So We are waiting for our machine to arrive. It’s still in Los Angeles.the container was flagged to be X-rayed then It was flagged for an additional intensive examination. All this because of the timing with the Corona Virus and because it came from China.
If you think the government is paying for all of this excess inspection you will be wrong. The importer pays for all of it even if nothing is found. I would agree it would be fair for the importer to pay if anything was found To be in non compliance . But everything in our shipment was in order. Pretty upset that they can now create fees out of thin air and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Keep in mind that these fees are over and above the tariff fees charged for importing the laser from China which are at currently 28.5% of the value
We started this adventure back in Mid 2019 way before the tariffs and this Corona Virus fiasco.
Learn from us and take all into consideration before investing in A laser from China.
Buy an American Laser or a Chinese laser already imported from China and in the USA or get prepared to pay up the kazoo in fees over and above what you think you will pay for the laser.
Nevertheless we are still very happy to get our dual head laser even with the additional fees the value savings are astronomical . The timing with the economy and the income is just a small road bump.
We Americans do not know the pain other countries have when importing. Most items will double in cost by the time everyone gets their piece of the pie!
I bought my Chinese laser from a German depot. This way I didn’t have to pay for additional import fees (since it shipped from one place in Europe to another)
Saved me a ton. Also when there was a problem… it was easier to get a refund.
My advice would be when buying a chinese laser:
Buy from a local depot to avoid addional import fees.
Preferably through ebay and pay with paypal (because you have buyers protection and those Chinese DO seem to scared of that.
Btw @Sasquatch what is the benefit of a dual head laser machine over a single head machine?
@sensor One head is a cutting head 150w and the second is an 80w engraving head. The machine can achieve engraing and cutting at same time or separately.
With two laser heads it increases production capacity and efficiency,the processing speed is doubled.
@Sasquatch Do the heads run on independent gantries? most dual lasers I have seen are on a single gantry and linked to each other, thus only able to duplicate the process with a set standoff from each other. If they are truly capable of independent motion then that is pretty awesome!
We went with the cutting/engraving 150/80 watt big 1500 x 1100 bed model one
Here is a rough photo of the head from the manufacturer during the building phase.
We want to create large art pieces and projects. We are still abele to create lots of small pieces fast as a result of the large bed but felt that the versatility of a powerful cutter and an engraving head would be of greater use. To us without having to sacrifice the bed size.
Downsizing the bed size would be needed if we would have had the heads run on independent gantries. Think of each head responsible for approx 50% of the overall bed.
With a little bit of luck we should get our big green machine within the next 10 days after almost 1/2 of year of research and waiting.
That sounds weird… we have a 2-head, 2-tube flatbed laser, 180w & 100w, custom made ex China a few years ago. 1300 x 2500 mm bed. Motorised Z axis.
Processing speed doubled? No I wouldn’t say so, unless you moved the heads half the bed apart, and calibrated the higher tube so you could cut twice the items with the one gantry movement… good in theory, but its more useful to leave the heads side-by-side, and have the whole bed available for either head to use.
Engraving and cutting at the same time? Not at all.
Increased production capacity and efficiency- yes. But for practical purposes, not double
Get another laser, or two more, for real improvements in capacity & efficiency!
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Your post about the shoe systems didn’t come up when I looked. But you won’t get double the productivity…
As well as the big flatbed, we also have a 130w Goldenlaser 700x1300. They are a solid, quality unit- miles ahead of the ebay specials and the middle to bottom of the range offerings. The tube in it is a Reci w2, new in 2012, and still performing as new, at 100% power setting, 8 years old. The machine cost a very pretty penny when new, but back in those days, ‘quality’ was the only option.
My only gripe is their softdog dongle and Golden software.
I have to do the designs in Corel Draw, and use the E-cut plug-in DXF export, then import the DXF into the Golden software. Corel’s native dxf export is too buggy, and the Golden software did not like importing Ai files, even version 3.
One day I’ll fit a Ruida controller- and I have it on hand to do- but it works ok once you accept the Golden software quirks. I could not get it to work with Lightburn, sadly.
Have fun with yours!
PS the beauty of the Goldenlasers, is they are already tuned and set right. You pay for the productivity right from delivery- and no fears about misaligned scans and cuts etc that plagues the cheaper machine end of the scale.
Most of the shoe systems have a conveyer like bed when two independent heads are used material is inserted on one side and collected on the other end.
Two heads on independent gantries can be more productive on two smaller parallel beds because one can cut at a certain power while the second can engrave on another power concurrently. Theoretically twice as fast.Like using two cookie cutters at once.
Here is a video
Sorry to hear your machine is not working with LightBurn.It truly is an amazing Versatel solution to so many machines that would be so much less with other programs.
