Ready to upgrade from my Modified K40... Thinking of this Monport 60W

Community Laser Talk
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Does anyone have any thoughts, opinions, or advice about this Monport 60W Laser"

Pros (as I see them):

  1. 50% more power than my K40
  2. Twice the width and length of working surface
  3. Already Lightburn compatible
  4. Will still go easily into my upstairs converted bedroom and through the door

Cons:

  1. Not as powerful as an 80W or 100W
  2. Not the 24x36 that I’ve always dreamed of
  3. Not really a desktop size, but not quite a standalone height either

I’ve modded my K40 with upgraded exhaust, honeycomb bed, adjustable focus head unit, improved air assist, 3000 series chiller (yeah I know, not really a chiller, but at least fully self contained and wired into the safety cutoff), Milliamp meter, upgraded backlit thermometers, Lightburn compatible controller, and external Amber/Red safety light.

It has served me well as I learned about lasering in general, but I’d like to do some projects larger than 12x9 and yet still have a “Desktop” style device that will fit in this room. I’ve looked into similar Omtech lasers, but keep falling back to the overall looks, fit, and finish of the Monport, and they are similarly priced. Will likely purchase through Amazon, since the price is even a little better than the Monport 6% off that their direct website offers, and you cannot beat the Amazon return policy. Plus I’ll probably take advantage of the 12 months 0% option of my Amazon credit card.

I’ll be pulling the trigger soon (as soon as my taxes are paid for the year), but I thought I would ask the professionals and fellow hobbyists on the site for their thoughts first.

Thanx in advance
Jim in Hollister

2

I like how the “Product Details” picture (next to bottom) touts its “55W Powerful Laser Tube” … :grin:

The overall cabinet is 112 cm = 1.1 m wide, which means the tube probably isn’t even 1 m long, so it’s barely 50 W and might even be a 45 W tube amped to a dangerous chattering whine. FWIW, OMTech did the same thing in my “60 W” 700×500 mm red-and-black laser with a 1 m tube likely rated at 50 W.

On the plus side, the cabinet looks like it has a front pass-through hatch which you can use as an air entry port to get good flow across the material and down-n-out through the rear honeycomb.

They don’t give a weight, but if you’re thinking of casually lifting that puppy out of its crate onto your benchtop, you’d best sign up for physical therapy right now …

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I did have a brief email discussion with a nearly English speaking sales rep about the fact that all the documentation says “55W” as well as some of the support files… but he assured me it is a true 60W laser tube. For what it’s worth.

I too like the front/rear pass through but I wasn’t really thinking of the improved ventilation as much as some oversize projects I have lined up. And unlike some other lasers I have seen, it appears that the pass through is the full width of the bed… amazingly some are not.

And I know it’s not a K40 weight wise, but at 286lbs, I think my son and I can muscle it up the indoor stairs on my good strong appliance dolly. I have a very large shop that would gladly house any size laser made… but at 60+ I’ve grown very accustomed to working inside the house instead of out in the cold shop. I’ve already cleanly cut a vent pipe through the outside wall for ventilation. I also expect to put it on a stand/desk that will be about 18-24 inches tall. With the bed of this unit being only that high from the floor to begin with, I can’t see myself bending over into the work area. I have my K40 on a stand up desk, so I already have my work area at about chest height, and that works great.

Thank you for your input. I know it’s subjective and mostly task related, but have you been satisfied with 60W, or have you regretted not going larger? Just curious.

Jim

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@ednisley is absolutely correct. The tube length will determine power output and a 50W tube is about a meter in length.

My China Blue 50W had an 880mm tube in it. It measured 44W with a Mahoney power meter. One person stated that I must be lucky or over driving it … :frowning:

Good retort from the salesman Trust me, why would I lie?

The best question I can ask you about getting a laser, is what do you intend to do with it?

Engraving generally requires low power, so I wouldn’t expect to use a high power laser for that.

IMHO high power is primarily for cutting and limits the available low power control.

If you wish to do lots of cutting, then high power is best.

If it’s a combination, what materials and how much of each? This is the more general use, engrave something then cut it out. What are you planning to engrave. How avaialable are different length lenses…

Lots of questions to dial into the right laser…

This one is nice… Pick a good vendor.

Good luck

:smiley_cat:

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I was more concerned with the platform size and 60 W was the biggest that would fit through the door:

Had to take the doors off, lift the lid, butter it up, and oilcan the sides, but we got it through! I used a floor jack to get it up on risers to put the platform at a comfortable height:

For the things I build from relatively thin material with straightforward engravings, it’s worked out very well.

Well, then, it must be true! :grin:

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I very much appreciate your input. Thank you.
I find, if I look back at all of the projects that I’ve done since getting into lasers, that about 60% of them were primarily Engraving or Etching projects and 40% of them included actual cutting. This is why I’m thinking that 60W is probably a sweet spot for me. I enjoy engraving and don’t find myself cutting anything substantial. So far mostly 3mm plywood, in fact I haven’t even gotten into acrylics yet. I also haven’t had any experience yet with MDF although I hear good things about working with it.

I did get a chance to etch some glass bottles for a spice rack. It came out great. They were all square bottles so I haven’t yet messed with my rotary attachment either. Glass was fun, and I expect I’ll have more projects with that material as well.

I’ve also spent some time cutting foam. A simple task for my 40W, so I expect the 60W will handle it with ease as well. I’ve developed a great procedure (using a backlit tablet device) for extracting very precise silhouettes of tools and things, and then cutting matching foam surrounds for organizing and storing them.

The laser head on this Monport also appears to have an easily focus-able extension tube on it. This was one of the best things I ever did to my K40… added a focus-able head on it. I don’t have to mess with moving my bed up and down so much… I’ve got my honeycomb bed on four stacks of magnets, which make it really easy to adjust the height in as little as 1/4" increments, and then fine tune the focal point with the adjustable laser head. Works a treat. I don’t really care about an Autofocus feature, as it doesn’t make sense to me to have all that additional apparatus riding around on the laser head on every job, for the few seconds it takes to focus manually. I think I’d rather trade that Autofocus device weight for a second red dot pointer and do a dual pointer focus type of thing… you know… bring the two dots together and your focal length is perfect. Though I can say that a powered Z-axis does appeal to me, just not dragging around the needless cargo on the laser head.

Just thinkin’ out loud.
Jim

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Love the risers… that’s a brilliant, and easy solution.

This Monport 60W is substantially smaller than yours, so I would need risers that would not be safe… especially here in earthquake land (California). I have two large steel legged tech benches in my “Laser Lab” and it would be easy enough to cut the legs on one of them down to about 18" and use that as the base for this laser. The remaining table top is where my 3D printer sets, and having it closer to the floor would not be a problem. In fact, it might make filament management even easier.

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Jim

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I think you guys are both right… it sounds like they are just overpowering a 50 or 55 Watt tube to claim 60W. Apparently on their website you can order the laser either way:

60 or 55
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Both are the exact same price… the fact that they are, hints to me that there may not be any physical difference between the two either… they just installing the tubes that test better and calling those 60W. Then if you look closely in the further marketing materials:

fluff

I hadn’t even thought about the constraints of the chassis being 1120mm in width… how are you going to get a 1000mm laser tube inside and still have room for the 1st mirror apparatus, and a safety margin at the other end? There’s only 120mm of space left.

I’m probably over thinking this now… it still appears to be a well designed, well built product, regardless of the marketing overhype. I hear good things about both Monport and Omtech, and with local distribution and support, I probably can’t go wrong with either.

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I would love to live in the parallel universe where that kind of assumption turned out to be true more often than not … :grin:

I regarded my OMTech as the least awful way to get a collection of parts that could be tweaked into behaving like a laser. I still lust after a Lasersaur, but that’s more of a lifestyle decision that could include a laser cutter toward the end.

I also expected OMTech’s “specification engineering” would be somewhat less aggressive than the low-budget sellers. So far, that’s been about right.

AFAICT, Monport is in the same category, albeit with a better-looking paint job.

The red dot works surprisingly well if and only if you’re willing to re-build it. After that, it’s dead on.

And, with similar caveats, auto-focus is wonderful: line up the material, poke the focus button, and it’s right. Squishy materials require manual focus with a step gauge, but I loves me some good auto-focus action … plus not having to crank the platform around while reaching inside the box.

Having a quarter-ton pallet arrive from a continental-US warehouse was part of my decision. Spending a couple of bucks to not become an import & shipping expert seemed like a good investment.

The horror stories around here concerning “support” by any and all laser suppliers, from dirt-cheap tabletop diodes to staggeringly expensive commercial units, are sobering. While I think most sellers try to debug problems and they seem surprisingly willing to shotgun replacement parts, selling these things to folks who expect trivially easy operation and comprehensive support is disingenuous, at best.

But you’ve got a good shop and know how to use it: you won’t hit any problems you can’t solve while learning more in the process.

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Same as your K40, most of those turn out to be in the lower to mid 30W range. So nothing has changed…

I have modified mine with parts from Russ Sadler and other sources to get a nice working machine. Took time and extra monies. Cloud Ray commercially makes a Russ Spec version of their lasers.

With the exception of the honeycomb, that I pitched, Left, basically new. Right, how it looks now.

original-current-20220614
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This is the actual head assembly. Mine was a 5030, but with the head modification I get an extra 30mm in either X or Y direction. Notice the left photo has a drag chain, the center does not. I can/have run 1650mm/s … Great fun, but it’s academic. It does have a very dramatic effect on the job time as the head turns around very quickly, so very little overscan. I run accelleration values in the 45,000mm/S2, a bit higher than stock.

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Mine was 44W out, so I probably ran it in the upper 30W range and it cuts 3mm like butter. I cut my fiber laser focus sticks out of 1/4" acrylic with this machine, so it’s more than capable.

Don’t get too hung up on wattage. If you cut is < 1/4" you’ll do fine with these. Keep in mind that the minimum output will be where you tube will lase. Mine won’t lase below about 9%, that will raise what the minimum power you can control.

When I changed my tube out, I replaced the so called 50W with a 40W that actually produces 40W, which is why I purchased it from Cloud Ray, before I got the fiber from them.

No you are not, just not blindly believing what the salesman told you. They count on your ignorance.

How does this sound… from the link…

【High Resolution and High Accuracy】Resolution up to 4500 dpi

With a standard lens, I can get a dot size of 0.1mm, so have the ability to engrave to a 254lpi/dpi precision. Of course this means the material has to be able to be damaged and maintain the lpi/dpi.

With the best small dot lens I have, the compound, it’s 1/2 that at about 0.05mm or 508dpi… to be able to do 4500dpi, your dot size would have to be 0.0056mm. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

Don’t beat yourself up overthinking… you’re going to spend plenty of time there…

Hope I didn’t boar you…

:smiley_cat:

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Yeah, I caught that too. Laughed it off and never looked back.

Jim

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That’s why even if I end up with a Manual Focus, I’ll be installing a power Z-axis motor on it.

I have the exact same opinion. The Monport just looks more like an office appliance than a warehouse machine.

My red dot (on the K40) is acceptable, though I have read many articles about improving it (only one article which actually measured things “Eyeballometrically” though).

I’m still intrigued by two things though… either adding a second red dot (from the opposing side) and dialing in a “bring the dots together” type of focus strategy… or, going the red dot beam combiner route and focusing the old fashioned way. Though I’m still not sure about the effect of adding another piece of glass into the CO2 laser path. But it would be nice to have the red dot apparatus on board, but completely out of the way.

Jim

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I purchased the same unit Ed has at roughly the same time and for the same reasons. To get it into the house I needed to take it off the stand and enlist my sons help with the lifting. I agree that the unit is a solid starting place to build upon. (Despite the marketing none of these are really suited for a full service type of user.)

That said, I purchased mine via the Omtech ebay seller because it was advertised as being warehoused in Canada and, like Ed, I did not want to get into the weeds with customs brokerage, shipping clearance, etc. As it turned out they shipped it from California anyway and handled all of the paperwork and stuff.

In general I’m quite pleased with it and also the quick email response received when I had a water flow sensor failure. They sent a replacement part fairly quickly. As expected I had to install it (and had also narrowed the problem down to the sensor before emailing them).

Shaun

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Placed my order this morning for the Monport 60W Manual Focus 16x24 as planned.
Got a “better than the Easter Sale” discount, and 0% interest while I pay it off.

Looking forward to it. I’ll add the Z-axis motor myself and am toying with the idea of a red dot combiner as well.

Gotta go upgrade my Lightburn G-Code software to DSP now.

Thanx for everyone’s input.

Jim

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Good luck with your new purchase! Based on the limited experience I’ve had with a K40 I’m sure you’ll be thrilled with the larger bed size, z range, etc.

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New Monport 60W is going to be delivered today… kinda excited about this.
I’ve cut the legs down on one of my workbenches and put some nice heavy casters on it.
This should put the working height just about right. The tape measure represents the size of the new laser (everything to the left of it) compared to my existing K40.

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I’ve got a 120 degree field of view camera to mount (magnetic), and a new 6" duct system with a nicer inline fan to install. Just have to drain my chiller to switch over to the new laser.

I also just added the DSP version of Lightburn to my existing G-Code version.
$60 well spent. Thank you.

Going to be a fun weekend.

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There is plenty of room in my chiller, a 5200 series, it allows me to remove the machine by just letting the coolant drain into the reservoir of the chiller… open the lid and see how much room you have in there… The only liquid in the machine is in the hoses and the tube…

So will you have two lasers?

I purchased a 5202, it has two loops for twin machines… didn’t cost any more…

Good luck and post some arrival, unpacking photos…

Have fun

:smile_cat:

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I just have the 3000 series “pseudo chiller.” I thought about looping the fluid through both units (I would never be running them both at the same time). It’s probably time to change out the distilled water anyway, so I’ll flush it out and move it over to the 60W for now. If I ever upgrade to a true chiller (5000 series and up) then I may just put the 3000 back on the K40. I’m operating in a spare bedroom upstairs, so the temperatures are pretty consistent year round.

I have room to keep both lasers up and running, but I think I’ll put the K40 up on blocks - so to speak - for a while.

Truck driver just called… 20 mins out.
Wooohooo.
Jim

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I hope you watch the temperature…

Great that it’s almost there…

Have fun…

:smile_cat:

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It’s here…

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(I’m a little nervous though, as they had it on its side on the liftgate, and upside down on a dolly into the driveway… never even used a pallet jack. It’s only 300lbs, but I got photos and video from my cameras, so if there is a problem, the cause should be obvious.)

Now if I can just get out of work early. :smiley: