Acmer S1 Laser Engraver Machine, 2.5W(2500mW) High Precision Laser Cutter and Engraving Machine, 130x130mm Working Area for Wood and Metal, DIY Laser Engraver

It works great. The setup was very easy and it was great. It was very easy to learn. Looks great, laser is great, I love this thing. Amazon is reliable and the shipping was perfect. It has opened up new heights for my crafts and woodworking.

I rarely engrave anything. Cutting is my focus. I have large diode lasers, and stuck this little one inside a laser enclosure, on that big honeycomb bed, with lighting, camera, air-assist, exhaust, etc.., ready to go.First thing I did was 3D resin-print an air-assist nozzle to fit the 3.5W. The STL file can be found by web searching: ACMER S1 3.5 air nozzleThis little machine is space saving and portable. Set it anywhere. Plenty of times I wanted to work on something, but the typical laser system is just too big and cumbersome to move or even lift it into position.As for small size, I have a small (5x5x5") 3D filament printer, and after 14 years I haven't had a reason to get a larger one. This Acmer S1 is not a "beginner" laser in my opinion. It has everything the big ones have.. It's just smaller. That's one reason I highly recommend it. It won't always be in the way, bogarting a lot of valuable workshop real estate.I use LaserGRBL. My other lasers occasionally have operating troubles, mostly due to firmware-software and my own errors. So far this ACMER is perfectly in tune right out of the box. I anticipated some setup difficulties but it ran smooth and quick. There have been no glitches or weirdness thus far.The "nut bowl" project (see pix) was a stress-test. 90 minutes of high power... No problems at all. No doubt the air assist helped. Every laser should have the air-assist option. Use an aquarium air pump... anything's better than nothing.The orange magnetic shield is 23mm tall, plus the 2mm focusing spacer, equals 25mm. My focus was different. My advice is to play with it, and find the best focus distance for the particular job and material. Also keep the lens clean. Air-assist helps a lot, blowing smoke and particles away, but the lens can still get dirty... sudden power loss.. It's probably just dirt interfering with the beam.Setting up... The laser head movement should be smooth and snug. If there's any looseness, the side rails and the laser head have "eccentric" nuts to remove the slop. An eccentric nut's center hole is off-center. Turn it to remove free-play. A wrench is provided. (Search "laser eccentric nuts" for general information.)The machine is generally very well put together. There's a few, mostly minor things I'm attending to... for example:When the (3.5W) laser head moves to the far right, the height adjustment screw-head scrapes the housing. (See pix) One easy fix is a shorter screw..Heat dissipation: Just one tiny screw (behind the height adjust dovetail) pushes the laser against its heatsink. (See pix) Mine didn't even have any thermal compound. And the lower 2/3s of the laser module is a couple millimeters away from the heatsink. Air is an insulator.... We want the opposite. I think that section needs thermally conductive gap filler. I carefully removed the 4 screws, cooling fan, laser diode, and added thermal compound...

For me, this was a step above my craft cutting and engraving machine. Primarily, I wanted something that could cut a little bit thicker sheets of acrylic and wood than my Cricut does. This machine does that. That being said, this is still a very small machine that is literally just one or two steps up from the craft machine...so it's fine for small projects. It will take a while to get the job done, but it's a great way to get used to these machines and see if you like them or would use them enough before upgrading to a larger and more expensive machine that can do larger projects.It came with tools to adjust it (belt and rollers). It comes fully assembled! It also came with some eye protection, but I plan to get a better set of glasses than those that came with it before I use this again.I don't actually see myself bringing this anywhere, even though it certainly is small enough to do that. I really like that I didn't have to set up a large area for this or worry too much about ventilation, etc. I jused this in my garage on a makeshift wooden table. And when I was done with it, I put it back in the box it arrived in. It's very small and will only do small projects, but it's very fun, especially if you want to engrave.

The “Acmer S1 Laser Engraver Machine, 2.5W(2500mW) High Precision Laser Cutter and Engraving Machine, 130x130mm Working Area for Wood and Metal, DIY Laser Engraver” is a quality laser. This is my first time using one of these. I downloaded the LaserGRBL software and used the free version to test this device. I made three etchings: the first was too light, the second was too dark, and I think the third was satisfactory (see pics). I used plywood for the medium and followed the instructions, which were not difficult to understand. This is not a toy. It is a high-precision laser that works right out of the box.

Wasn't sure if this would be worth the buy but yes, it is. Works very well, easy for a beginner. A great purchase, very pleased. The detail it provides is super!

It's easy to handle. In addition, the manual functionalities allows making sure any issue about the air, fire or lens too