Greetings and Happy New Year LaserFans,
I am relatively new to the forum, but have already communicated with Zax, BCL about other topics. I have a 2500mw A3 eleks maker Chinese toy. Over the holidays myself and two others worked out a lot of frustration trying to get this system to consistently work. The colleagues are well experienced with electronics and mechanics. They optimized the frame pullies and tweaked what they could to insure stable movement of the X and Y motors. Then made many tests with all the options of speed, time, focus, trying to burn on simple card stock (180g) black. The 2.5W laser module delivered inconsistent results, sometimes cutting and sometimes not all in the same project. The module was checked closely and revealed that the mini fan was not sufficient as cooling, so they used an airbrush to cool it while operating, also the current draw was only 1.4AMP, not >2A advertised. We used T2Laser and BCL and Benbox software while also using Inkscape, QCAD, Fusion 360, and just the plain old GCode translator (GîtHub). We used 0.9j all the time.
Now we see that the shitty module works on start up, then dissipates in power and is useless.
Our BIG question is: what would anyone recommend to replace this laser module with a (non-Chinese) module? I remember Zax writing that the 5.5W cannot focus the beam to a small dot. BUT, this is likely the Chinese ELEKS version. We also realize that we may have to purchase a module that requires re-drilling to fit on the gantry holder. We also wonder at the power of the stepper motors, if they could correctly move a larger module, like a 7W, 10W or so? Finally, we do not recommend anyone starting with these laser toys. Lost a lot of time, some money (cost us an extra $60.00 import duties here in Switzerland). THANKS FOR YOUR FEEDBACK!!!
Jerry Jackson, Bern, Switzerland