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Eleksmarker A3 Pro 2500mw Laser


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Thought i would throw up a post about my new toy. I bought an eleksmaker A3 pro 2.5W laser engraver to play around with. I ended up paying about $400 AUD for it plus an additional ~ $30 for some TMC2130 stepper drivers. Though you do not need the stepper drivers, they produce such a nice waveform compared to the originals, that you can now barely hear the motors driving. You used to be able to hear the slight hiss/whistle with the old drivers, but its almost silent with the 2130 drivers.

 

When I bought the unit, I knew that the 2.5W 405nm laser was going to be limited at what it could do, but would be good enough to start off with. I plan on purchasing a 5W+ laser for the unit at some time in the future. So far I have only played around with the unit a little, but over the weekend I etched some boomerangs for a friend who has a business here in Perth and also in the USA and thought they would be a good little gimmick to give away. With a little bit of practice on a piece of scrap timber, and after purchasing a copy of T2Laser for about $40 USD I ended up with this. He was very happy with the result and I think they came out quite good too.

 

Next I plan on buying some laminate in acrylic and anodised aluminium plates to see how I go with making face plates and name plates etc. You can buy the stuff in say all black, but when you etch away the top coating, its white underneath as an example.

 

Has anyone else been playing with laser etching/engraving?

IMG_20180615_180206.thumb.jpg.c145cce35e3c28f3b5be686f4b8bf4fa.jpg

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Its not strong enough to cut anything more than thin balsa and paper / cardboard. From what I have seen, the 7W version can cut thin acrylic but I don't think any of the laser diode versions are powerful enough to cut aluminium, except maybe aluminium foil that you find in the kitchen. :) For the bigger stuff you seem to need to CO2 lasers.
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Thought I would have a go at a grayscale image and used my logo on a scrap piece of mdf. This is the result.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]131313[/ATTACH]

That's cool.

Can it do etching in acrylic for edge lit signs?

Cheers Trev.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

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That's cool.

Can it do etching in acrylic for edge lit signs?

Cheers Trev.

 

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

Hi Trev,

 

I have not tried it myself, though I have seen a few videos online showing others doing it. It is something I would like to try some day.

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I have a small china Laser etcher, My missus uses it to make labels for some items she sells.

So she mainly uses it to etch paper, it can etch timber no worries. can cut paper if or thin cardboard if I slow the laser down but mostly its used similar to printer to get a hot iron brand look. its only a $100 Item and its only 1500mw so not very powerful but does the job, I dont have a need for anything more powerful or bigger in size like the OP's one.

we made a few keyrings out of Mdf and Bamboo for family members who wanted to see how it worked. Ive had it for a few years now and they are rather easy to use also allot of fun.

 

But If i was to bother with cutting anything I wouldnt bother with these style of laser etchers, by the time you build something that can cut thin material you could have bought one that has more power for the same money.

 

My sign writer bought one of those ones with the tube in the back, in steel box and lid, Co2 and is 80w for Just over $700. it will cut thick stuff easy

Looks the same as a big industrial machine just smaller scale, works awesome and he uses it to cut out Individual letters for Light boxes, and etches some acrylic stuff for keyrings and so on.

Crazy how cheap stuff is getting

Edited by jason1
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  • 3 weeks later...
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Well I have not played with the laser much in the last few weeks, but today whilst doing other things, I had a go at direct etching onto negative photo resist film using the 2.5W laser at around 20% power.

 

This was my first effort, was a bit of a failure. There is meant to be traces between those pads, not just one big blob. :)

 

IMG_20180710_113258.thumb.jpg.bc5e555147e0715a99529e66a6e1f098.jpg

 

However after a few more goes and with increasing the current to the stepper motors, I finally ended up with a pretty clean result.

 

I still had to do a tiny amount of cutting between some pads, but the marks where there, just not enough for them to etch away.

 

IMG_20180710_162152.thumb.jpg.36a4aa2dde0f275c95736960d49ad848.jpg

 

and this was the end result after putting it all together. Its just a simple voltage level shifter.

 

4channel_level_shifter.jpg.6c1e72bceee17d37ae5dd42bb1a9ac8d.jpg

 

I am now trying to find some positive photo resist as it has less tendency to expand during the developing process. Hopefully with the positive resist, I will be able to get consistent traces down to ~0.1.

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  • 11 months later...
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Since I finally have my laser engraver almost back together again the way I want it after dismantling it many months ago, and with thanks to my new 3d printer, I finally got around to buying some Trotec laser perspex in Red over White and some Black over White, as well as some laser foil sticker in black over gold to play around with.

 

These two are on the Black over White perspex and are about 70mm x 29mm

label1.jpg.57753e09b316efcac86882f3f648ade1.jpg

label4.jpg.bd35fb220ab6de45d3171611b7d0f12b.jpg

 

This is the Red over White perspex and is about 100mm x 40mm

label2.jpg.e0e160e8bc0d952111f5063add62f46b.jpg

 

This final one is the black over gold sticker sheet and is about 70mm x 29mm

label3.jpg.11372155f3815a1b0401806c47f58273.jpg

 

I am still dialing in the correct laser power / speeds to get the optimal result with the materials, but so far its looking promising.

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