Got an invite to a local winery(s) to do personalizations ‘while you wait’ kinda deal on their glasses. Will have access to 110V power, can do it indoors or outdoors. I can do this all day long in the shop. But dragging that 350# Omtech anywhere without screwing up the tube or alignment just ain’t gonna happen.
Thoughts on a ‘portable’ system that will accept a rotary AND do glass well enough and fast enough I won’t get laughed out of the vines?
Lightburn compatible, of course.
Say “While you watch” rather than “While you wait”, because nobody waits for anything these days.
Opinion: don’t do that.
Running the laser requires enough attention to detail that I could not do it under time pressure along with the distractions of a public performance. I’d screw up the layout by omitting a key detail, then botch the job by blundering the setup.
There’s also the whole laser eye safety issue. If they can’t watch what’s going on, what’s the point? But if it’s gonna be visible, you’ll have onlookers jostling the table while peering through the porthole: that won’t end well.
I’d also expect nobody will be willing to stand around while a diode laser ekes its way around a single glass, you scrub off whatever gunk makes the etching possible & polish the result, then go through the money-changing-hands thing.
You’re surely better at all that than I am (it’s a very low bar 
), but the whole affair seems seems like a losing proposition.
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Currently, I can burn a decent sized logo or signature on a 14oz wine glass in 3-7min, depending on complexity. 350ips, 35%ish, not bi-directional. This is on a 100W OMTech.
A K-40, theoretically (my guesti-math only…real math not allowed) would be about the same, but pushing a bit harder on the %. I’ve got minimal experience with a K-40, but I’ve seen folks get decent speeds and quality out of them.
Since I’d only be doing text names on ‘their’ glasses (pre-engraved with their logo), the under 10min time would be ‘wait-able’ for most folks. Since it’d only be one style, it’d be type name/swap glass/backspace/type new name/swap glass/ kinda deal, I could easily do one every 10min. I can easily burn a case an hour at the house while distracted by everything else going on in the shop.
However, it’s not a money maker by any stretch. Certainly not enough to justify another engraver specifically for shows. There’d have to be a lot of other ‘stuff’ on the table, ‘wine’ related, and priced accordingly.
“Watching” is easy and safe…the/an onboard camera streamed into a customer facing monitor instead of the Lightburn camera screen.
It was a thought and information request, nothing more. Based on this year doing shows, ones that have barely paid back show fees in profit, let alone good money in, anything that’s not pre-paid and in the shop is a money loser. Outside of special events at the wineries, this isn’t an every weekend kinda thing.
Those are portable much like my parents’ “portable TV” back in the day: it did have a handle on the top. I envisioned a diode laser + rotary on a tabletop, hence the eye safety kvetching.
Given your guesstimate of half a dozen glasses an hour, any setup would be more of a demonstration than a sales opportunity. Get the winery to pay for the whole thing, plus some motivation to get you out of your shop, and it’d be an enjoyable afternoon.
Said as though anybody could pry me out of my Basement Shop.
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Yeah, certain things work better at home than they do afar or in the field. Precision electronics and fragile glassware (machine AND liquid holding vessels) are best left to a bench and sweatpants.
I’m back there again today to deliver some ‘stuff’ and pick up this weeks ‘hey, can you do this’. We’ll see what we can work out over time as well. Thanks for the responses. Makes lots of sense when you look at it from the ‘stay home, collect the same money’ viewpoint.