Some entry level budget friendly machines for laser cutters/engravers

I started down this path over a year ago. I bought a cheap 100 dollar ebay setup with some good reviews... but there are some things you need to know. Cheap units are great if you want to have to spend time learning every single option in the freeware programs that these machines come with through trial and error. It would make you a true source of knowledge on forums for these things but at the end of the day you need to remember that you only have so much free time to spend on things. By spending 500+ dollars you can generally get something far more sorted with far less problems that is user friendly with incredible results. Even though it still will require time and effort to perfect you do not have to figure out line by line coding issues or how to make free software do this or that.

You might laugh when you read this next part...

I learned the value of my time when I bought a Creality large format 3D printer for almost a 1000 dollars. At the time 3D printing was not as straight forward as it is today. At the time it required figuring out settings, custom calibrations, specific plastic rolls, cleaning and accepting that misprints were going to eat up a majority of your time. Models have always been straight forward as well as the software for printing but the machines were a nightmare. Fast forward 500 dollars worth of parts trying to upgrade, fix problems, run settings provided by someone who had already figured it out and I never got it to work to my satisfaction. My prototyping dreams shattered by 3D printing thought maybe laser cutting would be better for what I wanted to do. Its straight forward, I can "slice" 3D models into easy to cut layers and then just glue them together. In the end all I need is a tested 3D model file I can send to someone who can print/make the final part for me. I also purchased a nice entry level 1000 dollar cnc mill that would be far more straight forward for my purposes but that is for another article.

I bought a Sculpfun S9...A name brand laser cutter with nice stats and accessories. Furthermore it is supported by Lightburn software - proper software to support a proper machine. This is another advantage of a name brand laser cutter and its value is very nice.