Laser cutters who has one

[henry Kadzielski]

I am interested in one, not a toy as such (to cut foil) but to cut at least 10mm stainless steel. I know there is a few of you that have one and would like to know how they are going. Any insight would be wonderfull.

 

[Brad93]

@MattH has two for metal if I remember correctly. One direct from china and one that is sold by a british firm but i believe is also from the far east.

 

[henry Kadzielski]

Thankyou for that @Brad93

 

[Ged93]

Believe me leave chinese lasers where they are , their price is very attractive but sooner or later you will pay the bill : after a couple of years issues start to pop out , and I mean very big issues with mechanics ( linear guides , bearings , vibrations ... ) , things that cannot be fixed easily .

One of our laser suppliers got a Penta fiber laser ( 2mtrs*6mtrs , 12 kw ) , european machines were quoted to him around 550'000 euros at 8 kw , the chinese one was quoted 150'000 less .
A 1,5mtrs*3mtrs laser without fumes extraction and all safety stuff costs 170'000 euros , here dealers for chinese lasers are growing here and there like mushrooms .

Buy european , let's bring back money and jobs at home .

 

[Scalarocco]

Buy european , let's bring back money and jobs at home .

We're not part of Europe either. Spend it in China or Germany, it doesn't matter. Buying British is what we need.

 

[Ged93]

Yeah yeah come one you know what I mean , just buy british , german , italian , spanish , whatever you want ... .
Don't buy chinese garbage , that's the point .

Spend it in China or Germany, it doesn't matter.

I do not agree , it does always matter where and how we do spend our money . That's why chinese economy is slowly killing our industries , because majority of people looks only at the price .

 

[Scalarocco]

Yeah yeah come one you know what I mean , just buy british , german , italian , spanish , whatever you want ... .
Don't buy chinese garbage , that's the point .



I do not agree , it does always matter where and how we do spend our money . That's why chinese economy is slowly killing our industries , because majority of people looks only at the price .

I agree about it mattering where you spend your money. My point is buying a product from either Europe or China isn't helping British manufacturing.

 

[Ged93]

Yep for sure you should buy british machines and that's correct .
I think Esprit is the biggest manufacturer in UK isn't it ?

In general I mean 'european' talking about the european area , not the union . For sure , EU or not , we are all in the same boat .
We should not behave like americans who say 'make America great again ' or 'let's bring our jobs back ' and at the same time they are buying hundreds of plasmas ,lasers ,cnc mills and lathes from China ...

 

[tom2207]

I am interested in one, not a toy as such (to cut foil) but to cut at least 10mm stainless steel. I know there is a few of you that have one and would like to know how they are going. Any insight would be wonderfull.

friend of mine had one ,,, he did a lot of contracting for the water service ,,, it was great when it was running , but it only ran about one afternoon a week , and it needed the building switching over to a huge genny to get it going ,,, in the end he sold it and got the guy who bought it to do his cutting , he did cutting for a lot of folk so it made more sense .

 

[pressbrake1]

My neighbour has a chinesium laser with rotary axis . He loves it. Yes a trumpf Mazak etc would be lovely but the budget won’t cover it , work load won’t cover it and neither would it cover spares and repairs

 

[Erie Fred]

Yep for sure you should buy british machines and that's correct .
I think Esprit is the biggest manufacturer in UK isn't it ?

In general I mean 'european' talking about the european area , not the union . For sure , EU or not , we are all in the same boat .
We should not behave like americans who say 'make America great again ' or 'let's bring our jobs back ' and at the same time they are buying hundreds of plasmas ,lasers ,cnc mills and lathes from China ...

Please don't lump everyone together, I don't do it to you.

 

[Scalarocco]

Yep for sure you should buy british machines and that's correct .
I think Esprit is the biggest manufacturer in UK isn't it ?

In general I mean 'european' talking about the european area , not the union . For sure , EU or not , we are all in the same boat .
We should not behave like americans who say 'make America great again ' or 'let's bring our jobs back ' and at the same time they are buying hundreds of plasmas ,lasers ,cnc mills and lathes from China ...

The company I work for has two main competitors. One in Germany and the other is Italian. I don't say jolly well done if they win an order we were also in the running for!

As for a certain American president wanting to stop US companies outsourcing manufacturing to foreign countries I have to say it was the only policy of his I agreed with and would like it if our government had the same ambition, but we are now struggling to find people who are interested in being engineers to the point that if China throttled back on exports we'd be knee deep in the smelly stuff because they know we can't pick it back up again.

 

[nickk]

It’s pleasing to buy British IF there’s an available Brit product,not only that ,once they get to speed making it here they ship production to the Far East,because the bosses and shareholders want more more more,look at Dyson and Triumph,they’re just two I can think of as I’m typing.

 

[Ged93]

Please don't lump everyone together, I don't do it to you

You buy british , I buy italian , and we are all happy - sounds good ?

The company I work for has two main competitors. One in Germany and the other is Italian

Now I'm curious , what's the italian company name ??

I don't say jolly well done if they win an order we were also in the running for!

Yes maybe I've explained myself not so good , for sure you want more work for british companies , I want more work for italian companies and so on .. but we are all in a 'ruled' competitive market where everyone respect norms about safety , CE marking , without slaves employees that work 15 hours per day just for a couple of dollars and so on , but China does not respect any rule , they do copy everything even if covered by patents , their workforce is almost priceless and taxes are damn low , how do we fight with such an enemy ? We don't , the only way is to stop buying chinese .

 

[Scalarocco]

Now I'm curious , what's the italian company name ??

Samputensili. Now part of the EMAG group.

 

[Ged93]

because the bosses and shareholders want more more more,

Exactly , do you remember '70s-80s-90s ? The golden era , the economy was pushing hard and everything was like a paradise on earth , but we wanted more , more money , more money . And we started to move productions in Romania , Poland , Turkey .. but that wasn't enough , so tadaaaa !! China !!! For years China gave us limitless possibilities with huge profits , everyone got there : BMW , Trumpf , CAT , ... the list is long .
Some chinese persons one day realized they could make their own companies just copying what they were called to produce , easy isn'it ? So now they learned how to make cars , excavators , lasers .. .
That's why China has 100'000 new millionairs every year while Trumpf and Bystronic are losing 20% of sheet metal lasers .

I absolutely understand that companies look at chinese machines just because prices are so low and they cannot afford an europ... ok let's forget 'that' word , let's say 'original' one .
Me and my dad are carrying on a father-and-son shop ,no employees , so for sure we don't have a millionaire budget , but we prefer to invest on quality machines when possible , so we went with austrian welding machines , italian saws , italian bending machine , mill and lathe , another italian cnc machine is coming too .
But unfortunately it's not always possible , I agree on that .

Maybe branded used machines would be an alternative ? At least for spare parts and customer support .

 

[henry Kadzielski]

Good evening to all and thankyou for your responses, however I learnt nothing. I am quite open to a second hand say Amada. What I am looking at is somewhat specific. Small bed, on casters so I can push it around the workshop, as I am short on space. This will be doing only small items and at this stage not great quantaties. It's about the surface finish and not or very little post finishing. My plasma on 10mm stainless, even with nitrogen does not do good holes. So at this stage calling @MattH

I don't want to go to much expense as don't know if this will be worth it. It may be the wrong thing entirely, but at this stage only looking.

 

[Ged93]

A laser .. on casters ??
Not possible , the structure and the gantry won't stay aligned and the weight would be too high to remain solid and stable .

 

[tom2207]

Good evening to all and thankyou for your responses, however I learnt nothing. I am quite open to a second hand say Amada. What I am looking at is somewhat specific. Small bed, on casters so I can push it around the workshop, as I am short on space. This will be doing only small items and at this stage not great quantaties. It's about the surface finish and not or very little post finishing. My plasma on 10mm stainless, even with nitrogen does not do good holes. So at this stage calling @MattH

I don't want to go to much expense as don't know if this will be worth it. It may be the wrong thing entirely, but at this stage only looking.

are you sure its not a plasma your needing , cutting 10mm is a serious laser ,, the one my friend had would max out at 8mm , and it was huge , granted that was ten years ago , but it took up a lot of real estate and resources just to get it up and running ,,, maybe outsourcing may be the direction . Another local company here does a lot of forklift parts and its amazing to watch ,,, as a side note we repoed [ repossessed] two big lasers last year , along with about 20 500 amp welders , and the likes , a company making street furniture and mini skips , also cutting for the local aircraft factory ,,, my point is that a laser cant just sit about , they have to be working due to the costs ,, but thats just casual observation ,

 

[Brad93]

If money is no object we would all have Amada and Trumpf