I bought a “refurb” Omtech laser.
Yes, I use LightBurn. I’ve found to be very capable.
Here are a couple of the kinds of things I’ve been doing with it.
Has it really been 3 months since I’m posted last?
So- been using the LR3 for a Few more boards, and while I was clearing up after a recent job- custom cabinet fronts from a 1950’s reno that I banged out in 2 days, for a very happy customer- I couldn’t help but notice I haven’t used the back 2/3rds of this machine
In such a small shop, this is a huge no-no. Nearly 16 sqft of unused space. So I got to thinking
I could downsize the LR3 to a 2x4 footprint (or keep it 3’ wide and do a short 24” y axis… keeping the big table stored away for those super rare big jobs) and shove a 80w co2 laser in the nook. I would go from 4 hour engraving sessions with the 10w on the LR3 to 20 minutes on the Monport.
I like the idea of keeping the LR3 the same X dimension, and storing the current table away, building a new table, and shortening the Y dimension. I know that’s not really the way it’s done, but I’d hate to cut down tubes etc and lose the higher potential capacity.
Thoughts?
There are a few that have a longer X than Y axis and don’t have any issues. If your machine is running good now with the current X dimensions then it will never know the difference that Y was shortened.
lol, yeah, good point!
Thanks
Think I just bought a monport 80w co2 laser.
Mine and @azab2c’s are like that. 
Can you Remind me how big your machine is?
1200x850mm workspace.
Sad day yesterday- I moved the LR3 table out of the shop, and put the LR3 in temp storage. Moved the Monport 80w into its new space.
Intend to have the V2 table done by end of summer (going to Scotland with the fam for 6 weeks). I’m going to make the new table as an “insert” that I can remove from my main assembly table when not in use.
Not sure if the details yet though
Noooooooooooooooooo, all those cool inlays. 
This is a sad day, I was so looking forward to new projects from you. Still love you though. 
That laser looks good.
It’s not in storage permanently- planning to get it up and running again after vacation.
My business kinda transition to more laser cut and engraved offerings and the time saving will be substantial over the 10w diode.
Yeah, definitely. It’s also a lot quicker to just laser something than to engrave and do an inlay or epoxy. Makes absolutely sense. I was just feeling a little nostalgic.
Well, with the 80w, I can do a ‘deep engrave’ of around 1/8”, then epoxy fill. Best of both worlds.
Some of my cutting files take 40-45 minute on the lr3, and go pretty deep, and should take 15 minutes on the laser. TBD; of course
Philipp
You’'ll be happy to hear I set the LR3 back up after being in storage since may, got it back in my shop and hooked up, and it ran perfectly.
A friend saw my little ‘Bee’ honey board in our kitchen when they came round for our kids birthday party, and really liked it. A couple weeks later, she texted me to ask if I could design and make an award plaque using the same motif, and a couple extra things, and I said sure.
Thinking it was a one off personal thing for her kid or something.
Oh, no. No, Lol.
She works as a support team lead for a Hospital here in Atlanta. And she wanted 12, as staff appreciation awards. However, she is the Lead person for the whole network of 5 hospitals, so I just got the cheque paying the invoice for 63 of these plaques!!!
Got until October 26th to batch out the first set of 15, and then December 6th for the remainder. Big job, but an amazing score (turned out they had to bid out to 4 companies for their finance dept to be happy) with huge advertising potential.
Yesterday i collected lumber, tomorrow I start the cutting.
With that said- I still want to do the v-carve inlay stuff, so ill start bugging you once I get this order completed. I have plans to start making the big inlaid butcher blocks I’ve been talking about for years now.
With my income from this job and the previous stuff ive used the LR3 on, the shop is about to get a couple major upgrades… a 15" resaw Bandsaw from Harvey and a Laguna 16/32 drum sander. That’ll complete my tool list for the shop and let me do everything i can think of, except for turning bowls. Although i plan to learn how to do 2-sided carving with Carveco Maker very soon.
@vicious1 - dude, your invention is allowing people to pursue their dreams and I am so very grateful I was able to get an LR3 and become a member here.
Thank you for sharing such amazing projects. I can smile knowing people like you are just crushing it out there!!!
Love the new, cute bee for the hospital. That’s done with the laser, right?
Wow, that is insane! I am really, really happy for you!
Making me jealous again, eh? 
I built my own drum sander for around ~140€. I still owe Doug the video, but I never finished it. It’s like, 5 hours and I can’t get my ass up to cut it. The Laguna is the one I’d buy if I had the money, but I need a better jointer/planer after I paid back the debts I amassed with our joint account after buying the new tablesaw…
By all means, please do. I’ve gotten a bit better, this is the latest one: Five colour Mononoke inlay. It’s, blowing my own horn here, absolutely bonkers. I also have a tutorial for doing those deep inlays in Estlcam (though I have gotten more lazy and just run all three programs back to back without actually cutting the V-endmill part on the first two. It takes off so little material on the third one that it’s actually completely fine to just run the third program completely).
Those prices are really high (but normal for a new saw). I don’t know how the market for used bandsaws is in America, but I recently bought one that is nearly as old as America (from 1956, let’s not nitpick about a few hundred years!). It’s a massive, 750kg cast iron vertical steel bandsaw that can also be used for wood. Not the best for only wood (because it can only do 750m/min) but still working well enough for me and pretty cheap. There are some other great saws that you can look for: Panhans, Kölle, Centauro, Hema etc. Maybe they are avaibalbe in America by a freak accident.
After this wall of text: It’s nice hearing of you again! You came back right in time for the LR4.
@Neilp Congrats on the awesome job order and great results from LR3! Awesome!
