Laguna Tools Laser Cutter

I live in Arkansas also, most people confuse AR with Arizona.

You are correct. That happens all of the time.

Update:

I needed the machine so I just went and picked it up at the dock.

I don’t have time to update the thread at the moment but will as soon as I get some free time.

1 Like

…hope you get a discount for your trouble

Update: Laguna did credit back all of the freight charges.

I have typed up a very lengthy review and will be posting it soon. I am waiting to hear back from Laguna in response to my review that I have sent to their service manager.

I was reviewing Laguna’s lasers among others and found they have only been selling Bodor’s Chinese lasers less then a year. That’s after a failed attempt in the past. Laguna does not design or build any of their machines instead just hold/ship the Chinese crate onto customers. No Thanks!

Look at Boss laser too. I’ve got a 3655 150watt that’s cutting thru 1" wood, acrylic and support has been good so far. But I have also heard good about Rabbit and AP laser as well.

I have gotten behind, and have not had the opportunity to finish my review of the CO2 laser. I am taking the time to finish my review. Please bear with me, this will be a long read and I will be breaking it up into multiple posts.

When first unpacking everything, the first thing I looked for was an operators manual. There was no paper manual, so I loaded the flash drive only to find a Chinglish manual that was a broad spectrum of machines from the CO2 laser to the Metal-Non-Metal machines. This made it extremely difficult to follow. The manual for RDWorks even had screenshots that were in Chinese. RDWorks would not even download from this drive. When I commented about this to Rick, he provided me with a newer PDF manual, YouTube Video and a link to find the software on Laguna’s website. If this information had been updated, then it should have been provided with the brand new machine or a notice provided, if I had not asked, I probably would have been at a complete loss.

I want to state that I am discouraged that the machine is not tested by any NRTL labs. (This is more of a personal preference and a legal issue when dealing with Insurance Claims.) I worked for Consumer Testing Labs (CTL) for approximately five years, they were purchased by UL last year. The machine is CE certified however this bears no weight here in the US, by my understanding the CE certification only bears weight in the European Markets. The laser itself is also FDA however by my understanding this does not pertain to the electrical system. I could provide hundreds of links for both sides of the situation however these two should be sufficient to express my concerns.

https://www.osha.gov/dts/shib/shib021610.html

Now I will provide photos and information directly related to my electrical concerns.

I was surprised when I was informed that this 150w laser ran on only one 110v 20 amp service, which in actuality it does not, it requires at least two 110V 20amp lines. Why it was not upgraded to a 220v input is beyond me. More on this later.

The first thing one sees as they plug the machine into an outlet is the power cord. This is how it arrived. Could/should be a lot cleaner!

image1|375x500

The writing on the cord is in Chinese, so I am assuming that this cord is 12awg wire which is plenty sufficient for the load coming in on a 20amp service.

When the wire enters the back of the machine, it is directly connected to the Main Switch. From the Main Switch the power wire Immediately drops to 18awg. As I was trying to inspect and photograph these wires the spade terminal for the black wire completely fell out of the bottom of the Main Switch, I do not believe the terminal was even tightened at the factory. I had to remove the Main Switch to reconnect it. While photographing this issue the spade terminal fell completely off of the black wire, I was not even touching the wire when the spade terminal fell off of the wire. Upon inspection of the Main Switch, it was obvious that the terminal screw had not been tightened down. There was too large of a Gap.

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This loose connection made me go through the entire machine checking most of the terminal connections. The first connection that I came to was the other side of the same exact black wire. A very slight tug and the wire and plastic grommet came off of the metal part of the spade terminal.

These two 18 gauge wires come from the Main Switch to the first pair of fuses. From there the wires that exit look to be 20awg. These two 20awg wires power the entire machine from there on, which is rated approximately at 15amps considering the fuses are rated as such. This seems like an extremely large amount of current flowing through 20awg wire considering there is a
48v 12A PSU
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24V 4A / 5V 3A Dual PSU
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150W Laser Power supply


0.2A TP link
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I am not an electrician or an expert on electrical connections by any means, these are just my observations and opinions. This wire might be sufficient but if it is, it is just barely skating by. There is no real reason not to slightly upgrade this to a higher awg wire, the cost is very negligible in comparison.

I was not impressed to see that all of the 110V power is Daisy Chained from one PSU to the next. I would much rather see a distribution block of some sort individually connecting the PSUs.

I also noticed that none of the wires are shielded within the machine, if they are, then they are not grounded. There is an EMI Filter within the cabinet, however if any EMI comes from the power in, these wires are ran along side other wires that are after the Filter. This basically makes the Filter useless on those wires if the EMI jumps from one wire to the other.

I came across two Red wires that are connected to a relay, I believe that they are for the air-assist and to control the Exhaust Fan. However the trailing end of these wires were just zip-tied within the wire track. Neither of these two wires terminated anywhere and one of the wires had a split about 1/8" from the end that had exposed a few of the bare copper strands within the protective sheath.

Following the yellow/green ground wire back to the grounding lug, I came across a butt connector approximately 8" from the lug itself. It looks as if the wire was too short and instead of just replacing the wire, the installer just extended it with a piece of scrap wire. IMO There is no reason why this should have been done especially this close to the ground connection, why not just use a slightly longer wire and do it correctly. Every connection is a place of a possible failure, why add unnecessary failure points.

This also leads back to a poor connection at the ground lug itself. It could/should be better.

I am also not impressed seeing some of the low voltage wires running through metal holes without grommets. Grommets are cheap, why take this risk. Grommets are used on several locations in this machine, just not all of them.

Just an observation, but I was sold a 150w laser machine. However the tube is only rated for 145.8W. Slightly short but not a big issue.

This machine was supplied with a Chiller and an exhaust fan. This is where a 220V input would have been more sufficient considering that these two items can not be on the same breaker as the laser itself. This dictates that there has to be 2 independent 110V breakers. If this is the case, 220V would have been more practical considering the overall power draw of the machine and its accessory components.

On some models there is a power strip on the back of the machine for the chiller, air pump and the exhaust fan, however not on this model.

Speaking of the exhaust fan, there is a power switch to activate the exhaust fan on the front control panel. However this button is Completely USELESS. Remember the two un-terminated red wires that were zip-tied together, one of these wires was to control the exhaust fan on a smaller wattage laser machine. There is no way to connect this exhaust fan to this machine, so there is no way to control the exhaust fan from the switch on the machine . Here is where 220V input would have allowed for this connection as opposed to the 110V configuration. The way this machine is set up, the exhaust fan has to be independently wired AND OPERATED completely separate from the machine. Not impressed.

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Also upon inspection there is an ample supply of room in the bottom of the cabinet. Not to mention about 10" of completely waisted space under the machine that would have been great for storage. Inside the lower compartment There are two 6" ports one from the vents for the table above that draws air to the back of the work area and one that exits out the back of the machine for the actual exhaust. A properly designed cabinet or a different exhaust fan could easily have fit inside the machine requiring less overall floor space and foot print for the entire machine. Even the chiller could have been located inside the cabinet if the design had taken this into consideration and was not just more or less an afterthought. As this machine is built, the Fan and the Chiller have to be mounted externally taking up more foot print.

The dimensions given on the website do not take into consideration any type of exhaust vent hose. Unless the exhaust can go straight through the wall behind the machine, the exhaust will add at-least an extra 8" that the machine will have to sit off of the wall to allow an elbow and the exhaust pipe to leave behind the machine.

This exhaust fan really moves a lot of air. This will easily remove any air that has been heated/cooled within the surrounding space causing a drastic increase in heating and cooling costs within a shop. The shop will also have to have an adequate supply of filtered air coming back into the room. I personally build guitars in my shop and this requires the shop to maintain a constant humidity range of 42-47%. With this machine running, connected to this exhaust fan, that will be practically impossible. A better design that incorporates a sealed enclosure with a port coming in and a port going out would be a much better design. This way the incoming air can be sourced from a port using outside air. With this set up and the sealed enclosure nearly 100% of the fumes produced from the substrate will be extracted and will not escape to the room and the conditioned air will not be lost. This will be a substantial savings for the user just in the heating and cooling cost alone.

I have designed a system that can easily facilitate this airflow at very little cost, modification or additional supplies. It will require the entire enclosure to be sealed, a concentric vent (for only one outside wall perforation), and by adding two ports to the lid allowing for airflow directly across the work piece. These ports will be similar to the dust collection ports that come out of the lid of a Powermatic DDS225 dual drum sander. This set up will allow minimal loss of “conditioned” shop air.

The electronics also rely on the exhaust fan to pull cool air across the PSUs. This means that every nook and cranny will be drawing air into the machine. In just about any shop, dust and debris will be pulled into the electronics compartment with this method. IMO this is not optimal.

The air assist could also be improved. Since there is no power strip and relay controlling a compressor, this requires the entire air system to be manually controlled. This is a downgrade when the Ruida controller is completely capable of controlling this airflow through the software.

This could be easily remedied with a $10-$20 pneumatic solenoid. Such as

1/4" NPT 5 Way 2 Position Pneumatic Electric Solenoid Valve DC 24 V

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VTULZTU/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_bsuyzbBPTGZDR

This solenoid could easily be added to the current system without putting added strain on the current draw at a very reasonable price.

I also want to point out this is how the air regulator mount arrived. It also had two different nuts holding it on. One of the nuts was not even the correct size. It had been cross threaded to make it work.

I removed the mount and flattened it out so that I can mount the regulator. However at some point in the future I will be replacing this regulator with a higher quality regulator, air filter/water trap and the above mentioned solenoid. This will be a substantial improvement compared to what the machine arrived with at a minimal cost.

I would have also liked to have seen a male aviation plug on the back of the machine for the chiller alarm instead of just a long wire zip-tied inside the machine and ran through a metal hole without a grommet. This way a custom length cord could be assembled with female plugs on both ends.

The Z axis is controlled by two stepper motors but both stepper motors are wired in parallel on one larger driver.
I do not understand entirely why the design calls for dual Z stepper motors. I can easily see how this could be redesigned so that it only requires one stepper. The Powermatic DDS225 has a similar lift system for its table. It is controlled by one crank that lifts the entire table at one time evenly. I don’t see why this design could not be incorporated into the Z axis of this machine. (I use the DDS225 as an example bc I am familiar with it.)

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There is no limit/proximity switch on the upper end of the Z-axis except for the Auto Focus/Calibration pin mounted on the side of the laser head. This could easily allow for the table/work piece to come into contact with the laser head. However, this function basically relies on the operator paying close attention when lifting the Z-axis.

Upon further inspection, I realized that the auto calibration pin was installed improperly. I could not keep this switch from triggering, it was extremely sensitive even when not touching anything, it would trigger in mid air. When I tore it apart I realized the button had been installed on the wrong side of the housing. The factory just shoved the button into the housing, where it should have used the supplied mounting nut and installed the switch on the outside with the nut on the inside. This is why the button was extremely sensitive, there was not enough room in the housing with the Pin and the button. When I properly reassembled the Auto Focus switch, It worked as it should.

The Ruida controller has a 4th connection that will allow for an independent connection for the U axis to be used for the rotary axis, However from factory this connection is not used. I purchased the rotary axis with this machine. I am not very impressed with the connections of the rotary axis. The Y stepper motor has to be disconnected to allow for the rotary axis to be hooked up. This connection is made within the electronics compartment however there is no direct path to run the rotary axis stepper motor wire into this compartment without drilling new holes through metal or placing the wire in a possible pinch location across the Y-axis slides. Also the wire for the Rotary axis leaves the enclosure through a metal hole without a grommet.

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I do not believe the Ruida controller has an ammeter that registers the actual amount of power that goes to the laser tube. I assume the Ruida controller adjusts the power from 0-100% only. This laser tube can be overdriven if power exceeds the maximum allowed to the tube, which will shorten the life span of the tube. It would be convenient to see exactly how much power is going to the tube. I will be installing an Ammeter on this machine to get an accurate reading of the power being supplied to the Tube.

White is a very poor color choice. In no time at all it will be stained. The machine arrived with smudges on it from the manufacturing/crating process. A brand new machine should show up clean and not stained from dirty hands during the packing stages. When it first arrived I sat the rotary axis on top of the machine during unpacking. When I moved the rotary axis it left four black round spots from the rubber feet on the bottom, it only sat there for about 5 minutes. Now these spots won’t go away without a chemical cleaner of some kind.

There are also multiple rub spots on the machine from where the metal has rubbed through the paint already. This is directly out of the crate. The lid will also need a slight adjustment to one side because it rubs the cabinet when it closes. Here are some sample photos, I did not provide ALL of the photos, these should suffice.

There were also burn stains on the interior of the cabinet from the initial beam alignment at the factory.

Also within the machine were metal shavings that should have been vacuumed or blown out. These metal shavings can wreak havoc on electrical components.

HereOil stains of some sort under the laser tube and in the doors.

Rust is starting on a brand new machine between the lower and upper cabinets.

Grime between plexiglass lid and hold down plate

Other cleanliness observations

When the machine arrived, both handles on the electronics compartment side had fallen off. One of which had fallen out of the crate through the wheel hole in the bottom board of the crate during transport from the freight carrier to my house. I found it on the trailer floor. Loctite is a good solution to keep the handles from falling off.

The accessory kit comes with multiple parts that are not described anywhere in the literature, online, and Laguna’s reps could not even tell me what some of these parts are for.

I am still pondering what the Hooks and spatula are used for but have come to realize that the Round Multi-Step piece is for aligning the laser beam, well it is to my best assumption that this is what it is for. The steps get inserted into the mirror housings and has a groove cut in it for a piece of paper or card stock to be inserted. on the side not visible in the photo, it has a wire X. When the laser is pulsed this X is left on the card stock as an un-burnt section showing the alignment. This has seemed to work flawlessly once I was able to personally figure out on my own what it’s intended purpose was.

There is also an extra proximity switch in the accessory box. I assume Laguna expects one of the installed switches to eventually fail…or there is some other use for the switch that I can not imagine ( I might add it to the Z axis at the top of the lift).

Also included inside the accessory box are two pieces of material that looks like a large piece of heat-shrink tubing. While reviewing a Bodor video on YouTube I found that this is to be placed over the high voltage side of the laser tube. No information was provided by the manufacturer regarding these two sleeves.

The instructions state to fill with deionized water and to change every two weeks. I don’t see why a RV antifreeze couldn’t be used. This is a closed loop system, it should not have outside contaminates enter the cooling system. I might be missing something here though considering I have little experience with CO2 lasers.

Two pieces of pink plexiglass came with the accessory kit for beam alignment. One of which was already used.

The accessory kit also came with two different rolls of tape. I still have not figured out exactly what they are for, there is no info available. I assume one of them is for securing one of the wires along the laser tube, but no information can be found nor was it provided.

Placement of the PC-USB and U-disk ports on the side is not optimal. This keeps the machine from being placed against a wall on that side. Not major but with all of the available space on the front of the machine, these could easily be located somewhere a little more convenient.

This machine came with both the honeycomb table and the knife edge table. The honeycomb table came wrapped in plastic. When removing the table the lip around the top opening does not allow the table to lift out. The honeycomb table must slide out from the front of the machine, through approximately a 6" opening. The table is large and cumbersome to move around. It is not very rigid and flexes a lot. I would much rather see the Honeycomb table separated into at least 3 separate sections. This would allow for much easier removal of the honeycomb table and much easier storage of it as well. As it is now with both the knife edge table and the honeycomb table finding a place to store the table not in use is not an easy task. If the support wheels under the cabinet where further apart the extra table could be stored underneath the machine when it is not in use.

Upon further thought, I have decided to leave the honeycomb table in while using the Knife Edge Table, basically using both tables at the same time, all of the time. I will try to discuss this aspect in a later part of my review and modification section.

The honeycomb table also sits on an aluminum extrusion table with 54 - 3/8" holes. With the honeycomb sitting nearly completely on the extruded aluminum table the 54 holes do not give a whole lot of room for air to be pulled down through the honeycomb on a 3’x4’ area. The honeycomb should be supported a little further off of the aluminum extrusion and more airflow should be allowed through the table to allow better utilization of the honeycomb system. Since the table is so large the honeycomb sags in the middle of the table where it is not supported by the 1/16th or so perimeter aluminum housing. This keeps the honeycomb table from giving a perfectly level surface.
Again, I plan to revisit this during a modification section of my review, however, I have not modified the table yet so this may take some time to circle back to.

There is no way to register the aux. tables so that they are in the exact same location when swapping from one to the other. I will be addressing this in a later modification as well.

The honeycomb table and the knife edge table are also different sizes. The knife edge table is slightly under 2" narrower by width and length when comparing the two tables.

The knife edge table is shipped with a piece of plexiglass/acrylic zip-tied across the top to hold the blades in place. Once this is removed the blades will fall out if turned upside down or on its side. This will be a Nuisance when removing the table or trying to store the knife edge table on its side up against the wall. This has been one of the reasons why I decided to modify the tables so that both of them are used simultaneously the majority of the time.

Not impressed that the screws were not countersunk along the edges of the table.

The feed through function is nearly useless when it comes to 3/4" stock. The opening between the frame and the lid is less than 3/4", so it will be putting constant weight onto the workpiece which could teeter it up or keep it from sitting flat. The honeycomb table also does not come all of the way up to the top of the frame. There is a gap between the two levels.

The laser head should also be adjustable up and down. However the head was over tightened at the factory. It was tightened with a tool. It was tightened so much with excess force that the anodized finish was marred. I could not loosen the head by my bare hands, a tool was required. Also visible in the photo below is the Z-axis Auto Focus. this was before I corrected the improper factory installation. As can be seen in the photo, the switch is completely inside of the red cap except for the part that protrudes out the back. In actuality the Silver Lip on the switch (it can barely be seen at the bottom of the green part) should have been mounted on the Outside of the red cap and the Nut gets tightened from the inside of the cap.

The lid is extremely heavy! The supports/shocks are basically only used once the lid is half way up, they are basically useless. The lid also does not have a soft close feature. About halfway down the lid drops and slams. The shocks almost make the lid close even harder. Unless the operator is careful and respects the machine (aka paid for it) I predict that the lid enclosure will take a lot of abuse. In addition, if the operator is not careful the lid could slam with their hand between it and the frame. This could break the operators hand, I will be installing handles on the front of the lid to use to open and close the lid keeping my hands out of the danger area. I personally do not want to take the chance of the lid slamming on my hand breaking bones in the process.

Most of these concerns/upgrades could be performed for less than $100 on nearly a $10,000 machine. This would be a much better/safer machine at a 1% cost increase.

These were my observations so far. And most of these were noticed prior to even powering up the machine. Sorry, but I expected more from a reputable company such as Laguna. Name Recognition alone was the single most influential deciding factor for purchasing this specific machine.

Laguna obviously do not know what is up and what is down. They can not even consistently install their stickers in the same direction. Here is there photo that is on the website.

I have seen another laser listed on craigslist for sale that has a Matching Laguna Sticker to the photo provided on their website.

Here is how my unit arrived. As one can see the Laguna Sticker is not facing the same direction.

If one also looks at the website photo there is a knob connected to a potentiometer to the right of the E-stop button. This knob is not on the unit that Laguna supplied to me.

Also the website photo shows leveling feet on the machine. However, my machine does not have these feet. The wheels are different as well.

The unit that Laguna supplied me also included WiFi Control. This was not mentioned on the website but did come with a supplied wifi Tp-Link. However, this function is ABSOLUTELY WORTHLESS!!! The supplied TP-Link could not be configured. The reason for this was the supplied unit was never intended to reach the American Market. If I could read Mandarin/Chinese then it is possible that it could work. When logging into the TP-Link there is no English version, so there is no way for me to read the settings to properly set this machine up. I was able to connect to it from my laptop, however it had to be set up as its own wifi network. I could not link this to my existing network and use it like a typical printer on the network. Every-time that I want to access the Laser remotely, I would have to disconnect from my current wifi network that connects to the internet and Connect to the TP-Link. By doing this if I needed to access the Internet again, then i would not have access. Having to connect and disconnect from multiple wifi networks is just a complete nuisance. To remedy this issue, I will be discarding the factory supplied TP-Link and replacing it with one that was intended for the American Market and is configurable in ENGLISH.

Before Firing the unit up for the first time, I inspected the nozzle, after I was able to remove the overtightened Nozzle. As is evident in the photo, it looks as if this unit was used more than just for testing and alignment.

In addition to the Z-Axis auto calibration button being improperly assembled, the mounting plate is not even cut to the proper size. With this hole being too large, it does not allow the mounting plate to be mounted perpendicular to the Laser Head. This is how the mount arrived from the factory.

Here are some of the correspondence that I had with Laguna Regarding this matter. I refused to speak to them over the phone because there was no way for me to prove our conversations because their employees refused to reply to my emails confirming what was stated over the phone. So I intentionally only communicated with them via Email to have FULL DOCUMENTATION of our conversations. This was the only way that I could protect myself and to have factual evidence to back up my claims instead of the He Said / She Said Scenario.

My emails are in BOLD .
Laguna’s Responses are italicized.

Hello Luke, sorry I live in an area that has no cell phone reception 90% of the time. Typically goes straight to voicemail. It has been a real nuisance and the quality of our service continues to decline. It takes 15 minutes for me just to reply to a simple text. Ridiculous to say the least.
I will admit that I have already acquired the Laguna Laser. I will state that I am extremely disappointed that I made the choice to go ahead and accept delivery and pick it up at the terminal. They did refund my entire freight charges for this. However, I sent them a review last Sunday night of the machine. It included approximately 60 photos. I will be posting this review online by the end of the week, but I am giving Laguna the opportunity to respond before I do so and as of today, they still have not done so. The review is not good and they have completely lost me as a customer. However I have a substantial investment into this machine already not including all of my time wasted dealing with them, so I will be keeping the machine and making the appropriate modifications to it so that it will be a better/safer machine. I realize this will void the warranty but considering I can not even get them to respond, I predict the warranty is only as good as the piece of paper it is written on and considering the warranty info is only posted on their website, well nuff said.
It is possible that if others do a web search on Laguna’s Lasers, they will read my review and this will steer them away from purchasing one of their units and your company might get those individuals as customers.
So far I have started a thread on the Inventables forum and on CNCZone. And soon I will be posting again on Sawmill Creek, if they do not sensor my next thread. I duplicated my same threads from the other two forums, but sawmill creek rejected it. Maybe bc Laguna is a sponsor of theirs, I don’t know exactly.
Good luck and thanks for contacting me.

Michael,
I am the service manager and have been trying to contact you since last week to resolve the issues with your laser. You sent me the review a few days ago and I have made 3 phone calls to you since then with no response. I left voicemails. If you can only communicate through email, then please let me know but I would love to be able to talk to you on the phone at some point. I want to resolve your issues and restore your faith in Laguna Tools.

Email is the best method of communication.
I only received two voicemails on Friday. This is the first contact that I have received this week. But like I said my cell phone reception is awful so your VMs might show up still sometimes voicemails show up 2-3 days later.

Michael,
We want to offer our sincere apologies about your experience with the Laguna Laser. Was there a shipping issue prior to the laser’s arrival?
As for the issues on the machine I agree that the condition is unacceptable and I am not entirely sure how this could have gotten past our quality control. It is something that we are absolutely looking into. I can assure you this is not the way we do business and I will do my best to restore your faith in Laguna.
I understand you are making modifications to the machine and keeping it. Is there any way I can offer you a machine exchange or some sort of other similar compensation to make this right?
If you are past the point of a machine exchange I understand, we would be happy to offer you a full refund and come pick the machine up. We do not take the situations like this lightly and would like to do what we can to resolve this issue.
Did you receive any of the voicemails I left for you? I want to assure you that we have tried to respond. Were you aware that it was me trying to contact you in this latest email chain? Some of the email was a little confusing as it seemed like you were not aware the service department was attempting to contact you. Regardless, we want to do whatever we can for you. Please let me know how you would like to proceed.
Sincerely,
Luke

Luke,
Thank you for reaching out.
The only VMs that I have received from you were on Friday of last week, 2 of them. I have not received any of the VMs from this week.
My message to you earlier was a mistake. Honestly what happened was I received a VM from another Laser manufacturer inquiring about selling me a Laser, coincidently the salesman’s name was also Luke. So that is who I thought I was replying to. That should explain why the email came across as jumbled.
I wanted to give your company the opportunity to respond before moving forward.
As to your questions.
Yes there was a shipping issue. I was given an estimated shipping date of six weeks when I placed my order. That six weeks turned into 16 weeks. There was also an issue with delivery bc the freight carrier refused to do a curbside delivery bc I live on a culdesac. There were other hiccups as well. In the end I personally picked up the machine at the dock. Rick did credit the freight charges back for the delivery issues.
As of yet, I have not made any modifications to the machine.
As to the machine exchange or even the return. I started researching this purchase in January and placed this order in February and still have yet to actually fire up the machine. Getting the machine out of my shop and Re-crating it and then shipping it back, then Going through the delivery process again that was already a headache and a nightmare, then un-crating the machine after it has been delivered and getting it back into my shop and set back up, will set me back atleast 5 more full days. On top of the time that I have already lost. And at that point I have to go back through the machine again or I lose all of the time that I have already invested into the machine starting way back in January/February. If I order another machine from another company I am basically gambling again on the quality of those machines bc I have never done business with those companies before or even seen one of their actual machines except for Epilog. So it is a CrapShoot.
If I keep the machine and do the modifications as I have time, at least I won’t loose the time that I have already invested, which has become substantial at this point and like I said I have not even fired it up yet.
At this point I do not know what to exactly say or what type of Compensation to even ask for or even to expect. All I know is this has been a real burden on me, extremely stressful and I have lost a lot of time dealing with this situation.
What are your thoughts.
Sincerely
Michael Grigg

FYI, Luke a voicemail from you just came through on my phone. 4 hrs after you left it. This is why I prefer to communicate through email. I live on the lake where we are surrounded by hills so When I am at home my reception is awful and not dependable.
Just wanted to follow up.

Michael,
I understand you want to to keep the machine after the trouble you went through, but if it is an issue of you being extremely dissatisfied in the future as well, I want to do what I can to prevent that.
Depending on what modifications you make on the machine and if you still want to keep it, I would be prepared to offer you a 15% refund on the machine and an additional year warranty on the machine depending on what parts/modifications are made.
Luke

How about 30% and we forget about the warranty entirely, this will allow me to do whatever mods I see fit.

Michael,
The best I can do is 20% off the cost of the laser. I cannot offer 30%.

How about 25% then.

Michael
A 20% Refund is the best I can do. Our margins do not allow for any more than that. At 20% I can still offer you a year warranty pending the modifications on the machine.

Keep in mind that freight alone for replacing the unit will run your company approximately $1500. $750 to and $750 from, plus it will make me lose about 5 days in doing so.
You can’t meet me in the middle? I know you say that your margins are so not large enough to allow it but consider the amount of time I have lost dealing with this entire transaction. Is my time not worth anything

Michael,
I will agree to the 25% with no warranty under the condition that all current negative posts and all future negative posts are removed from the web or print. We are trying to make things right, but we also need reassurance that after we resolve this situation that the negative posts do not continue.

25% is not enough to buy my silence, not even close. The way I see it, your company has way more to lose on impact of sales alone from the impact of the review of the sales experience and the condition of how this machine arrived. I’ve not done anything wrong in this transaction except for choosing the wrong vendor and this has had a Great Negative Impact on me personally.
The General Public needs to be aware.

Michael,
I have offered you a new machine (exchange) , considerable discounts and extended warranties to make this right. I am not sure what else I can offer you. Is there something else you had in mind?
I am doing my best to negate the negative impact that this has had on you. No one is saying you have done anything wrong. We are not buying your silence, I am trying to come to an agreement that by us making things right, the negative posts cease.
Please let me know what else I can do.

Michael,
_I am just checking in with you again in regards to your thoughts on what I can do for you. _
I have offered a complete refund, a significant discount and an extended warranty. Is there something else you had in mind?
Thank you for your time,
Luke

Michael,
I have been trying to contact you for 3 weeks now. I am doing my best to make things right with you, but have not heard back.
I have offered you a new machine (exchange) , considerable discounts and extended warranties to try and resolve the issue . I am not sure what else I can offer you. Is there something else you had in mind?
Please let me know what else I can do.
Luke

Well, I informed you what I would like to have as compensation for my troubles however your stipulation that I had to remove all current posts and that I could not ever write anything negative was a deal breaker. I won’t give up my freedom of speech that easily. And replacing the machine or returning the machine is at a huge expense/loss of my time and energy invested that I will not get back and will not be compensated for. So with those options I am at a huge loss as well. I really don’t know what else to say or do but to move forward and publish on-line my full review of the machine of how it arrived and also publish what needs to be done to properly address my concerns with the machine as well so the general public is aware of what to expect when purchasing a Laguna Laser. If Laguna’s R&D and quality control on this $10,000 MSRP machine had been better, we would have never needed to go this route.

Michael,
I don’t think that my request was outlandish in any way, but I can understand why that is a dealbreaker for you. I have offered a 25% refund on the machine if you want to keep it. I have offered to replace the machine. I have offered to have you return the machine for a 100% return. I have done what I can for you and I apologize that we could not reach an agreement.
You said in an earlier email that you will do your best to steer people away from purchasing a Laser from Laguna. I have offered everything I can to either take the machine back with a complete refund or compensate you for the trouble you have had, but you still want to keep the machine.
From my earlier email :
“We want to offer our sincere apologies about your experience with the Laguna Laser. As for the issues on the machine I agree that the condition is unacceptable and I am not entirely sure how this could have gotten past our quality control. It is something that we are absolutely looking into. I can assure you this is not the way we do business and I will do my best to restore your faith in Laguna.”
This is NOT how the machines should arrive and I have offered multiple options to resolve the situation.
Sincerely,
Luke

However it Did Arrive this way and there is no arguing that point!!! And instead of standing behind your product and completely making it right you want the customer to wind up empty handed or at a loss. You forget to add the stipulation that along with the 25% refund I have to sell my freedom of speech and can never write ANYTHING negative about this machine. I would have taken the 25% refund however I won’t sell my freedom of speech that cheap. The other options leave me with basically 100s of hours of loss time and energy with no compensation or no guarantee that the next machine will show up any better considering R&D is lacking as well.
What I have experienced with this entire transaction Is not good business, If you ask me, and I prefer not to do business with companies like this. And yes I will make my experience available for others to see what to possibly expect by doing business with Laguna. You can’t say this never happens because I have proof that it does.

Michael,
I agree that your experience has less than satisfactory, no one is arguing that point. I sincerely apologize for the experience you have had.
I don’t recall saying “this never happens”. I have said that it should not have happened and it is regrettable that it did.
Please confirm that you are not accepting what we have offered:
1) Complete return on the machine with a 100% refund.
2) A 20% refund with an 2 year extended warranty.
3) A 25% refund with no warranty after you make modifications to the internal wiring of the machine.
Thank you,
Luke

I will take option #3. Which is what I asked for in the beginning. However I will not remove existing posts and will not refuse to not write more posts. If this is acceptable to you I will make sure to point out that you did compensate me for the issues/complications.

Michael,
I am happy to proceed with option #3, and agree that there should be a mention of the compensation for the shipping indecent as well as the condition of the machine in current and future posts.
I have forwarded the information to the sales team and accounting. It will take a little while for the refund to process, so I appreciate your patience. Again, I sincerely apologize personally for the condition in which you received the machine and the experience you had before you received it. It is never our goal for this to happen and I am deeply sorry that it did.
Sincerely,
Luke

Thank you. I will make it a point to point out the compensations in my reviews.
If you could have them just mail a check to the shipping address that would be best.

I have forwarded your request to accounting. I hope you have a great rest of your day and a great weekend as well.
Sincerely,
Luke

Luke, it has been almost 3-weeks since our last correspondence. Can you please give me an update on the reimbursement?

Hi Michael,
I followed up with accounting and they have informed me that the check should be in the mail.

In Addition to the problems that I had with The machine. Laguna Also Stole from me.

When quoting the machine, the Salesman misquoted a replacement RECI Laser Tube. Rick quoted me the price of $100 to purchase a replacement 150W RECI Tube for this Machine. However, Rick promised to Honor this price. However in the very end they had Collected the $100 payment from me but are now completely refusing to reply to my emails. SO THEY KEPT MY $100 AND THE EXTRA TUBE!!! When it came to the compensation, all of the emails are listed above. As anyone can plainly see, there was absolutely no communication regarding the replacement tube that I paid for, and is on my invoice, in any of the correspondence regarding compensation.

So the way I see it, LAGUNA TOOLS stole a 150W RECI Tube from me because they failed to provide it after I paid the FULL price that they Quoted me for the tube.

Here are the Emails regarding the RECI Tube.

Rick,
Can I get an ETA on the Backordered laser tube?

Rick,
it has been a week and I have received no update or ETA on the “Back-Ordered” Laser tube that I have already paid for. Please advise.
Also, just so that you know, I have had more time to go through and study this machine. I will be posting my FULL thorough review of the machine on how it arrived by the end of the week.
Luke and I could not come to terms and I walked away from the negotiating table. The options he gave me either wasted more of my time with out compensation or/and I took It as an insult by him trying to buy my silence and have me remove all current posts and no future posts for a mere “25% of the purchase price of the machine”. My freedom of speech is much more valuable to me than that.
He can’t tell me that this statement does not signify that I am selling my freedom of speech and you are buying my silence:
"under the condition that all current negative posts and all future negative posts are removed from the web or print"
Then he tried to inform me that "We are not buying your silence, I am trying to come to an agreement that by us making things right, the negative posts cease."
These options just do not work for me especially after the troubles this purchase has put me through.

Hi Michael,
Just finally catching up after the AWFS show - the purchasing manager informs me that the tubes are on a container that is in port (Los Angeles) - he expects them to finally be in the door next week. I will keep an eye out and get it to ship as quickly as possible.
Have they offered to have you return the laser for a full refund? We probably should have done that long ago. I know this has wasted a lot of your time - but I can’t help but think that you will never be happy with this unit.
Rick

Thank you for the reply and update.
Yes they have offered a full refund with a return however in doing so I will lose all of the time I have invested in this purchase and this specific machine, plus all the time to crate it up (I no longer have the crate either, I disposed of it with the extra pallets used to get it home) and send it back with absolutely no compensation for my time (which has been substantial by this point) and that is not fair on my behalf. Plus I will have to start all over from square one. So I will manage on my own with the machine just like if I had purchased one of the knock-off-generic-cheap-no-name Chinese machines that can be found on eBay for much cheaper. In doing so This will allow me to modify the machine so that it will be a much better machine and can be done at a minimal cost to myself (way less than 5% of the cost of the machine). Plus I don’t have to sell my freedom of speech either. I just can’t believe a “reputable” company such as Laguna would have produced a machine of this “quality”.
I should have purchased an Epilog.

Just following up on the laser tube.

August 4 ,2017
Michael,
The container has finally arrived in the building with the tube - as of yesterday the crate was not unpacked and checked in - trying my best to get them to open and ship your tube today.
Thanks,
Rick

August 21, 2017
Rick,
Just checking in on ETA of laser tube?

September 5, 2017
Rick,
Just checking in. Last we spoke was a month ago. The tubes were in house and needed to be shipped out.
I would like to finish this transaction. Can you please advise me on when the tube will arrive?

The email that I received on August 4,2017 From Rick was the last response that I received from anyone at Laguna. Since this Email from Rick Kerrigan, they have not responded to any of my emails and they have not provided me with the 150W RECI Laser Tube in which I paid for (although at a discounted price because of their Mistake) and they promised to deliver to me.

So this has been my Experience with Laguna Tools and my review of their SmartShop EC 150W CO2 Laser Cutter.

Needless to say, I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH LAGUNA AGAIN!!!

In addition, I can not recommend their products because of the condition that this machine arrived in.

I can also say that their CUSTOMER SERVICE is HORRENDOUS!!! so this is another reason why I can not recommend Laguna.

The Biggest concern that I have with Laguna is that they are LIERS, CHEATS, and CON-MEN. They will take your money and not provide you with a quality tool or just outright Keep your $$$$

BUYER BEWARE.

I provided the email correspondence just to back up my side of the story. If I had not refused to communicate with them in any manner other than email, then I would have not had the proof to back up my side of the story. This would have easily turned into a He Said / She Said Situation where i would have just been marked as a disgruntled customer ATTEMPTING to take advantage of their business. (I have seen where Laguna has used this tactic before when they received a bad review)

It will be a little difficult for them to contradict this Experience when I have provided All of the PHOTOS and EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE. This is all of the factual evidence that I need to Verify that my Experience with Laguna Tools is EXACTLY as how I described it within this thread.

I have provided this information to protect the CONSUMER!!! I wish that I had stumbled across a review such as this before cutting a Check to them and agreeing to do business with Laguna. If this had been available to me prior to agreeing to this order, I would have most Definitely taken my business Elsewhere!!! And I recommend anyone interested in purchasing any power tool to take their business elsewhere as well.

At this Point, I would recommend buying one of the cheap no name generic knockoffs that are available on EBAY or Amazon before buying from Laguna. HELL, I would buy a CO2 Laser from Harbor Freight before I would give Laguna the opportunity to sell me another piece of crap such as this at the Marked up Price. It will be much cheaper in the long run knowing what to expect and just upgrading the cheap no name machine once it arrives. It is evident that Laguna Does not stand behind their products, so Name Recognition is WORTHLESS and I am sure their warranty is Just as “GOOD”. What a Joke their company has become.

I want to send a shout out and my gratitude to LARRYM, my friend Michael G. and a few others, you know who you are!!! These individuals helped me through the journey of upgrading this CO2 Laser Cutter to a much safer and better machine. I could not have accomplished this task with out your assistance.

THANK YOU!!!

With the assistance of these individuals and with less than $1000, I have been able to upgrade this machine to a much higher standard, the standard we should all expect when buying from a reputable manufacturer. Well, honestly some of these upgrades were a personal decision and are not 100% necessary but are nice additions to any machine. It would have only taken $250-$400 (RETAIL) to make this machine much safer and more efficient from the factory, what should have arrived to begin with. In the near future I will be elaborating on these upgrades, which can basically be performed on nearly all of the Ruida Controlled CO2 Laser Machines with parts readily available from Amazon. For now I have other matters to attend to, Sharing all of this has taken up a tremendous amount of my time today and I have other matters to address for the time being.

Sorry it took so long to get a thorough review of the machine and my experience posted, life can get overwhelming sometimes, not to mention I wanted to get the machine properly and safely functioning prior to posting and sharing.

Thanks for reading.

A cheap Chinese model can easily be modified to be just as capable as this machine. The important parts consist of a Quality tube, mirrors/lens, and power supply and Motion Controller.

The Ruida is not top of the line by any means but it can be a solid platform once it is figured out.

As long as the machine has good Bones, it can easily be upgraded to be a quality laser cutter.

For instance, my model (MSRP $10,000) comes with cheap stepper drivers for the X and Y axis that can be purchased for $25 on Amazon. Not high tech or high quality by any means. I suspect eventually these drivers will die. When that happens I will be replacing them with quality Gecko drivers. Even a G540 is a substantial upgrade when compared to the stock drivers.

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Here is a start to the Upgrades that I have performed on this machine.

I started with the Power Panel on the back.

I hated the idea that the Main Power breaker switch was located on the back of the factory Panel. So I moved it inside of the electronics enclosure, more on this later.

The original panel only had 110v power coming in. This was not an ideal situation considering the Exhaust Fan and Chiller have to be on separate 110v circuits than the Laser Cutter. I upgraded this to a 4-Conductor 220v and added a locking plug to the end of the wire. On the inside of the machine the 220v cable was ran through a metal flexible conduit that was grounded with metal straps to the frame of the machine.

I replaced the original ground lug and connected a copper wire to it. The ground wire runs outside and is attached to the Grounding Rod for the main panel of my house.

Instead of the chiller alarm cable running through a hole cut in the panel like on the original, I placed an Aviation plug on the panel.

I removed the air regulator from the back of the machine and added a male quick connect plug for the air supply coming from a large air compressor. I also included a swivel attachment to the air hose to reduce strain on the connection.

I added two standard outlets to the panel. The one on the right powers the Exhaust fan and the one on the left powers the Chiller. I could have gotten away with only one dual outlet and broke the connection on the back between the two actual plugs, but I added a second plug to give room for expansion IF they are ever needed.
I wrapped the inside of the outlets with electrical tape to help insulate the connections for safety reasons. An outlet box would be safer, but I chose not to install one considering that I should be the only one inside this part of the machine, a lock on the door panel helps to insure this. These outlets receive power from two SSR-40 relays that have been wired to the relays that came in the machine. Remember the two wires that were zip-tied inside the wire track and not connected to anything? Well now these wires are properly connected inside of the machine AND the Exhaust Fan Button on the front panel Actually controls the Exhaust Fan.

As a safety feature, I chose to also power the Water Chiller on when the Exhaust Fan is powered on, (This is the ONLY connections inside the Machine that are now Daisy Chained). Without the Chiller being activated, the system goes into Alarm Mode and will not activate. By linking the Chiller Power to the Exhaust Fan Power, this Guarantees that BOTH the Chiller and Exhaust Fan will be Activated before the Laser will activate. This feature keeps me from not activating the Exhaust Fan when the Laser is in use even for short durations. It keeps me safe by forcing me to activate the exhaust fan no matter how short the cutting cycle.

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I also upgraded the electronics cabinet by adding a total of 4 fans. These fans power on when the machine powers up constantly cooling the compartment

3 of them on the doors. 120mm rated at 110cfm. These Fans are strategically placed so that they blow onto the hottest components within the compartment. I copied this placement after seeing another manufacture using this configuration and it just made sense. The rear door fan blows air into the space right in front of the Laser Tube PSU guaranteeing that the air will pass over the PSU. This area does not have anything mounted there, I assume it is reserved for a second PSU for Dual-Head Lasers Cutters.

Each of these fans have a plastic snap on grill with the cheap filters built in. These are not the best filters but are better than nothing and cleaning them is just part of the routine maintenance.

On the rear of the machine above the Power Panel, I mounted a 150mm fan that exhausts air out the back at 211cfm. This fan is strategically placed to help pull air across all of the electronics and the SSR40 relay heat sinks. Cutting this hole through the panel with a 6" hole saw was a nightmare. I had to use a Hammer Drill with a secondary handle just to keep control of the saw. and as you can see from the photo the hole saw got away from me once or twice scratching the paint. It also jerked my elbow and wrist around.

By having more air being pushed into the electronics compartment as compared to be pulled out, this adds a positive pressure inside the compartment so that no fumes from the laser are pulled into the compartment and out through the 150mm fan on the rear of the machine. I still need to fully seal the electronics compartment from the cutting area but this will be a quick fix and I will also be sealing around the doors with weather stripping. By doing this it will help push the higher pressure into the other compartment keeping the fumes inside of the area with the fume extraction fan.

If you review some of the videos on Laguna’s YouTube channel, pay attention to the rim around the doors of the electronics compartment. You can see the Fuzzies (like you see around the exhaust vents in public restrooms) that build up around the rim from the air being sucked through the gaps between the door and the frame. You can also see where the chiller alarm cable is just ran through the crack between the frame and the door. So the chiller alarm cable is pinched between the door and the frame when the door is latched. I was not impressed when I noticed this blatant lack of R&D.

I also used terminal blocks so that the fans can be replaced without worrying about the connections.

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