[Gozzie]

The HR head is a 1" lens for higher resolution engraving. The machine comes with a standard 2" lens. I ordered the 1" inch and 4" lenses separately.
The 1" comes with the complete head assembly including the air assist nozzle. The 4" lens comes with the lens tube that will interchange with the 2" assembly.
I'll post pictures later on.

Gozzie

[RTChoke]

Excellent writeup and sounds like a very good company to work with.

What was the final delivered price on this machine as you configured it with the extras? Looks like exactly what I would need and am now researching machines, etc.

[Nolan Yang]

Thank you Gozzie, thank you so much for sharing this with others.
I am proud that I have such a good customer.

if you have any problems in future, please contact with us or send email to [email protected], we will try to solve the problems as soon as possible.

and if other customers have any question, please send email to me([email protected])

because I am not always login in this forum. :rainfro:

[Gozzie]

In respect to Thunder Laser I'll have to let you get in touch with them for the pricing of the equipment but I can tell you my costs to get it here.
$1655.00 but yours could be less. That includes trucking from Houston to my home with a lift gate, broker fees, customs and taxes and a $357.00 inspection that you probably wont have to pay unless you get selected
by customs like I did. I had to pay the 2nd port fees and unloading , reloading from LA port. I believe it's totally random about who they choose to inspect.

So I would say that $1300.00 would get it to your door.

Contact Thunder Laser for pricing, you wont be disappointed. Nolan was the person I made contact with [email protected]

Nolan responded very quickly to every email that I sent. I would usually wait until 8:00pm or 9:00pm my time and he would reply the same evening.

I'll have more of a write up later on about the installation and first time run. It was fun and everything worked great just like I hoped it would.


Good luck on your adventure. I highly recommend getting a broker to work with. Just google one at the closest port to where it will be shipped.
Brokers are very inexpensive and worth their weight in gold. They take all the worry out of the process.

Gozzie

[Gozzie]

6/25/2015

Installation

I actually had a lot of fun with the installation. I was able to do a couple of things in advance before the machine arrived.
I knew I wanted the exhaust blower up in the attic so I put in an attic hatch. I installed a switched outlet where the blower was going to sit.
I ran a dedicated outlet and ground wire for the machine. When I found out the unit was ethernet capable I also ran a cable from my router to the unit for networking.





Once the machine was in place I hooked up their ground wire and I made a good chassis ground to the frame and tied the grounds together. Instead of using the side
ethernet connection port, I ran a cable along with the ground wire under the frame and attached them to the wall.








The blower's intake and exhaust connections were backwards to what I needed to exhaust from the attic to the outside. I just made a simple wooden frame and hung the blower upside down.
It also gave me a good mounting platform. Remember that huge crate everything came in. It made a great floor for the attic. No more crawling on the rafters and it gave me some storage space too.









I wanted the chiller to be located next to the machines power switches and control panel. I need to make sure that the chiller is running before I switch on the laser and be able to monitor the water temperatures at a glance.
I will add an interlock that will prevent the laser from turning on without the chiller operating as an extra safety precaution.
The hoses were not long enough and I needed to add about 7 foot of water line. The supplied hose was 3/8 inch. I didn't want to restrict the water flow so upped the size to 1/2 inch.
I made a quick wooden platform to set the chiller on to keep it off the floor. My wife calls me OCD. I probably am. I just like to keep things up off the floor so it wont suck in any more dirt and dust that's not wanted.















I added about 1/2 cup of antifreeze to 6 liters of distilled water. Just enough to barely color the water and keep algae and whatever else from growing in the water.


The hardest part of the water system was to get rid of one pesky air bubble in the tube at the beam exit side. The laser tube's water outlet stops short of the end of the tube and when you fill it with water it forces an air pocket at the end of the tube.
I read where you needed to raise the tube to let the air bubble slide up. It didn't work. I jacked up one side of the laser with my motorcycle jack over 45 degrees and that bubble would not move. I read where you can pinch and release the water hoses to force it out.That did not work. This is the trick that worked for me. Fill up the laser tube. Turn off the chiller. Disconnect the outlet side water hose at the machine (not the laser tube) and let the laser tube drain out to the level of the air bubble. Reconnect the hose and turn on the chiller. The water now enters from the underside of the bubble and pushes it backwards to where the outlet on the laser tube sucks it out. It may take a couple of try's but it definitely works.


I made a quick wooden platform to set the air compressor on and added a water filter to it for extra safety. I read where water misting or collecting on the lens will destroy it rather quickly.








I leveled up the unit on the legs and made sure it was level along the x and y frames.


It's go time. I opened up all the doors and double checked that I removed all the packing materials and cut all the tie wraps holding the axis in place and the honeycomb table. They had protected all the mirrors
and beam combiners with plastic bags. They were all clean and spotless. I buttoned everything back up. I fired up the chiller and did a check for air bubbles. Everything looked good.
I plugged in the laser and powered up the control section. It made a couple of beeps, the lights came on and the x and y axis went to the upper left corner and found home.

I already had downloaded and installed the rdworks software so all I had to do was type in the network address and subnet mask on the laser. That was easy. The computer and laser found each other and all systems were go.

I lowered the table and installed the 2 inch lens. I made a small file in rdworks. It just said Ronnie Allen loves Belinda Jayne and drew a square around it. I uploaded it to the laser. I pushed the frame button on laser and it took off
and drew a square around where I should place my work piece. I took an old scrap piece of wood and placed it at that point on the table. I manually focused it using the provided focus gauge. I set the speed at 30 for cutting and 300 for engraving
and a power of 30 for everything. I turned on the blower and the air assist and hit the run button.

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to see this thing start engraving. The laser was working. All that hard work. All of the waiting. All of the worrying vanished. The laser finished doing it's thing and went back and parked itself.









I did notice that the smoke wasn't clearing like I thought it would. I thought the blower was pulling pretty strong before hooking it up to the laser.
I had not finished sealing the duct work yet but didn't think it was leaking that much. What I think I found is that there is a pass through slot on the back side of the laser and it is right on top of the exhaust. I think the
blower is sucking air right from the pass through back into the duct and not evacuating the smoke from the machine. I think a little duct tape and sealing that off will cure it. That's next on my list.









Here it is all in place








I'll update again soon

Gozzie

[2fast4u66]

Gozzie,

Looks good! I found the air compressor that came with the machine drew too many amps for the 10 amp fuse on the machine and kept blowing fuses. It's a pretty small compressor too, not to mention how loud it is. I ran shop air to the machine to a low psi regulator and installed a 120 volt air solenoid that i plugged into the laser cutter (air compressor power outlet) so it would turn it on and off with the cutting. I wish I had done this earlier as we use air for even engraving to keep the tip clean and it's nice having the machine turn the air on/off.

I taped around 20" of the rear opening as I too felt the smoke was getting too much build up as it wasn't great airflow. The blower that comes with the machine is a good blower, have 60' of 6" ducting and it pulls good air. Dont have any issues with it, I only clean the lens every few days and we typically run this 5-8 hrs a day! Having good shop air when you're doing thru cuts forces the smoke into the bin really good as well.

Have you tried loading files with the ethernet cable? I forgot about this and would save time not loading stuff on a jump drive.

Links for the air solenoid and fittings I got:
MettleAir MTC 6-N02-1 PK Push to Connect Straight Male Fitting, 6 mm OD, 1/4" NPT Thread: Other Products: Amazon.com: Home Improvement
1 4" Electric Solenoid Valve Water Oil Air Gas Welders 110 120 Volt AC B20N V | eBay

[Gozzie]

Hey 2fast4u66,

Good to hear from you.

Great Idea on the air compressor. I have a bigger one that I could do that with. It's a noisy son of a gun though. If it doesn't kick on and off too much I will go with that.
I like the air solenoid idea a lot and will go that route even if I have to buy another compressor. Maybe I can just move the noisy one to another room.

The only file I have run so far was sent by Ethernet. It loaded really fast. I probably wont use a usb drive much at all. I love the Ethernet setup.

I am going to tape off the pass through on my next run. I imagine that will fix the smoke problem.

I have a question. The axis controls on the pad are pretty fast and I found it a little hard to line things up with any precision. How do slow that down ? (keyboard speed ) I believe it's called
I read where you can do it but I don't have any system passwords to get to it.

Gozzie

[2fast4u66]

I have a 60 gallon twin 220 volt air compressor and it's been great, search on craigslist if you decide to upgrade in the future.

For the speed when moving the head manually, you don't need any passwords, you can do it by the controller. I'm out of town but you think you just go to menu---> speed, take it from 500 mm/s to 200 mm/s or so.

I typically move the piece as I need to get it squared off.

Here's my email, reach out to me anytime with questions.

[email protected]

here's a good source for 3mm wood, the 20x30" fit great! I get 6, 6 packs at a time as its only $32 shipping.

1/8'' Baltic Birch Plywood Pack: Choose Your Size Shipped to You! Lowest Price, Highest Quality for your wood working needs from Woodworkers Source

[Gozzie]

That was easy, just hit the speed button and adjust to your liking. Now I have total control. Sometimes you just overlook the obvious.
I taped off the vent in the back and the smoke problem went away. I am really starting to love this machine already.
I backed off the power to the laser from 100% at 30ma to running it at 27ma which still gives me 100 watts of power for brute cutting and it will lengthen the life of the tube.
I'm just playing with scrap items right now learning all of the settings. So far it has been fantastic.


Gozzie

[KeithOKC]

You did a very professional install job, nice and tidy connections! Very impressed.

[Gozzie]

Thank you Keith.

I really have been enjoying this whole adventure.

I look at your signature and I am guessing that you have been engraving for quite a while now. That's an impressive list of machines and I assume they are for more than just a hobby.

Gozzie

[Celeste]

Hi Gozzie, how about the thunderlaser, it still can work very well? can you post some items you made?

[Gozzie]

Hi Celeste,

My Thunder Laser is still working perfectly. I like it very much. I am still learning everything it can do.
I have not encountered any problems. Thunder Laser is one of the only Chinese lasers with a decent web site.
Read it over carefully and you will find just about all of the information you need on their machines.
I like the ruida controller. It is much better than moshi.
My unit was built solid and square and ran good right out of the crate. After I learned a couple of software adjustments I have running it
very smooth. I could not be any happier. Talk to Nolan at Thunder Laser, He is very helpful and will answer any of your questions.

Gozzie

[chageslee]

Hi Nolan,
i serious admiration for you.GOOD!

[Nolan Yang]

Thank you so much Gozzie. :banana:
I think your feedback is useful to other customers.
most of customers just want to receive the true feedback from others, your purchasing experience from our company, will let more people know us.
It also remind us that we need to keep the quality of our machine. (chair)

[Gozzie]

8/18/2015

Tom from Thunder Laser e-mailed me his user settings for RDworks v8. He is the head technician and knows his stuff.
I asked him for his favorite user settings to look at for a comparison to what I was using. He e-mailed me them within an hour.
The outcome was very nice. For the most part our settings were similar but he had a better setup for the raster engraving.
The machine picked up a little speed while still maintaining a beautiful engraving. Thank you Tom.

Gozzie

[Nolan Yang]

Hi Gozzie,
yes, Tom is our head technician, and I am glad the settings is useful to you.
Just ask us again if you have any question. :cheers:

[Ptarmigan]

In respect to Thunder Laser I'll have to let you get in touch with them for the pricing of the equipment but I can tell you my costs to get it here.
$1655.00 but yours could be less. That includes trucking from Houston to my home with a lift gate, broker fees, customs and taxes and a $357.00 inspection that you probably wont have to pay unless you get selected
by customs like I did. I had to pay the 2nd port fees and unloading , reloading from LA port. I believe it's totally random about who they choose to inspect.

So I would say that $1300.00 would get it to your door.

Contact Thunder Laser for pricing, you wont be disappointed. Nolan was the person I made contact with [email protected]

Nolan responded very quickly to every email that I sent. I would usually wait until 8:00pm or 9:00pm my time and he would reply the same evening.

I'll have more of a write up later on about the installation and first time run. It was fun and everything worked great just like I hoped it would.


Good luck on your adventure. I highly recommend getting a broker to work with. Just google one at the closest port to where it will be shipped.
Brokers are very inexpensive and worth their weight in gold. They take all the worry out of the process.

Gozzie

Hi Gozzie, can you recommend a broker? Or, how to find a broker? I have been talking to Thunder Laser about a Mars 90. I am now trying to assess shipping costs and process. Sounds like a broker is the way to go.

Your review and description of the purchase process is fantastic. Thank you very much! I will do the same if I place the order.

[Nolan Yang]

Hi Ptarmigan,
you can tell me which city are you located in and I can recommend a broker to you.
have you contacted with us? maybe my colleagues can give you any suggestions if you need my help.

[Gozzie]

I used ER-Hawthorne based out of Houston. That was the closest port to me in Arkansas. You should look up the closest port to your location
to get the best trucking charges from the port. I found ER-Hawthorne just by doing a google search for brokers at the port of Houston.
From what I can tell most brokers operate pretty much the same as far as costs and such go. You will know that you found a good one
when you ask them about importing from China. They should readily be able to tell you about the process and let you know how really simple for them it is.
They handle the paperwork and pay all the duty fees and charges, arrange the trucking from the port. Once the truck is scheduled you pay them their fees and the money they laid
out for the duties and they send the truck. It really is pretty simple and I highly recommend using a broker. They know what they are doing.
If you use ER-Hawthorne ask for Judy Pearcy. She was my broker and was fantastic.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

Gozzie