LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

I just finished moving my new flatbed laser down to the shop. It's a GWEIKE LC1530D model. 1.5 x 3.0 meter cut area. It has a RECI W6 tube. Haven't turned it on yet, but excited to fire it up and start cutting some plywood!

Do you have fire yet Charles? I am interested in how it works for you. The exhaust must be from under the bed, is the bed blades or a honeycomb material. Thanks Gene

I have been on the VERY slow road to getting this machine set up. Anyway, I have finally set everything up and cut some plywood. It works fairly well and is quite accurate. The exhaust is from under the bed and the machine was equipped with a blade type bed with a removeable honeycomb bed installed above. Knowing what I know now, I would rather not have paid for the honeycomb. There isn't enough clearance between the blades and the gantry to actually hold the honeycomb and a piece of stock. Live and learn. HOWEVER, I am getting the same result as a honeycomb table by stretching 1/4" steel hardware cloth over the blades. The blades are easy to level/flatten and the hardware cloth provides the extra support to keep small parts from falling through. Why not allow small parts to fall through? because of the aforementioned exhaust. I am using the exhaust fans to provide a small amount of suction from below. Its enough to flatten large sheets of 1/4" plywood, although not enough to flatten 1/2" sheets. If I allowed small parts to fall through, I would quickly loose suction.

In other news, the machine was originally specified as having 1500 x 3000 mm capacity. However, I was able to plus that up to a full 5' x 10' (1525 x 3050mm) This gave me a little bit more wiggle room to load oversized pieces of plywood or the 10' planks I cut that justified this machine in the first place.

Overall I am very pleased with the GWeike build quality. It is the second machine I have purchased from them (The first being an LC1390N.) Both machines required a lot of TLC and setup, but have been solid performers. Are they comparable to a Trotec or Kern system? Not in terms of out of the box handling, but when I consider the relative bargain price for these machines, the extra work I put in is well worth it.

Is your blade bed parallel with the gantry over the whole bed? I ended up making a lockout for one side so that I can level it left to right [on a cabinet model] as well as manually front to back. It actually works well. Also I have a lot of problems with aligning the #2 mirror in all four quadrants- still have not solved that completely. The larger the bed, the larger the problems I have found. Gene

It is now. Definitely didn't come that way. The blades rest in slots on a metal beam. The beam is bolted every 16" or so to the machine frame which allowed me to adjust the blades up and down as appropriate. I'd say that the entire table surface is within about 0.5mm of flat with the plane of the laser head. In addition, I stuffed some foam in between the blades and the right side is the machine so they can't slide left and right.

Overall, I have had no problems with the #2 mirror. The mount for both #1 & #2 is fairly solid piece of milled aluminum. No really freedom of movement.

Very interesting- I have never seen detailed pix of a flatbed before. My machine has a similar 'pan' under the bed but is only 6" deep [plus the slideout tray for debris] which does not provide very good air flow for exhaust but the bed will go down 8-10". I am guessing your bed is not motorized? Every feature also has a drawback of course and somewhere [maybe] in the middle is a sweetspot.

I wish the angle of the bed was a little steeper on the furthest back of the two catch beds. Fallout material will slide down eventually, but not as fast as I'd like. But like you said, there are always tradeoffs. A steeper angle would mean the catch pan was lower or the machine was taller.

You are correct. No motorized table. My other machine has a motorized table which is nice for thicker items, but because this machine is exclusively for cutting and engraving full sheet goods, it wasn't really necessary. The cutter head has plenty of Z adjustment to allow for various sheet goods.

I have not exhaustively tested the variations of laser spot position across the span of the entire bed. It could be that there is some variability like you referred to that I haven't yet noticed. Hoping not, but I'll find out and report back if I find anything.

My plan as I mentioned before is to use the exhaust fans to pull a slight vacuum and hopefully pull the sheet goods flat. The math seems to support that is possible, but maths infrequently agree with reality . I'll post pictures once it's complete. Here's a before picture with a full 4x8 sheet for scale.

I have a bit of experience with vacuum beds on CNC router tables and ,as I am sure you realize, it is important to seal off any part of the bed that is not covered by your media. As I said, the larger the machine, the larger the issues.

Here's two pictures of the vacuum table with two different configurations. I cut stock that is either 4'x8' sheets or two 2'x10' the center piece of plywood moves to allow for different configurations. The jig isn't complete yet. I have a few more pieces to cut and install, but this illustrates the basic idea and I won't be working on the laser for a few weeks... The real job is calling!

With those configurations you are still leaving a good area uncovered- it does not take much to break a vacuum.