Epilog Zing Laser Series

Yes! Personalization and customization of products is in high demand. Adding a laser engraving service to your current operation is an excellent way to reach possible new customers as well as offer a valued service to your current client base. If you have any doubts about the profitability of owning a CO2 laser system, visit our Applications page or read our many Customer Success Stories.

For some insight into the profitability of laser engraved products, take a look at the website for LaserBits, a supplier of laserable materials. There you will find purchase prices for raw laserable materials and suggested retail prices for those same products once they have been laser engraved.

Also check out our new Guidebook to Starting Your Own Engraving & Cutting Business to see the ins and outs of starting a new laser business.

You can engrave scanned photos, logos, bitmaps, other images, text, and AutoCAD files. Essentially, if you can print it, you can engrave it.

To cut, you will need a vector based graphic, such as an .eps or Illustrator file.

Keep in mind the higher the quality of the graphic you're working with, the better your engraving results.

Yes. Our FiberMark systems were designed to permanently mark all types of bare metal. The FiberMark was designed with a combination of affordability and high quality results in mind, and features a 24" x 12" or 32" x 20" work area. Our flat bed, flying optic design is revolutionary for a fiber laser system and will mark metals over a large work area in a short amount of time. Click here to learn more about the FiberMark laser.

And, though our CO2 laser systems are mainly designed to engrave and cut non-metallic materials, they can also be used to mark on metal with the aid of metal-marking compound. Download our PDF to learn more about marking metal with a CO2 laser system.

Since we use low power CO2 (30 to 120 watts) and fiber lasers (10 to 50 watts) the beam will clearly mark on coated and raw metal but our systems are not ideally suited for metal-cutting applications. Our FiberMark systems may be compatible for cutting some thin metals as we have seen success cutting thin foils, up to .012", with our fiber lasers.

Please contact our Applications Lab to discuss your metal-cutting applications and see if they can work with our systems!

Yes, the laser is completely safe to operate. It is a Class 2 laser - 1mW CW Maximum 600-700 nm, which means that the laser is secured with interlock devices so it will not run with the doors of the system open. No special safety gear is required to run the laser.

The cost of operating the laser can be easily figured out by plugging your electricity rates into the following formula using even our highest wattage laser, the 120 watt.

Typical Max power consumption = 1560 Watts (This assumes full power, constant laser on.) If power costs $0.075/KWH in your area, it is costing $0.117/hour to operate the laser. Or, about 12 cents per hour, or 96 cents per eight hour day. (1560 x .075)/1000 = .117

No, one laser does it all! Our CO2 laser systems will engrave and cut most non-metallic materials, as well as engrave coated metals. For information on what materials you can engrave and cut, visit our Materials page.

The laser can be set to engrave only (Raster Mode), cut only (Vector Mode), or can complete both operations in Combined Mode. The laser knows what portions to engrave and what portions to cut based on line width, which is easily set in your graphic design software.

Investing in a new computer is a great way to make sure you’re getting the most out of your new laser equipment. Why? Because today’s software requires a lot of computer processing speed and memory to function properly. A good computer won’t make a huge difference in how your laser runs, but when compared to a slow computer it will save untold amounts of time and frustration setting up the artwork that you “print” to the laser. Many users do not purchase new computers for use with their new laser because their current computers are perfectly adequate. There’s no magical cut-off that makes a computer too slow. If you’re comfortable with the performance and speed of your current computer, there’s probably no reason to purchase another one. The following recommendations are just options to consider if a new computer is necessary.

A new computer doesn’t have to be expensive to work well! Even many of today’s lower-cost computers work well for laser applications. As long as you don’t buy the cheapest computer you can find you should be fine. One thing to avoid is the Intel Celeron processor – while they are good processors, and will work with the laser, they don’t process graphics with the speed most laser users desire.

• Operating System: All new Epilog lasers are designed to work with all versions of Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, or 10 operating systems.
  
  The Fusion Laser Series is also compatible with Mac operating systems OS X 10.7 and higher. Read more about our Fusion Mac Driver here.
• RAM (Random Access Memory): 512 MB is recommended. RAM is kind of like short-term memory. It’s fast, readily available for the computer to access and makes time consuming tasks go much quicker if you have lots of it. Most users won’t notice a difference if they add more than 512 MB to their system, but almost all uses will notice the speed difference that 512 MB provides when compared to 256 MB (256 MB is essentially the next step down from 512 MB).
• Processor Speed: A faster processor will allow you to do more tasks in less time. While it’s not necessary to purchase the fastest processor available, you’ll want either an AMD Athalon processor or an Intel Pentium IV processor (do not purchase a computer that is using an Intel Celeron processor – they’re too slow for graphics applications). Processor speeds are always improving, but processor speeds of about 2.0 GHz or faster are a good place to start.
• 10/100 Network Interface Card (NIC): All new computers have a 10/100 network connection as standard equipment. As well as allowing multiple computers to be linked together in a network, this technology also allows direct printing from the computer to the Epilog system. Epilog supplies a network Crossover cable with each laser system that allows one computer to print to a single Epilog system.
• 20-30 GB Hard Drive: This is the permanent memory in your computer. Many users feel that you can never have a large enough hard drive, but for most laser applications 20 or 30 GB’s is going to be adequate for years of storage. Luckily, most computer manufacturers put at least 20 GB drives in new computers these days. When in doubt, buy bigger than you think you might need. It’s so inexpensive that it’s worth the peace of mind to have it available.