I have been very critical of the company when failures arise but overall the machine has been amazing after the quarks were worked out and I am now ready to buy a second machine.
Basically I am engraving and doing minimal cuts but I am running my machine for about 5 to 6 hrs a day currently.
Should I get a pro or another plus? If they could guarantee that I could get a pro fatser, I would buy that now.
Any advise would be awesome.
I have read over several topics and reviews.
Also, I have considered an Epilog because I can get that pretty quickly. Only down side to that is learning curve and time to learn that plus it’s only available in 30w currently.
I think the plus is a terrible option. Get a pro or even a basic, the plus just cant justify the extra expense.
If you already have a pro, get another. Your cut settings and kerf and everything will be much closer to identical than with a basic. That alone would be enough to seal the deal for me.
Maybe you found something about the plus that I missed when I was trying to figure out the benefits. To be fair, I already had my machine so I wasn’t super thorough.
If you’re engraving, I would just get another basic. Presumably you’re running at full power, so your settings should be nearly identical (in a perfect world).
But, regardless - the website says 8 weeks for a Pro or Plus, and 12-weeks for a basic.
I really wasn’t as thorough lol. That is why I am wondering if I should go with a pro over the plus this time. I would pay an extra 2k to have the pro shipped quicker lol
Passthrough is what’s up. Faster cut jobs is what’s up. That’s why I went with the pro, time is my primary currency. I do cut jobs that take an hour, lots of tiny parts. They’d take more like an hour and a half on a basic.
Well, the current plus has the lesser power tube and no passthru but according to GF all settings up to 100 power are supposed to be identical across all three. If you have a need/want for the passthru, get the pro. If you have the old plus that has the pro tube and use “full power” get the pro.
If neither of those holds true, basic.
we all have our own priorities. i have a basic. i personally wouldn’t bother with the plus. there’s not enough “plus” to it to justify it. and you can buy two basics for the price of a pro, so unless you know you’ll make good use of the passthrough, truly need the extra 5w of power (to me that’s not significant) or have temp issues where your machine is and need the additional cooling (i think i had one time in 3+ years i had a temp issue, and turned on the portable AC and was cutting 10 minutes later).
Yes, that is my current issue. Really, I just need to engrave and cut and I live in San Diego. My studio has no insulation or AC and I have had times where it gets to hot to run the machine and just couldn’t move forward due to the heat.
Are there any other perks that any of the Pro users can chime in with? I would truly appreciate this as I am going to be purchasing my machine very soon. I need this second machine pretty badly.
When I buy plywood that comes in 4x8’ sheets I have them cut it into 5 - 19" x 48" sheets and thus have much more efficient use of the wood. That is my major use of the passthrough. Also, 18x24 sheets are common and so no issues, or even 12 x 24 sheets.
not saying your method is bad, just that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. before i got this, i routinely chopped them on the big laser at my office (20ft from my desk), but that’s when i wasn’t working from home and my wood was usually shipped to the office anyway. now this $50 tool does it quick and easy for me. i wouldn’t pay $3k for that unless i needed it for other reasons. there are plenty of reasons to own a pro, just got to make sure they’re worth the premium to the owner. i haven’t regretted the basic yet.
See, that’s just it, I’m not chopping anything. I skip that step entirely by jamming the longer piece in the front and aligning and go. It’s basically what @rbtdanforth was getting at with his very much too large for the machine pieces. These are “just a bit too large”, and it saves me time and setup (and like Mr. Danforth says, probably some materials).
It’s one of those things that if you have access to it you quickly realize how much you’d miss it if you didn’t have it.
