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When I bought my Ortur, their support was excellent. Support was with a fellow named GIl and he was excellent in dealing with the factory in China as far as expediting parts, etc.
Something happened with the company a bit later and reportedly the CEO and GIl moved on, but now Gil is very active on the LB forum and seems to still be supporting LB and helping users.
As to country of origin, I think 99% of the laser modules are Chinese, but there are a few US makers, but they are more up towards the industrial side of things and the module price can be 10X more expensive.
The basic machines are all generally the same design, stepper motors, belts, and a number of motherboards, generally designed around a small number of CPUs. Aftermarket controllers are everywhere and make it easy for the more adventurous to build their own system. My particular machine has dropped about 15% in cost since I purchased so the performance/$ ratio is improving.
I'm still well below $1k in total investment and haven't yet tried a project that was beyond the machines capability. Great thing is you can trade off power for speed in most cases.
I think the best thing you could do would be to try one out and get a hands-on experience, versus going in cold.
Something happened with the company a bit later and reportedly the CEO and GIl moved on, but now Gil is very active on the LB forum and seems to still be supporting LB and helping users.
As to country of origin, I think 99% of the laser modules are Chinese, but there are a few US makers, but they are more up towards the industrial side of things and the module price can be 10X more expensive.
The basic machines are all generally the same design, stepper motors, belts, and a number of motherboards, generally designed around a small number of CPUs. Aftermarket controllers are everywhere and make it easy for the more adventurous to build their own system. My particular machine has dropped about 15% in cost since I purchased so the performance/$ ratio is improving.
I'm still well below $1k in total investment and haven't yet tried a project that was beyond the machines capability. Great thing is you can trade off power for speed in most cases.
I think the best thing you could do would be to try one out and get a hands-on experience, versus going in cold.
