OMTech Polar 50W CO2 Laser Engraver Cutter, Desktop Laser Engraving Cutting Machine with 2 Rotary Axes 300x510mm Workbed 5MP Camera Water Chiller Fume Extractor Lightburn Compatible for Wood Acrylic

My first CO2 laser and what a game changer from my 5 and 24W diode lasers. Burn mark intensity greatly reduced. Cuts and engraves all acrylics with ease, the same with plywood and MDF.Little or no staining of the wood surface, however alot of that I think is due to the upgraded nozzle and lens assembly I fitted. Makes a few noises , but that is down to the casing around the tube not having enough fixing screws fitted , so it vibrates when the carriage moves. Beam alignment was spot on straight out of the box. Had a slight issue with the axis calibration whereby I made adjustments as the Y axis was slightly out and the proof cut turned the square into a rectangle. Spoke with tech support and they advised to leave it as was and it seems to have corrected itself some how. I think there maybe an issue with lightburns interaction with the RUIDA controller at times. Would certainly recommend this machine with the proviso that youa. Replace the stock nozzle with an upgraded one, as it gives better air assist and makes lens cleaning alot easier.b. Remove the fan in the cabinet and replace with an upgrade 3D printed connector. Air extraction with the inline external fan is improved.c. Install a RUIDA panel, makes altering the Z axis and hence focusing so much easier. You can also see what a fault is when the machine goes into a shutdown mode.d. Install a red dot, for work alignment and framing.ande. Replace all the Allen key screws with crosshead screws.The machine cost and the upgrade cost combined was still a hell of alot cheaper than an Xtool , Glowforge or Montport. It also runs with lightburn. Agree that you may have some quality issues but you have to expect that when you consider the price and where it was manufactured,to be fair tech support were pretty quick to respond to issues. Want to buy another one when the wife will let me.Oh, the packaging was great, only problem was, the machine weighs 47kg and the packaging weighed a 100kg.

found this really hard to get on with as the program was really difficult to use them downloaded light burn, that’s another thing you have. to pay for. moved the laser and found it really hard to re set up looked on line for help useless so sent it back such a shame as it’s a really nice looking piece of kit very big so make sure you have enough room for it hope this helps

This is a great machine to get started into the hobby, have used laser cutters for the last 10 years. I used for a small place in my office great product

This is my first CO2 laser etcher, I've upgraded from a diode laser as I wanted to do more challenging projects on more materials. It's at the lower end of the CO2 laser range, well the lowest actually, I paid £521 whereas many CO2 laser systems are in the thousands, so I need to put this machine in perspective. The machine was well packed and required no assembly at all other than connecting the rear vent pipe. It requires water cooling which wasn't too much trouble to get going, I just bought a 50L drum of distilled water, cut a hole in the top and dropped the water pump into that. The machine is well made and with the extract fan to take away the smoke and air assist it really is a step up from my old diode laser. I'm still trialling different materials so haven't started any proper projects yet, but like when I first had my diode laser I will no doubt spend a few weeks figuring out the settings. So far so good. I do have a few criticisms though - stupid things that should really have been thought through by the manufacturer, none of them are game changers but you don't really need them when you are figuring out how to use a new machine:1. The manual contradicts itself on what you should set the laser currency to - basically how powerful the laser operates at. In one part it says it should be set to 100% and then later it says it shouldn't exceed 70% to maximise the life of the laser... which one is it? A stupid mistake in the manual. After watching a few YouTube videos I went for the 70% setting, basically the maximum power the laser currency read out shows is 17mA.2. This is really dumb. It's very nice that the unit comes with a honeycomb bed to put your workpiece on but it's too low. I will be spending most of my time working on materials with a thickness of 1-6mm, but if you put a say a 3mm workpiece on the bed the laser lens can't focus on it as it's too far away. Even if you extend the lens down as far as it will go it's still no where near focusing on the workpiece. After a bit of effort I manage to get the honeycomb bed out the machine, first of all I thought there was no way it was going to come out, but with a bit of manipulation it did. Fortunately I had some plastic spacers and put an 11mm thickness spacer in each corner of the underside of the honeycomb bed, put the bed back in the machine and pressed it down to seat it. All good, so the bed is now raised up 11mm from where it was and I can properly focus on my workpieces.3. The workpiece is nicely set inside the machine with a viewing window in the main door. It's not that clear to see through the window particularly when you're framing the workpiece but I can live with that. So you run your job and you're eager to see the result, you open the door which sets the door trigger opening contact off and the machine goes into "red" standby mode which you can cancel by pressing the reset button. This is a safety feature to stop the laser in the event you open the door mid-firing... well I get that but it will still go into panic mode even though the job is complete which means you have to keep pressing the reset button every time the door is opened. On my system (Windows PC using Lightburn) it also causes the software to report an error in the console screen of Lightburn even though the job has been complete and the only way to get back to starting a new job is to press the reset button on the machine and send the laser back to Home from Lightburn. Sure, bring everything to a halt when you open the door mid-lasering but it's annoying to do it when the job has been completed and you're just rearranging or changing workpieces and the laser isn't firing. Between you and me I can see a few bits of duct tape being used on the door contacts.So, yes apart from those annoying things, this looks like a great machine and a great price compared to the thousands I could have spent. It's going to take some time to get the hang of things but being able to cut and etch acrylic and clear acrylic is something I'm very much looking forward to doing.

The media could not be loaded. Wow. We love this bit of kit. Was a bit bigger than I had realised, when I ordered. Described to my mother as the size of a small panic room. But once we got it in the house it is amazing. Easy to set up, easy to use. We used Lightburn and Inkscape software. Both work very well with the machine, easy to use and to make such wonderful things with. There are lots free designs out there for when you are starting off. If you can it it in your place get it. You won't regret it.