speeds for different materials of different thicknesses, etc. I personally love to mess around with this sort of thing and I also do a lot of 3D printing as well. It's almost a hobby on it's own and you will need to learn to use the software and also some sort of CAD to deign the parts you want to cut. I use Autocad Fusion 360 which is free for hobby use.


There is probably a ton of things I didn't think to mention but the bottom line is these machines can be worthwhile if you're willing to make a couple of simple, inexpensive changes and learn how to use them properly. They definitely aren't something you can pull out of the box, turn on and start making parts right off the bat with no experience. You will definitely need to invest some time to learn how to use it properly but for me that was all just part of the fun.

Hey mate;
a 40W machine will be dissapointing if you want to do something seriuos. You'll be using that always at 100% of power and so, the lamp could die soon. 40W is OK for up to 3mm wood, cardboard, paper...
I've a 100W and use it always (with some exceptions) at 60% of power. With that power, cuts well up to 6mm thick plywood. What WFIELD says up there is also very true: "You need to maintain alignment, keep mirrors clean, probably before each job, spend time learning power settings and speeds for different materials of different thicknesses, etc"
Another advice: whatever you get, be sure to have a solid warranty. Some chinesse stuff could not have it and you could finish paying a lot for a poor quality broken component.
PM me if you need;
Regards