Hey Guys, I have an Avid cnc pro 48x24. Mach3 and use Fusion 360.
I’m considering an inexpensive laser on Amazon. I don’t have much call for it yet so I want to start slow. I saw the Opt laser but way out of my budget at the moment.
My concern is am I missing anything in this Amazon package that I would need?
I ordered my Avid with a 4th module board with the intention of going 4th axis but never used it so that’s there if needed.
Please feel free to recommend something else in this price range. Thanks Lou
The things that jump out at me are:
Does Mach 3 support PWM control? I have no idea… If you don’t know what this is:
It varies the power of the laser with the machine motion so you get a consistent burn.
If Mach 3 does have that support you’ll need to see how it’s wired into this laser (and that the voltages match)
I suspect it is possible to do with mach 3 since I see some mach 3 instructions on opt lasers’ page. Mach3 Configuration - Avid CNC Laser Upgrade But I have no experience with mach 3 or this laser so take that with a grain of salt.
I think it would be very hard to know what actually comes with the laser by reading the amazon listing. For example it says “eye protection”, but it doesn’t show anything like glasses as being included. Given that all the reviews say it has no instructions, I suspect you are looking at a bunch of annoyances that I personally wouldn’t feel is worth it.
It sounds like you don’t have a use case in mind yet, so it is hard to say what else might work for you. I suspect you will be able to get cutting working decently. However I think engraving is likely to be very crude.
It doesn’t talk about Mach 3 but Jim Neeb’s videos on avid + lasers are excellent. If you haven’t seen them I recommend taking a look.
Ok, there are two topic here, the laser, and Mach3.
Mach3 will run a laser, but pretty much only for vectors (like making lines, logos, cutting). It has no picture rastering routing built in that I know of. Mach4 is an awesome laser platform (with built in rastering), but I suspect if the cost of a good laser is prohibitive, then you probably don’t want to upgrade to mach4 either.
On the laser front, Chinese lasers usually have no customer support, no warranty, no documentation, and don’t last very long. Since this company is still advertising input electrical power (a trick that most of them quit doing a few years ago), this is probably the bottom of the chinese laser suppliers. If you use this much, especially at full power for cutting, don’t be surprised if it dies in less than 50 hours of use. For lasers, you definitely get what you pay for.
All of the diode lasers I’ve looked at are controlled by PWM and are 0-5V compatible, so pretty much any of them are adapable to the ESS board on your machine (I’m assuming you have a stock AVID control box since you didn’t say otherwise).
So can you adapt it to your CNC and Mach3? Yes, it can be done.
Hey Jim, thanks!
Would you know if the learning curve to switch from 3-4 is a handful???
The older I get the mule like I become. Once I learn something I have trouble remembering those little changes.
Thanks Lou
Ha, I know what you mean about getting older.
I switched from Mach3 to Mach4 back in 2019. It wasn’t too bad. I think Mach4 has a lot better user interface.
If you want to take a look at the laser support under Mach4, check out some of my laser videos here: https://www.youtube.com/@JNWoodworks