How I bought a fiber laser marker in Russia + the nuances of choosing devices for engraving and marking in 2018
Hello! I want to tell a little about my experience in choosing a fiber laser marker engraver for the needs of my engraving business.
To begin with, in machines, especially laser ones, I did not understand anything until 2018. All orders that I received from clients were carried out by several printing houses, they have a large fleet of equipment, including laser markers, diode-pumped engravers. In September 2018, I realized that it was time to expand the business (all the more so, the tariffs of these printing houses increased significantly) and having decided on finances, I decided that it was time to buy my own engraving machine.
Own accumulated funds was 400 thousand rubles. A bank loan of 150 thousand rubles was also approved. but he planned to use them only as a last resort.
Comparing prices on the market - I realized that it is not so simple and the difference in prices between suppliers reaches 1 million rubles!
Machines produced in Russia, Austria, the USA - an average of 1.5 million rubles.
At Aliexpress Chinese counterparts - About 300 thousand rubles. Russian suppliers of Chinese machine tools have about 500-600 thousand rubles. Of the main differences of all the options - the resource of work, the quality of the engraving, the convenience of software, technical support, training in work and the guarantee. It is clear that all the pluses were with machine tools for 1.5 million rubles, but first things first.
I decided to reject the idea of buying a machine on Aliexpress or buying directly in China, since there are so many risks. Prepayment of 100%, and 300 thousand rubles. money for me and for Russia as a whole is not small. On the forums I read that marriage will fall among such machines 50%. That is, maybe lucky or maybe not. This is manifested as an engraving - for defective machines for 2 months already - nonburning when engraving on metal, the power drops, and the laser accuracy deteriorates dramatically. Replacement of the machine in this case is possible, but that’s the story, you need to prepare the documents and send the machine back to the factory for diagnostics, there you need to draw up a bunch of documentation and sit and wait + pay everything at your own expense (according to the members of the forum, it can take up to six months!) . Every day downtime in my business is a loss of money, so I decided to look for a supplier in Russia,
Money for the machine for 1.5 million rubles. I didn’t have, therefore, having studied the forums on the topic of lasers, I decided that I needed to go and see the machines live. Fortunately, I am territorially in Serpukhov, not far from Moscow.
Having visited several addresses of suppliers, I realized that Chinese lasers are also different and sometimes differ in price several times. Having visited the manufacturers of American lasers SharpMark, I realized that there is still such an interesting function as 3D engraving on metal (this can be made directly on a person’s face in metal). Very beautiful and spectacular, to make a good 3D can take up to several days! Otherwise, for my purposes, namely engraving on souvenirs, occasionally rings and pendants made of precious metals - I have nowhere to use 3D.
Therefore, the option with an expensive laser fell off by itself, such a laser will pay off for more than one year and not three (although I must pay tribute to the sellers of American lasers, I was offered the machine not for 1.5 million rubles, but for 990 thousand rubles - supposedly budget model in which 3D is no longer).
In general, and 990 thousand rubles. - this is not within my budget, so I decided that I needed a good Chinese machine tool and it was necessary with a 2-3 year guarantee in Russia so that they could quickly fix it.
I went to several other companies supplying Chinese lasers. I realized for myself that such companies are also divided by those who:
The choice fell on the second category, technical specialists at such companies competently communicate, they know lasers at a good level, as a rule, there are a lot of engraving samples and extensive experience in working with a laser.
After talking with technical experts, I realized that a 30 W laser would be optimal for me (there is another 20 W — not enough for deep engraving, and 50 W — the price is already under 1 million). From the special stages I decided to take another rotary device (for rings and thermal loads) and a lens with a field of 220x220 mm (in the standard 110x110 mm - the field size is not always enough).
As a result, he chose two companies, whose prices were about the same and started bidding. I had money in cash + credit = 550 thousand rubles. He additionally knocked out a 3-year guarantee (2 years by default, both suppliers had) and a discount for 100% of an advance payment of 50 thousand rubles.
I’ve been working for the seventh month, the flight is normal. He personally went to the office to study. After the machine was picked up by car (took the desktop version). A couple of times the software crashed, updated the drivers for Win10 while everything worked without failures. There were problems with engraving plastic, it was decided by adjusting the layout in CorelDraw (there were overlays of lines on each other and the plastic foamed where the lines overlapped).
I hope it was useful, write questions in the comments.
To begin with, in machines, especially laser ones, I did not understand anything until 2018. All orders that I received from clients were carried out by several printing houses, they have a large fleet of equipment, including laser markers, diode-pumped engravers. In September 2018, I realized that it was time to expand the business (all the more so, the tariffs of these printing houses increased significantly) and having decided on finances, I decided that it was time to buy my own engraving machine.
Budget
Own accumulated funds was 400 thousand rubles. A bank loan of 150 thousand rubles was also approved. but he planned to use them only as a last resort.
Selection of suppliers:
Comparing prices on the market - I realized that it is not so simple and the difference in prices between suppliers reaches 1 million rubles!
Machines produced in Russia, Austria, the USA - an average of 1.5 million rubles.
At Aliexpress Chinese counterparts - About 300 thousand rubles. Russian suppliers of Chinese machine tools have about 500-600 thousand rubles. Of the main differences of all the options - the resource of work, the quality of the engraving, the convenience of software, technical support, training in work and the guarantee. It is clear that all the pluses were with machine tools for 1.5 million rubles, but first things first.
I decided to reject the idea of buying a machine on Aliexpress or buying directly in China, since there are so many risks. Prepayment of 100%, and 300 thousand rubles. money for me and for Russia as a whole is not small. On the forums I read that marriage will fall among such machines 50%. That is, maybe lucky or maybe not. This is manifested as an engraving - for defective machines for 2 months already - nonburning when engraving on metal, the power drops, and the laser accuracy deteriorates dramatically. Replacement of the machine in this case is possible, but that’s the story, you need to prepare the documents and send the machine back to the factory for diagnostics, there you need to draw up a bunch of documentation and sit and wait + pay everything at your own expense (according to the members of the forum, it can take up to six months!) . Every day downtime in my business is a loss of money, so I decided to look for a supplier in Russia,
Money for the machine for 1.5 million rubles. I didn’t have, therefore, having studied the forums on the topic of lasers, I decided that I needed to go and see the machines live. Fortunately, I am territorially in Serpukhov, not far from Moscow.
Having visited several addresses of suppliers, I realized that Chinese lasers are also different and sometimes differ in price several times. Having visited the manufacturers of American lasers SharpMark, I realized that there is still such an interesting function as 3D engraving on metal (this can be made directly on a person’s face in metal). Very beautiful and spectacular, to make a good 3D can take up to several days! Otherwise, for my purposes, namely engraving on souvenirs, occasionally rings and pendants made of precious metals - I have nowhere to use 3D.
Therefore, the option with an expensive laser fell off by itself, such a laser will pay off for more than one year and not three (although I must pay tribute to the sellers of American lasers, I was offered the machine not for 1.5 million rubles, but for 990 thousand rubles - supposedly budget model in which 3D is no longer).
In general, and 990 thousand rubles. - this is not within my budget, so I decided that I needed a good Chinese machine tool and it was necessary with a 2-3 year guarantee in Russia so that they could quickly fix it.
I went to several other companies supplying Chinese lasers. I realized for myself that such companies are also divided by those who:
- A lot of different machines (milling machines, plasma cutters, plate bending machines, 3D printers, etc.)
- Laser machines only (markers engravers, welding, CO2 engravers)
The choice fell on the second category, technical specialists at such companies competently communicate, they know lasers at a good level, as a rule, there are a lot of engraving samples and extensive experience in working with a laser.
After talking with technical experts, I realized that a 30 W laser would be optimal for me (there is another 20 W — not enough for deep engraving, and 50 W — the price is already under 1 million). From the special stages I decided to take another rotary device (for rings and thermal loads) and a lens with a field of 220x220 mm (in the standard 110x110 mm - the field size is not always enough).
Purchase
As a result, he chose two companies, whose prices were about the same and started bidding. I had money in cash + credit = 550 thousand rubles. He additionally knocked out a 3-year guarantee (2 years by default, both suppliers had) and a discount for 100% of an advance payment of 50 thousand rubles.
I’ve been working for the seventh month, the flight is normal. He personally went to the office to study. After the machine was picked up by car (took the desktop version). A couple of times the software crashed, updated the drivers for Win10 while everything worked without failures. There were problems with engraving plastic, it was decided by adjusting the layout in CorelDraw (there were overlays of lines on each other and the plastic foamed where the lines overlapped).
I hope it was useful, write questions in the comments.