New member, first post. Hope I’m posting correctly and in the right place!
I’ve been interested in lasers on and off for many years as a hobbyist. I enjoy retrieving laser diodes from old DVD drives, bought a Spyder 2 from WL ages ago, a Sanwu Striker 7 watt blue laser a few weeks ago and just recently thought the WL LaserCube would be interesting to experiment with. I was also attracted by the price of US$499!
So I ordered the more powerful model with most of the options including tripod, lenses etc. This was no longer cheap coming in somewhere north of AU$1,200.
The unit arrived quite quickly. Packaging was fine although there was no documentation at all. Also the engraving lens was missing. I downloaded the LaserOS software to my phone, connected it to the LaserCube and was rewarded with beautiful bright images for about 10 minutes. Then the image died and was replaced by a flat, horizontal line. Very disappointing!
Without knowing much about how these things worked, I suspected one of the deflecting mirrors was faulty. I emailed WL, and they told me to contact Magnum Lighting, who I understand are the manufacturers of the device. Magnum Lighting asked me to send a video of the fault, which I did, and they offered to send a replacement scanner, with a tutorial showing how to install it.
The replacement arrived yesterday after some weeks delay. The reason for the delay was that they wanted to include the out of stock engraving lens with the shipment, but sadly the lens was still missing from the package! Eventually I guess they’ll send it but it’s not particularly important anyway. The lens improves resolution if you want to burn images onto media like wood.
So I received a replacement scanner unit complete with 2 galvo motors and associated mirrors. They also sent 2 replacement amplifier boards (X and Y) just in case the fault was in the circuitry. There was absolutely NO tutorial or any other documentation. Nevertheless I thought I’d have a go at the repair. I tried swapping the galvo cables around which convinced me that the fault was limited to just one of the galvos and the amplifier boards were fine. Installing the replacement scanner was fairly straight forward but obviously involved opening the case which is a tight fit, and removing some circuit boards. Fresh heat sink paste also required in several places. But it went smoothly and I was quite proud of myself that I was able to complete the process in about 20 minutes with absolutely no instructions!
The all metal case is VERY solid and heavy. I think that has been done largely for heat dissipation, there are no vents on the case. The unit gets quite warm after an hour or so of operation. The scanner makes a little bit of a sort of fluttering noise, but it’s unobtrusive and I’m sure quite normal. The unit is powered internally by four 18650 batteries.
I spent a couple of hours playing around with the unit last night and I have to say I’m really impressed. Images are beautiful and for me, mesmerizing. Great colour, very crisp and bright. I’m still learning LaserOS (free to download) but I think it’s all I need for my humble purposes. There are thousands (?) of images and animations, plus a number of techno type musical tracks which accompany spectacular sound triggered patterns and animations. I know the galvos are slower than commercial units but I was amazed at the beautiful complexity of images and the speed at which they moved. It’s by no means cheap but I’m really happy now that I have a working unit!
Bottom line I feel I can recommend this as an interesting toy if you're a laser enthusiast, and you're fascinated by colour and movement. It's beautiful! But be aware it is a powerful device and all normal class 4 safety rules apply. I also suspect that eye damage may be a risk from reflected light if you sit too close to the projection surface, some of the patterns display with a very bright central core so be very careful. And obviously when the unit is in Burn mode, laser safety glasses are absolutely mandatory.
I’ve been interested in lasers on and off for many years as a hobbyist. I enjoy retrieving laser diodes from old DVD drives, bought a Spyder 2 from WL ages ago, a Sanwu Striker 7 watt blue laser a few weeks ago and just recently thought the WL LaserCube would be interesting to experiment with. I was also attracted by the price of US$499!
So I ordered the more powerful model with most of the options including tripod, lenses etc. This was no longer cheap coming in somewhere north of AU$1,200.
The unit arrived quite quickly. Packaging was fine although there was no documentation at all. Also the engraving lens was missing. I downloaded the LaserOS software to my phone, connected it to the LaserCube and was rewarded with beautiful bright images for about 10 minutes. Then the image died and was replaced by a flat, horizontal line. Very disappointing!
Without knowing much about how these things worked, I suspected one of the deflecting mirrors was faulty. I emailed WL, and they told me to contact Magnum Lighting, who I understand are the manufacturers of the device. Magnum Lighting asked me to send a video of the fault, which I did, and they offered to send a replacement scanner, with a tutorial showing how to install it.
The replacement arrived yesterday after some weeks delay. The reason for the delay was that they wanted to include the out of stock engraving lens with the shipment, but sadly the lens was still missing from the package! Eventually I guess they’ll send it but it’s not particularly important anyway. The lens improves resolution if you want to burn images onto media like wood.
So I received a replacement scanner unit complete with 2 galvo motors and associated mirrors. They also sent 2 replacement amplifier boards (X and Y) just in case the fault was in the circuitry. There was absolutely NO tutorial or any other documentation. Nevertheless I thought I’d have a go at the repair. I tried swapping the galvo cables around which convinced me that the fault was limited to just one of the galvos and the amplifier boards were fine. Installing the replacement scanner was fairly straight forward but obviously involved opening the case which is a tight fit, and removing some circuit boards. Fresh heat sink paste also required in several places. But it went smoothly and I was quite proud of myself that I was able to complete the process in about 20 minutes with absolutely no instructions!
The all metal case is VERY solid and heavy. I think that has been done largely for heat dissipation, there are no vents on the case. The unit gets quite warm after an hour or so of operation. The scanner makes a little bit of a sort of fluttering noise, but it’s unobtrusive and I’m sure quite normal. The unit is powered internally by four 18650 batteries.
I spent a couple of hours playing around with the unit last night and I have to say I’m really impressed. Images are beautiful and for me, mesmerizing. Great colour, very crisp and bright. I’m still learning LaserOS (free to download) but I think it’s all I need for my humble purposes. There are thousands (?) of images and animations, plus a number of techno type musical tracks which accompany spectacular sound triggered patterns and animations. I know the galvos are slower than commercial units but I was amazed at the beautiful complexity of images and the speed at which they moved. It’s by no means cheap but I’m really happy now that I have a working unit!
Bottom line I feel I can recommend this as an interesting toy if you're a laser enthusiast, and you're fascinated by colour and movement. It's beautiful! But be aware it is a powerful device and all normal class 4 safety rules apply. I also suspect that eye damage may be a risk from reflected light if you sit too close to the projection surface, some of the patterns display with a very bright central core so be very careful. And obviously when the unit is in Burn mode, laser safety glasses are absolutely mandatory.
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