I started my research a couple of weeks ago on all sorts of lasers - cost/power and type. While I really want all of them, I asked myself "honestly, what am I really going to do with a laser?", where am I going to set it up to run...

　　So, I made a list of projects that I 'actually' have:

　　- engraving on cedar bird houses I make to avoid using a wood burner tool.

　　- small gifts like Christmas ornaments, cutting board engraving, knick knacks, etc.

　　- some glass etching for a local distillery tasting room.

　　- slate coasters, tasting boards, etc...

　　- making some custom tool box organizers (like marking the wrench/socket sizes, cutting slots/holes in thin wood, maybe foam)

　　- cleaner masking of copper/steel for metal acid/electrolysis etching

　　So, this is all pretty small stuff. There's no 'cutting' metal, there's no cutting 5/8' cedar, although it does come close... surprisingly.

　　While this is for my personal amusement mostly - I really don't expect to make money on this stuff... I do like challenging myself with the designs and using CAD/Vector graphics programs.

　　Whether it's an old sewing machine, bridgeport mill, plasma table or 100 ton press brake - CNC is just another tool in the arsenal that can help you. It's up to the operator to know the capacities and limits of the machine and how to operate it and the software effectively... Once those things are understood, you can be creative with how you can overcome limitations. Like anything, you can get a bad result if you don't understand what's going on.

　　So, I decided to go with this TTS-55 unit on a Black Friday deal. The package came as promised, a single neatly packed box.

　　I dumped the contents out on the table and proceeded to RTFM. I did have to furrow my brow at some of the instructions, but things were more clear to me once I had the parts in front of me. Check and double check your work prior to locking everything down.

　　That said, assembly was fairly easy.

　　Getting it set up in lasergrbl, and lightburn were easy - I use linux, mac and windows - have not tried the mac yet, but I suspect that is fine too. The comment somewhere about the mac saying it's 'not secure' or whatever is true - but that doesn't mean much. It's not that the software isn't 'secure' - it's that the developers didn't feel like jumping through Apple's hoops to certify software. I don't blame them. I would be more concerned about sticking a unknown usb stick into my computer to install the drivers. I did it anyway.

　　I did downloaded lightburn from the official lightburn website, imported the cutter profile from the included sd card and ran the head around the table a bit. Everything worked fine X/Y axis wise.

　　I did find I had a slight problem with the Z-Axis screw - it was galled somewhere in the middle. I did disassemble the Z-axis, clean the threads up on my bench grinder wheel, lubed it and ran it up and down the carriage with my drill, ran a tap over it - that fixed that problem. The Z-axis assembly could be a little more 'robust', but once properly adjusted it is a lot better - At the top of the Z-axis there is:

　　- a flanged bearing that fits in the carrier hole

　　- a hard washer

　　- softwasher

　　- then the knob.

　　Do not over tighten the the outboard carrier guide rods. Tighten the nut on the bottom of the z-axis just enough to take the slack/vertical movement out of the Z axis.. the rubber washers act like springs, but do not compress them. Also, make sure you loosen/tighten the grub/locking screw when moving/locking the z-axis head height in position.

　　Next was to start testing various materials to start building a materials library of what this laser can do at various speed/power settings. Lightburn makes this easy enough. I have done various fabrics, woods, plastics, papers, things found in my garage...

　　One of the best pieces of advice I read/saw somewhere is to affix your engraver to a board so it doesn't move around. Next, make yourself a 300x300mm grid with and burn it into your board - I used inkscape and imported the SVG into lightburn and aligned it to the center of the cutter area. Think of it like one of those fancy grid mats for rotary fabric cutting. Once you've burned the grid into your work surface, change the cut path to a tool path in lightburn. Now your grid is your background/template layer in lightburn and anything you layout on top of that and place your material onto the work surface physically will be 'in the same spot' as what you expect on the screen. (see attached screenshot)

　　Go to the local smoke shop and see if they're giving away any wooden cigar boxes that you to practice on.

　　Ok, that's enough of a review. I like this little machine, it does what it is designed to do. It is inexpensive, yet punches above it's weight class. I am adding some homing switches, but really it's doesn't seem to be a big deal without them so far.

　　I am considering getting the 'fancy' rotary / chuck & risers for it once I verify my etching process on some flat glass.