DJones

Lots of great info, Mark! I like the pinstripe idea & fuzzy dice. LOL! Debbie Jones Phoenix AZ Micro-Mark Laser Knife 2525 owner

You are so fortunate to have access to a laser cutter via your local library. What model is it? We have a "maker's space" nearby and they have 2 of the nice Epilog laser cutters (as well as CNC machines and lots of other power tools), but their membership fees were over the top. We would have spent more annually in fees than the cost of the cutter & chiller we have. The machines were also booked solid with only odd times open to use them. We love being able to just pop out into the garage and test out a new idea whenever we want. Thanks for all the comments, everyone. Debbie (& Charles) Jones

The Jones' Micro-Mark Laserknife 2525 update: 6 months later… I apologize in advance for the extreme length of this post, but it’s hard to condense 6 months of quite varied experiences with a complex product into a few lines. What a roller-coaster journey, but a good outcome. I promised several people I would update my experience with the Laserknife 2525 from Micro-Mark, so here I am. (You can read about some of our earlier trials and tribulations in above postings, but there’s a happy ending finally.) First, I am happy to report that we finally have a smoothly-operating laser cutter that is able to cut and engrave nicely on a variety of materials, as advertised. I found that their tech support staff was wonderful and responsive, but they- and we- had a bit of a learning curve along the way as very unexpected issues arose. We have learned a lot, both from trying to troubleshoot different things with Micro-Mark’s tech support guys, and our own online research. They have since updated and enhanced their user manual, based on experiences and input from both Charles and I, Mark Taylor, and possibly other buyers. We still cannot find any other reviews online from people who have actually bought them other than Mark Taylor or us. This is puzzling considering the size of the online model shipbuilding and model railroading communities worldwide who would be a natural customer base for the product. There’s a huge laser-cutting & engraving forum of nearly 3,000 members on Facebook and as far as we know, we are the only ones with the Micro-Mark Laserknife machine. The vast majority have the generic K-40’s (50’s, 60’s, and wattages upward) purchased directly from China, eBay, etc.-- and the forum abounds with nightmarish horror stories of dangerous flaws, fires, unuseable Moshi-Draw software that crashes or refuses to load, missing or bent parts, etc. There’s also some amazing and creative things being done with these laser cutters, despite the apparent lack of quality control at the factories. Although we did pay more through Micro-Mark, there’s a lot to be said for having an American-based company to buy from. We had a lot more recourse when issues arose and their customer service was good. It’s true that the machine is a basic “K-40” Chinese machine, but Micro-Mark did add some improvements and safety features and a much better software interface to Corel Draw, and some quality upgrades to the machine. I would recommend this machine as a hobby laser cutter with a few caveats. It is most definitely not a toy, and requires a bit of online research and familiarization beyond the user manual. You may need to be willing to tinker with it a bit to get the results you want. You need to be very aware of safety issues and NEVER bypass the safety switch and operate it with the door open! (You’ll see why in a few paragraphs, below.) You must educate yourself on what materials you should or should not attempt to cut with the machine. For example, PVC or Vinyl can cause a reaction that produces Chlorine gas in the cutting chamber. That can be pretty lethal for you or your laser cutter! You might need to exercise loads of patience to get the mirrors aligned precisely, and check alignment and clean them (and the lens) frequently, depending on the materials you are cutting. This can be a tedious but necessary process to ensure good results. That is not limited to this brand of machine, but just in general with smaller laser cutters. The optics supplied with the Laserknife are sufficient for most hobby needs, and we have personally attained some pretty decent results, but the more expensive American-made laser cutters have much finer cutting lines or kerfs and much less edge char is formed. They also have much more automated features. Of course those machines cost 5x more than this one. Again…it’s ok for hobby use, or the limited uses I do for producing prototypes and small batches of laser-cut/engraved dollhouse accessory kits for my online business. We had to go through one original and two replacement machines until we got one that worked properly. I will say that whether or not you are a fan of them, Micro-Mark as a company worked with us every step of the way, and this was at a pretty hefty expense to them to not only replace the machines but for covering shipping back and forth. It would have probably been far cheaper for them to just refund our money and send us on our way but they did stand behind their product. This started back in April when we initially purchased the machine and continued up to late September. These machines sometimes do not do well with the rigors of shipping via ground carriers such as UPS or Fed-Ex & the like. They apparently are prone to rough handling along the way Because of their awkward bulky shipping size & weight. Micro-Mark did make some significant design changes to their packaging to help, but the first machine had the laser tube jolted so badly out of alignment we could not get it to work properly, despite hours of adjustments. We opted to return the machine for replacement. When that machine arrived back at the factory the heavy metal case and box were bashed in as if it had been hit with a fork lift somewhere in transit! So much for “fragile” stickers. The second machine arrived here with one of the belts hanging loose and its holding bracket and attachment bolts ended up rattling around and hiding in the power supply casing! Good thing we didn’t turn it on without a thorough inspection. That could have resulted in a nasty surprise had it shorted out. This was probably caused in transit. We know for sure that the machine did not ship from Micro-Mark’s warehouse that way because we worked with one of their techs prior to him shipping it and he provided us video of the same machine cutting properly on our materials using the files we supplied. He was absolutely meticulous in packing the machine carefully for shipment. We were so stunned after carefully unpacking all the padding to see one of the driver belts hanging loose in the cutting chamber. Again…the rigors of shipping across country are apparently difficult for these sensitive machines. The design from the Chinese factory was such that it was impossible to re-attach the driver belt without cutting a slot in the back of the metal case to try to slip a screwdriver in to reattach the belt pulley. It would have been a very delicate 2-person job because the laser tube was in the way. Tom Piccarillo (President of Micro-Mark and a forum member here) told me that they have changed the design for better access to that for the next batch they order from the factory. That makes sense because belts do break, loosen, or wear out over time. We opted not to repair the belt assembly ourselves even though their tech was willing to send tools and instructions overnight to us. After a lot of soul-searching and weighing of the pros and cons of a refund versus a yet another replacement, we returned the second machine and got our third (ahd hopefully final!) one. We didn’t want yet another learning curve with another brand of machine costing a lot more, nor did we want to save money but sacrifice customer service by trying to deal directly with China or eBay sellers. The 3rd one came from a second batch of machines from China and it did have visible improvements. The honeycomb bed was flat, square, and level- not warped- and did not require shimming as the prior ones did. The gantry arm was level, unlike the first machine which we noticed was slightly off kilter and required us to level it manually. Also the mirror assembly had some minor improvements that allowed for easier alignment. We noticed the lens seemed to be a slightly better quality and there was a minor change in color to the lens nozzle assembly. Unfortunately, the lens is an odd size so upgrading to better quality optics if desired can be tricky. Mark Taylor learned this when he upgraded his lens assembly. There are aftermarket upgrades, but you may sacrifice the ability to easily adjust focal length and may have to use positioning jigs, depending on what you are cutting. Once we got the 3rd machine we were able to cut various thicknesses of Basswood, Maple and Walnut, as well as Acrylic, and cardstock. We made a “cheat sheet” of speed and power settings that produced the best results with the various materials and thicknesses. We refer to it often. However…that was not also without incident After we had been successfully cutting a fairly simple project, about mid-way through the operation, Charles suddenly noticed that the plastic chain that protected the L.E.D. (red pointer light) wires was glowing hot! Something had caused the laser tube to suddenly go out of alignment and split the beam. Part of it continued to cut ok, while the other park split and ricocheted back onto the chain & fried it. THIS IS WHY YOU DO NOT BYPASS SAFETY SWITCHES AND OPERATE IT WITH THE DOOR OPEN. Fortunately, we knew better than to ever bypass the safety switch and Charles quickly shut off the machine but it was a real wake-up call and safety reminder. After some digging into the problem we realized replacing the chain would be a pain. It would require cutting the L.E.D. wires, threading them into a new chain, soldering them and applying a heat shrink tube over the solder point. Instead of all that hassle, their tech support provided us with a section of specially-modified chain that had the bottom cut out, so it could fit easily over the wires without cutting them. The links just popped into place after we removed the melted ones. It’s worked fine ever since. We were quite perplexed as to what could suddenly cause it to go off kilter. We noticed that the carriage tube assembly was not level but slanted slightly forward. It was just enough to make the tube split the beam. The problem was we didn’t see any way to really level it or how it could have suddenly become un-level when it was cutting along just fine. We had been sending photos to their tech support guys and one of them noticed that our rollers sat a little differently on the guide rail than ones at their warehouse. He made a little instructional video and had us apply a bit of force and snap them back into position and that did the trick. I would recommend this for it’s intended use- as a hobby machine. You can spend a lot more (Upwads of $8k-$10k) for an American-manufactured machine with better quality optics, movable bed, auto-focus, extremely fine resolution and minimal char for cutting and engraving, etc. but for the price (and even this is a splurge), this seems to do what most hobbyists would need. A couple of other things to note: The cutting area is fairly small on this machine, but if you are willing to break projects down into smaller parts, it’s not an issue. Also, if you live in an extremely hot climate such as we do (Phoenix, Arizona), the basic bucket water cooling system will not be sufficient to operate it in a garage in Summer! The laser tube requires a very constant operating temperature within a small range. We tried adding frozen water bottles & gel packs and an aquarium temperature sensor alarm to the bucket, but the ambient room temperature in our garage can exceed 100 degrees in Summer and they just melted too quickly. We ended up purchasing a CW5000 water chiller unit that cost ½ the price of the laser cutter (not cheap!) from an online source. The CW3000 model was just a cooler and not sufficient for our needs. The chiller works great even in our blistering Summer heat. Next purchase will be for a portable swamp cooler to keep the laser cutter operator himself more comfortable working out there in the Summer. (He’s a native Arizonan and claims the heat doesn’t bother him, but I am a wimp!) I’m going to attach a photo of an engraved 1:12 scale decorative tray for a dollhouse. You can see how finely the engraving renders. The little “uncut” places are just bridges we put in the design so they stay attached to the background wood until released with a craft knife. We can even do the engraving finer than that, but I was going to paint the tray so wanted the engraving a little deeper to stand out in relief as you can see on the second tray sample. (It’s just got a rough top coat of craft paint on it. I plan to do a shabby chic, weathered finish.) The penny in the photo is approximately ¾” diameter for size reference. Thanks for reading this wordy tome, and I hope this will not discourage anyone from giving the fascinating world of laser cutting & engraving a try. It has fabulous uses in the model shipyard and I’m sure Charles will post his own uses for it in his model building. See y'all around the forums! Debbie (and Charles) Jones

Tom, one more comment about the focal point for thin stock...your tech did mention that to us but we were warned by someone else never to put solid stock under whatever we were cutting or block the airflow with the honeycomb bed, because it could cause a fire. I hope I'm describing this correctly, but my husband built a simple jig sort of like an empty, thin picture frame to set on top of the honeycomb bed and lift up thinner product to get it closer to the lens. That way the airflow is not hindered.. I hope that tip will be helpful to others cutting thin stock. -- Debbie & Charles Jones

Hi Tom, I agree- no hard hat needed. They are a friendly and fair-minded group here with a lot of diverse experience in many fields. As a newbie to their forum they have made me feel quite welcome, even in a largely male-oriented hobby. (I have actually built a couple model ships with a bit of help from my husband, but I'm definitely a newbie!) I am happy to see that you responded to the issues openly. We experienced decent and timely communication with your techs and were pleasantly surprised they were willing to work with us even outside the initial return policy period. We did go through some very frustrating times trying to get the machine to work properly, even on basswood and cardstock, so something obviously was not quite right. Even the initial "Sea Shanty" tutorial failed to cut properly on the 1/64th chipboard which was one of the materials you provided for testing. That was the first out of box test we tried after the initial setup. You can read elsewhere on this thread about some of what we went through. We're confident that Micro-Mark will send us a replacement machine that works properly. We just hope the carriers pay attention to the box markings for "Fragile" and "This side up". I had sent a link to one of your techs for a company that sells those shipping handling indicators that will change color if a box is miss-handled in transit. I realize that adds a bit of cost to the product, but it's probably cheaper than replacing machines damaged in transit & fighting with the carriers for insurance claims. It really gives the customer a little peace of mind that they can accept or reject a box knowing if it was handled properly. Thanks for addressing some of the issues and concerns. We are looking forward to getting our replacement and having a much better experience. And of course we will be happy to post a positive result when that happens. I'm really surprised we have not run into more mention of the product online, given the huge number of hobby forums out there. We saw a lot of initial "buzz" about it, but nothing from anyone who had actually bought one, until we ran across Mark's post here. I would think that some of the other initial 22 purchasers would have something to say about their experience one way or the other, as early adopters of the Micro-Mark version of the machine like Mark and we were. Perhaps we're just more "vocal"? -- Debbie and Charles Jones

Charles and I are very grateful for Mark’s various insights as we are experiencing our own trial and error “journey” with this machine. I have been hesitant to post much on the forum about it for the time being because we are in the midst of working with Micro-Mart’s techs to resolve our situation. I don’t want to say anything on an open forum that might impede that process. We returned our laser cutter last week for replacement. They have agreed to take photos or videos of the replacement machine operating using our files and materials, before they ship it to us. We made sure that the files would test most of the full size of the bed in all corners. The original machine we got would only cut reasonably well in about 3” square inches in the upper left and that was it. It’s very possible it was damaged in transit, although the box showed no outward signs of damage. These are very delicate instruments so even a good jarring can jolt something out of alignment. The laser tube’s beam hit mirror 1 high and to the far right, making proper alignment of all 3 mirrors nearly impossible by the time you got down to the lower right side of the travel distance. Even using fairly high power settings, it barely engraved beyond the upper left corner of the material and the further down and to the right it went, it seemed to fade off to nothing. Perhaps it was a defective laser tube. As Mark stated, the quality control of the various laser cutters from China leaves a lot to be desired. We had hoped that by buying it from Micro-Mark a lot of those quality issues commonly associated with the cheap K40’s would be minimized. Once we have our replacement in hand, we will post a follow up. We are really hoping for a good outcome this time. The materials we cut should not tax the machine’s capabilities much at all. Typically we’d cut 1/16” basswood and the like. Although my husband is an avid model shipbuilder, this machine was purchased primarily for use for my dollhouse miniatures accessories business. (1:12 scale accessories and 1:48 structures, etc.) He will likely also use it in his own modelbuilding. I will say I am disappointed that Mr. Frisoli chose to respond in the manner he did. I have found his employees to be polite and professional and willing to work with us to resolve issues, even given the short hours they are available to assist. We did have to do a lot of research on our own on the internet to resolve some issues, as Mark also did. -- Debbie & Charles Jones

As promised, an update... We compiled a 15 page document loaded with photos and notes showing that we had tried many things (some repeatedly such as alignment, bed leveling, etc.) and everything that Micro-Mark's techs said to do- and it just didn't work as advertised. This was on materials it should have easily cut such as 1/16" basswood or chipboard, or even 130# cardstock cover stock. It barely engraved at best, despite changing focal points, power settings, etc. We got a very prompt response from them the next day saying that after reviewing all of that, it's obvious that something is definitely not right. To our surprise, even though it was long past their 30 day return period (65 days), they said they stood behind their product and would give us 3 options- 1) Warranty repair, which we opted not to do because we believe this unit had several things wrong. 2) Full refund including return shipping, or 3) Replacement. We waffled back and forth trying to figure out the best way to go and decided on replacement, but ONLY iF they agreed to take videos or photos showing the mirrors on the replacement in alignment and using our Corel files and materials on test runs at their warehouse proving that it cut consistently in all 4 corners of the bed. They agreed to do that, so we will give them a chance to make good on it. We are prepared to do some minor adjustments, because it's a delicate machine and given the rigors of shipping 2500 miles, it's bound to have a few things get a little off-kilter in transit. However, we do expect it to function pretty much as advertised once we check it over. Charles and I are very grateful to Mark for posting his detailed review & the various comments & responses. Regards, Debbie & Charles Jones Phoenix AZ

Hi Mark, I was so glad to see that we weren't the ONLY ones on the planet that bought the Micro-Mark Laserknife 2525! Sadly, our problems have been quite similar to yours, only we've been fighting the battle with it longer and still no real results. You mentioned something about cooling- yes, it's important that the laser tube cooling water be between 62 degrees F and 68 degrees F to prolong the laser tube lifespan. Since we live in Phoenix, AZ we have been using the gel ice packs in the bucket of distilled water to get the temp down. We installed an aquarium thermometer with an alarm and the probe goes in the bucket. Anyway...We bought ours in April and it took awhile to get here because the main box sat lost on a dock in NM for a week or so until we made a lot of phone calls and they tracked it down. We got the other 2 boxes with the extras right away. While it is true that their return policy is 30 days, I asked specifically what the warranty was and Tech Support said 90 days. Since ours has never functioned properly since day 1, (and we have documented it with emails and photos) I feel we might have a little bit of recourse. That remains to be seen. I called the credit card company that I used to buy it with today and explained it's a couple days past the credit card company's protest period (60 days) but since we've been working with Micro-Mark to try to fix the problem (s) they extended the time for us to protest the charge a bit in case Micro-Mark decides not to play fair. The very first thing we discovered on day 1 was that the laser tube pointed so high on mirror 1 that it missed mirror 2 (going from 1 to 2) completely by 1/2"! Not even ON the mirror at all. Micro-Mark's tech said we shouldn't even have to touch mirror 1. Really? They did send us a MS-Word document on how to align mirrors but we found the same one you did on the internet. We have adjusted mirrors, cleaned them, tried the lens both ways (ours was installed flat side up also), etc. The gantry arm was not level front to back. On the left side it actually sloped down by 1mm & level on the right. Micro-Mark told us how to fix that. The bed was badly out of level, too. We had to shim it by 1/16" in the back on the right side and 3/32" on the front right to get it level. The M-M tech said it should cut through 1/16" chipboard in 1 pass using 5mA power and speed of 20. What a joke! It barely engraved and trailed off to nothing (not even engraving) as it got to the lower right of the bed. We had tried it on 75% power and cutting speed of 25 and it took 12 passes and we got exactly 1 part out of 12 in the file cut through before it died off to nothing in the lower right. Of course they were well toasted with char and unuseable. We have tried and tried and tried. It doesn't even cut 130# cardstock consistently. We've tried bassword from 1/32" to 1/16", and the very thin chipboard they supplied and really have not had good results- ever. We seem to have a "sweet spot" of about 3"-4" square in the upper left of the bed where it cuts ok and the kerf is decent (although I'd like it thinner) and the further right and down you go, it starts trailing off to nothing or starts ghosting as if the laser beam is hitting the nozzle or something. We have aligned and re-aligned the mirrors for hours and hours and hours. Yesterday we got them very closely aligned and it still did the same thing. He took pictures every step of the way to prove the test firings in the alignments and that the mirrors were clean, and photos of levels everywhere. He did notice today that the bracket that holds the nozzle assembly is itself NOT level left to right but, at this point we are so disgusted with it all we are not going to bother fixing that. We will contact M-M's tech support one more time, armed with even more photos and info and tell them the ball is in their court. If they don't play nice we will protest the charge with the credit card company. We have Goggled for weeks trying to find a posting somewhere that someone else had actually bought one of these machines, but all we saw were people talking about it and finally my husband saw your posting a couple days ago. If you want to compare notes with us, feel free to send me a Private Msg and I'll give you an email address. We have had years of experience creating the Corel files but always outsourced the cutting to others. We wanted the convenience of being able to pop in and test out a design and to control the process a bit better ourselves, so that's why we bought the Micro-Mark laser. We knew it wasn't going to be robust enough for big production runs, but probably fine for our needs for now. The people we outsourced our cutting to had 25 watt lasers so we thought a 40 watt would be better- HA! BTW, the laser cutter appears to be based off of a K40 Chinese machine, with a few things Micro-Mark added. OK, I've ranted long enough. We just were so excited to see another person that actually bought one. I swear we thought we were the only ones, with no reviews anywhere until yours. THANK YOU for posting it! Regards, Debbie & Charles Jones