RedSail X900 received in Canada - July 2014

Hi,

I've been lurking here for a few months in preparation for my purchase but I never contributed anything. This is my first post and I wanted to share my experience in ordering, receiving and operation a Redsail X900 machine.

For some unknown reasons, Redsail has an office in China and also a local number in Canada. I called this number and Leo (the brother of Redsail's owner if I understood correctly) took care of me in explaining the differences in various models and explaining the ordering process. He was very accommodating for the whole process. The only problems I had with Redsail were communication problems because either verbally or in writing, somethings were not making sense at first. Maybe because of me being French it added to the problem but I normally manage pretty well in English. In any event, we always were able to understand each other.

I ordered in the 3rd week of May, the machine was shipped not even 2 weeks later and it arrived in Montreal, Canada in the 1st week of July. I decided to clear customs myself and pick it up myself as I live about 1.5 hours from Montréal.

Here's a few pics. Maybe they'll be boring to you but they were a fun moment for me.

Behind the warehouse after picking up the crate. It was almost 5' x 5' x 5' and 700lbs
Attachment 246575

Unloading in my shop (irronicaly by my Chinese tractor!)
Attachment 246577

After removing the crate, it was very well padded.
Attachment 246579

After removing the padding...hello beautiful!
Attachment 246581
Attachment 246583

See next post for more photos...

Rolling down the ramp:
Attachment 246585

100w RECI lasertube in action
Attachment 246587


So that's about it for the unboxing. I had a few questions regarding the setup as the 4 different components came with 4 different power plugs with no adapters.

X900: Standard NA 120v grounded computer power cord.
Air pump: Standard NA 120v non-grounded, non polarized plug.
Waterchiller: 240v grounded Chinese plug.
Air blower: 220v non grounded, non polarized European plug.

In the end, everything must be connected to the 240v using the provided up-transformer or directly to the 240v. I was told by Redsail not to use the 3 power plugs in the rear of the machine but after a few test, the air pump and water chiller fit nicely without taking too much amps. I don't use the up-transformer anymore.

I had almost no mirror adjustment to make, it was already pretty perfect. I noticed a slightly reduced laser power when at the extreme right of the X axis so it may not be completely perfect yet. I will work on this soon.

On the software side, the machine uses the Ruida Technology RDLC320-A controler wich is coupled with their LaserWork software. Redsail branded it LaserMate but when they sent me and upgraded version, it was LaserWork. Anyways, the latest version is available on Ruida Technology's website. The RDLC320-A controler act as a key and the software cannot be used with anything else I think.

I was not able to install the Adobe Illustrator plug-in or the Corel Draw plug-in and I will revisit that aspect at a later time.

The software itself is somewhat limited in the formats it can import (.ai and .dxf mostly work fine). The very common .svg is not supported. Stuff downloaded from various sources like thingiverse may have to be transformed a few times before being used in LaserWork so it is important to keep track of the part sizes and/or proportion as they may not follow during the various steps. The software itself uses a proprietary .rld file which sadly doesn't seem to be always compatible across various versions of LaserWork.

There's only 2 things that I question myself with for now:

1- The waterchiller CW-3000 doesn't seem very efficient at chilling. Even without cutting, if left alone powered on, it will raise the water temperature just by circulating it with it's pump. When the chilling starts, the effect is only marginal. I rarely use the machine long enough for this to matter but still...

2- The X900 has a front and rear doors supposedly for using over sized material. The current focus distance makes the bed higher than the doors so no material came use them. I will eventually play with the length of the focusing tube to see if I can lower it enough so that over sized material can be used when the focus is done.

For those interested; one the the things I do to earn a living is being an IT Consultant. I do a lot of programming, embedded electronics and 3D printing so laser cutting is kind of a natural extension to that. However, this is not the main reason I bought that machine. One of the other things I do to earn a living is to operate a maple farm and sugar shack. I wanted to add some class to my maple products and cut some maple leaf to attach to my products. The quotes I got for cutting and engraving a few thousands maple leaf were too expensive for my taste and I decided to make them myself.

Here's a few early prototypes in 3mm MDF:
Attachment 246589

Overall, I really satisfied of my Redsail X900 and I got good service when I had a question to ask.

That's about it for now. I hope it was useful to some. I consider myself an advanced novice in Laser Cutting/Engraving so I may or may not be able to answer your questions but I sure will try!

Thanks for listening.

JF.

Nice run down on your new machine. I would have enjoyed the pictures, but I kept getting, 'the page you are looking for is not found'. Maybe running windows 8.1 is the problem with the pics, who knows. Have fun with the laser!

Milt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mondo50m

Nice run down on your new machine. I would have enjoyed the pictures, but I kept getting, 'the page you are looking for is not found'. Maybe running windows 8.1 is the problem with the pics, who knows. Have fun with the laser!

Milt

---

I can see them just fine with windows 8.1 on Firefox and Chrome. My android tablet displays the thumbnails too. Is anybody else not able to see the images? I noticed that I need to be logged in to be able to see the full size images.

I am running Windows 7 and get the this page can not be found.

I am logged in and am using Chrome. Still get page can not be found. Don't kill yourself trying to figure this out.

Milt

I noticed that sometimes, the attachments show as 'attachementxxxx' and sometimes like in my case, as 'some_imagexxxx.jpg' anyways...

At the end of the second post, I talk about two concerns that I have. I was curious as to why nobody has commented on those?

Thanks in advance.

JF.

After I tried to view tem I was getting a redirect page that loaded itself. Had to run Malwarebytes to remove it.