Hey There,

[James Babcock]

I have been trouble shooting industrial CNC machines for almost 20 years. I work for a very reputable Japanese company that manufactures CNC controls.

I have been building billiard cues as a hobby. This is a great area to get into as it is not easy and information is not as plentiful as you may hope. I have found that in the areas of using a CNC I am actually very good. The trouble here is that not enough good equipment if available in the specific areas of this hobby. This has lead me down the road of building my own machines for specific tasks. This is great because if they break, I know how to fix them.

Now on to lasers, I have long desired to have access to one. I have done research in areas of commercially available machines. This is not as easy as everyone under the sun has an opinion. I eventually landed on Thunder Lasers as they seem to be of the best quality machines coming out of China and are in my price range. As timing would have it China had gone into their spring festival and no new machines are coming over the pond to America. Thunder is currently running low on inventory. This is to their loss as I had done some further investigations and I have some small issues with their setup. That being said I have decided to order parts and build my own machine. This will allow me to spend about 50% less and getting a machine at least as good as the Thunder Laser and maybe even better. We shall see.

I cam across Russ's videos for RDWorks Lab while waiting for parts coming our of China. Unfortunately now the Corona Virus has taken hold. I am really concerned for them and ourselves. Either way I still have a long time to wait to get what I need. Moving on, I am pounding my way through these videos and getting better ideas of how to build the machine and what additional parts to order. Thanks Russ for the insane amount of information you have offered. It is all in a straight forward format and done, in my opinion, a very scientific way. I started watching your videos on the laser head and focus. This may have been a mistake. I have now gone back to the beginning videos of Russ getting his laser and moving forward.

Jim.

[Pete Cyr]

Welcome James - another good company to chat with is Boss Laser out of Fl - abit far from you but closer than China. The sell the same stuff as thunder. I like their service Dept.

[James Babcock]

Thanks for the welcome and information. I actually just purchased a 60w Rabbit Laser 900 x 600 this afternoon. It is about 10 years old however looks to be in good shape. I plan on upgrading the entire machine but will settle for the controller before I actually start using it. I cant pick up machine until next Saturday. Can't wait.

Jim.

[Pete Cyr]

Rabbit is good outfit as well. Check out their site. The owner check here on occasion.