Machine cost and value

[fab3]

Our small fab shop has been thinking about getting a newer laser for awhile. To give you an idea of our size we only have three to four guys on the floor so anything new or a couple of years old is not ideal. The 1500 watt mazak I run is still cutting quite well but it is twenty-four years old and is slowly falling apart. I have my mind set on a mazak hybrid for the ease of transition and simplistic beam delivery. We dont have much need for a higher power machine right now but we are looking at possibly upgrading to a 2000 or 2500 watt resonator just in case something comes along in the future. From what I understand the resonator makes up the bulk cost of a machine, so if we were looking at two similar machines (year,hours,features) but one has 500 to 1000 more watts, how much more money could we expect the seller or dealer to be asking for? I know this will vary company to company, I would just like a better understanding of all the prices I see for used machines without talking to a million sales reps.

Thanks

 

[krugtech]

All I can say is I was servicing a Bystronic while 2 guys were servicing a mazak. I had every optic out, most were clean, took 20 minutes to align the whole thing, even after removing the optics the alignment was still pretty damn close. This is in response to your comment about simplistic beam delivery. When i left the Mazak guys were still doing mode shots.

Chris Krug

http://krugtech.com/

Maximum Up-time, Minimum BS

 

[fab3]

Krugtech,
Thanks for your input, I was refering to hybrids in general when I was talking about the beam delivery, as in no more flying optics to align. Maybe I am ignorant but a constant beam length sounds like a good thing to me. I'm sure bystronic makes as good of a machine as any other company, however I cant help but notice that nobody seems to be posting any problems about mazaks on this forum!