SM Ray, 40/20w, IR, For side hustle..Newbie

Hi all

I’ve been looking at the Ray over the last couple of day’s and it seems to tick quite a few box’s on first impressions.

Firstly, I can buy it from Euro warhouse & in the mehod I prefer which is great concerning tax’s, shipping cost.
Is it better to buy from a manufacturer warehouse than a online re-seller…or do they all come from same warehouse anyway?

Then it seems to have a robust frame thats well engineered (as advertised)…no deep dive into component parts mechanics yet! but will do as its very important to work quality/flow and not having to deal with issues down the road.
The work area is pretty good size relative to stability for quality & consistency & small batch work.

The modules seem as good as any and quite impressed by IR module Dof. Although not sure about 20w spot measurement, maybe a bit elongated…but the engraving work looks good…and Kerf and cutting finger joints etc can be managed. can lenses be upgraded.
Would users of SM recommend seperate modules or 20/40 combined?

The outer cover is available with machine at a tempting price and if they perform as advertised and would shorten the learning curve, the time saving would be worth the extra cost.
I do wonder if having a lot more sensors could cause issues and head scratching. Is less wiring and electronics better to avoid downtime? as another wall socket could supply ext exhaust fan etc. and a home built outer cover could also allow for larger material passthrough.

As far as I can tell, the compatability is all ok now for Lightburn…is that correct?

Any opinions or links would be apreciated.

Ps sorry I posted no links to show examples, I am using my phone for all this and cannot access saved pages or leave this site to copy/paste, add to clipboard as if I do I loose all on clipboard by the time I get back here as well as everything I have input to this textbox.

Thank’s

If you buy an OMTech or Cloudray from the Amazon Cloudray. The main Cloudray site will not honor any warranty or service, you will have to go back to the Amazon Cloudray from whom you purchased. Same with OMTech… Ensure you read the warranty information on any site or related site.

This Snapmaker FAQ refers to it as a 1.6W IR (assumption) addition. If you haven’t, I’d suggest you read it, lots of compatibility answers.

4mm dof is great. Keep in mind the longer the dof the larger the spot size. Longer lenses have a larger spot size in exchange for longer dof. Larger the spot size the less apparent power as the same power is over a larger area.

I didn’t see any data on the actual spot size of each, but I’m sure it’s floating around somewhere on the Internet.

I don’t know of any solid state lasers that are not square of rectangular, so your lens is focusing it gets, just like a camera. If it gets a rectangular beam for an input, it will focus that same rectangular beam for an output.

I think it may be a different machine, but seems OK… Generally if it uses the normal communication mode and speak grbl, it should work with Lightburn.

As far as I can tell, they are separate modules. The 40W can do anything the 20W can do and cut deeper or thicker materials. Running the 40W at 50% power should produce the same effect as the 20W. It’s putting down the same amount of average power.

Keep in mind that some of these modules posses more or less mass than other. The link indicates the IR module compared to the 10W module, you must slow the maximum speed from 6000mm/m to 1000mm/m

Check out the link and see if I have the right modules… all of this could be moot :man_shrugging:

It’s also helps to advise us of what you want to do… Most of the IR lasers that are not fiber types, really don’t do that great on metals. I’ve read lots of frustrated users claiming they can’t get the advertised results…

It’s nice to be able to upgrade. Pick wisely…

Good luck

:smile_cat:

Thank’s so much Jack.

Solid research since your last Msg.

Glad to say All box’s ar ticked! including payment method, and just waiting for response on weight performance of 40w at (1.26kg) from SM tech’s…May go with IR,20w, & 10w later.
Absolutely ton’s learned over the couple of day’s concerning too many points to mention…but tangental forays into related subjects led to…Most notably A post by Rob Stamenkav, 16th July “How to reduce engraving time” is one of the best Topic’s Iv’e read and I must applaud all who took part.
Most interesting was the info on Buffer’s, Big penny dropped there regarding machine operation and must thank ‘Skreelink’ for his showing of Coin engraving a few day’s ago of (-2,-1,0,+1,+2) and center engraving, "which I believe, May show ‘buffers’ in action? at both shortest lines on the centre engraving. And also the original article posted on SM site was a great read. (I’d love to post links but wont risk leaving this page and having to start again).

Thanks again.

The Dof will be of benefit to me I’ sure.

The GBRL is mostly ok from most recent info I found, with a couple of things that are probably best done in Luban…but software is Next but not right now!

Quite impressed by the IR work on metal examples, and a comparative test V 40w was a bit David & Goliath but the 40 did better than I would expect.

These 2W IR modules are probably fun, but not really what you want to do any kind of work. They are low cost and lack the controls that you get with a fiber. They are also very low power out …

Good luck

:smile_cat:

Good point, but IR will only get used maybe 20% of the time, mostly for myself as a beginning toward really small. this machine is for bread & butter work and I’m not sure about what will sell but I’m pretty sure the 20w will make it. The 40w & IR will be covering the flanks.
I see endurance do upgrades for SM as well as Ortur, might drop them a line and see if they can offer anything.
Speed/detail is the key for sure but the working area box’s me in with affordable fibre and I want a 4ftx4ft with rack n gear on the ‘y’…asap.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.