A year back I had to get a new 3d print head for a warranty. For some reason, customs asked of the price of the good even it was a warranty item. The representer of the support team then sent me a document for the customs that noted it was worth $39. And that’s the manufacture price, at it did not have any price tag at that point.
My device has sat in the table for a year basically untouched when I received the new platform for the print bed. I just plainly lost my interested of such high maintenance device.
I’m planning to do some gifts with CNC tool carving with laser engraving. Luckily I do not have to set more money for these things, except some cnc carving tools.
Maybe some cutting boards etc are to be made.
One large issue is the burnt wood odor you will get out of the lasering the wood. Even you vent it out, the enclosure lets some out from the "corners and sides. It’s not airtight even you would think it is.
Based on what I know and taken with a grain of salt I would assume if you used an A250 z-axis as an “extension” on the A150 and told Luban it was a custom sized machine the 10w laser module shouldn’t have issues with the auto focus or camera capture feature.
I bought a D1 Xtool and it is great! Large format, easy setting laser focus and height adjustable. I got a bundle deal with the rotary guide for about 700. Well worth it. The basic software isn’t as good as Luban but good enough.
“One large issue is the burnt wood odor you will get out of the lasering the wood. Even you vent it out, the enclosure lets some out from the “corners and sides.””
I have noticed that even with the enclosure and fan, the burning wood odour seems to linger as a layer on the inside of the enclosure. But it is definitely better than without the enclosure fan. When I ran it like that (within the enclosure but without the fan turned on) it stank up the whole room.
I will agree their camera calibration is total garbage. I loved the idea of the snapmaker when I bought it but have slowly found out that it was poorly executed. I think it has the means to be great. Just piss poor execution of software and hardware upgrade modules. If more time was taken to make sure everything worked correctly it would have been amazing. The last firmware update was less than desirable for sure.
With Black Friday pricing the xTool D1 does look like a really good option:
I think I’m going to pull the trigger on it with the 10w and rotary module.
The ability to engrave on larger items or to take to a piece of furniture is a big plus.
FYI, @Joel they do say it’s compatible with Lightburn now.
Very interesting to see the same roller style design someone made for the Snapmaker be used for the xTool D1 rotary module. If you guys get the machine, would be interesting to see & hear your comparison thoughts.
I just bought the 10W module. And I am not happy with my choice. But for me it is still more appealing than buying a complete new device due to missing space here.
Still, I feel like paying an Apple to get a Windows PC, even thought they promised me a Linux operated one - which is what I wanted.
Snapmaker has drifted from their technical orientation to a sales oriented brand. Previously mainly reaching out for technique nerds, now focusing on artists and less technique affine users. It pains me to see this change as I had my hopes up. But the facts are there. Just looking at the xTool D1 for example gives you a good comparison. Snapmaker with 6 vs xTool D1 with 4 lenses for example. Each lens works like a resistor in a circuit. It reduces the final output power. And even though they made their lens exchangeable, which is a good as you don’t waste your module just because you smashed the lenses, one of the four lower lenses seems to be within the body. That means the best you will get in the future with another set of lenses is a total of 5 lenses per ray. The other thing is the spot size. Once again comparing with the given device you get 0.05 mm × 0.2 mm instead of 0.08 mm × 0.08 mm. That’s like having a 6.4W laser instead of 10W laser if you look at the spot energy density. The examples give you the same result. 8mm basswood in 2 instead of 1 cutting passes. Quite disappointing after waiting so long. Looking around for some laser lenses you will find G7 aspheric lens systems with two elements instead of three for less than $30. In my opinion that’s one of the things you do not want to save little money on if you buy a laser. Nevertheless, I made my choice still regretting my initial one for Snapmaker as I am also still fighting issues with my machine and not my ideas.
So take my money and enjoy some Christmas holidays, New Year Eve or something else with it. And maybe take a second to reflect on your actual user base and their expectations.
The last addition I will buy is probably the dual extruder. But I already gave up on the new linear modules, so my hopes are not that high…
First, I’m not a scientist and know little about lasers. I can understand how the number of lens elements affects the amount of light that is passed. But, according to the specs online, the actual output power of the 10W module is 9.5W, which is much higher than your quote of 6.4W. Maybe I just don’t understand the issue you are trying to raise.
We’re talking equivalent spot peak energy density here, nothing to do with lenses. Having a 10W laser with a large spot size is not as useful for cutting as a 10W laser with a smaller spot size because cutting is related to energy density. The spot size on this new module is larger than the existing 1.6W laser by ~1.5x, so it would be wrong to say it’s 9.5W/1.5W=6x as powerful. The correct calculation would be peak spot energy density in the beam waist, which is more like (9.5/1.56)/1.5W=4.1x more cutting power, when corrected for the 1.5x larger spot size.
Overall, 4.3x more cutting power is good, but it’s not as good as it could be with better optics. You would prefer the beam waist to be as small as possible for high peak energy density.
A larger spot size will also decrease resolution in images. We’re going from an X by Y resolution of 12.5 x 12.5dots per mm to a new weird asymmetric 5 x 20 dots per mm.
Well, the spot size actually got smaller compared to the Snapmaker 1.6W laser module (0.2 mm × 0.3 mm). But not comparable to the xTool D1, Wainlux L3 10W or SparkMaker LaserPro-S for example. All offering 10W at 0.08mm × 0.08mm. Therefore, in regard to laser cutting performance the Snapmaker module is not really state-of-the-art. And optical laser output power only refers to how much you get out of it without any lens. This can be measured for example by pointing the lens less laser at a black painted TEC module to measure the heat increase. For cutting it is more important how high the spot energy density and beam quality is. You could even cut stainless steel with a 10W laser if you get the spot small enough (if the optics would let you).
P.S.: You could get a magnifier and try out under the open sun which spot size works best for you
Interesting, that’s not anywhere close to the spot size I’m seeing. I print in Lightburn at 250DPI (.1mm dot size) and don’t quite see perfect overlap. It could be bumped up slightly.
.08x.08mm spot size is very very close to what I’m actually getting out of the 1.6W module.
Also, interestingly enough, here’s a backlash test I did and this is actually a jog to the side in the middle of 0.08mm, and it appears to be about a kerf width of a jog.
Also, from that same test, it’s easy to verify the spot is more square than not and definitely not .1mm taller than it is wide.
