I grabbed one on sale before Christmas and have been learning and having a blast at making things. There are items it cannot do (etch Stainless Steel, .etc) without painting the surface black or something. But then, you are still only etching the paint off as the 20W isn't enough to engrave the steel itself. It is SUPPOSED to make various colors on Titanium, though, by using varying speeds and power settings. But, I haven't located a cheap enough piece to play around.
I had been wanting a GlowForge for years, but just couldn't pay the $5,000USD for the Pro version. That one would etch metal, but the machine is HUGE. Then I started looking into build-one-at-home kits, and started seeing the smaller ones for sale. I ended up getting the Longer Ray 5 20W for under $500 on sale and it came with the air assist pump. I SHOULD have gotten the kit that had the Rotary Tool instead and bought the air pump myself.
I have been etching Slate (which is the easiest by far), Leather (still working on getting those settings proper), Plastic Binders (mind the nasty smell! I setup the engraver on top of my stove as it has a vent that goes outside and works perfectly in the Winter months!), Metal Business Cards (I made some very neat looking ones with my GMRS Radio Call Sign, and had a few HAMs ask me to make them some as well with their HAM and GMRS), and Basswood (able to cut or apply "shadowing" to it to turn out nicely).
I keep forgetting to upload images to my Hobby Site, but have been posting them within the few FB groups I am part of there.
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Timothy Norris aka SirRonmit
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