My First Experience With A CO2

I love my YoraHome machines.

From the Yora CNC Carving Machine 3018-Pro that I got first, then I added a 5.5W Yora Laser Module, then I got a Yora CNC Laser Engraving Machine 6550 with 15W, then an Yora Creality Ender-3 V2 3D Printer, they are all amazing and have given me endless hours of fun and dare I say profit.

However, I kept seeing the Yora 40W CO2 Laser Engraver and the even bigger 50W and 60W models and being a spoilt brat, wanted one, not just wanted one but was getting desperate to get one.

Unfortunately, at that time, YoraHome did not have them available in the UK, so I started to badger, and badger and every time I spoke to HQ, I asked when they would be able to get one here.

After what seemed like an eternity, the news I’d been waiting for like a kid waiting for Santa, it was going to be possible to get one and all I needed to do was wait a bit longer, aaarghhhhh.

After waiting what seemed like another eternity, it arrived. My partner was home when it got there and sent me a photograph of the box, hahaha, I didn’t really get a sense of perspective, all I got was a desperate urge to bunk off work early.

I couldn’t wait to get to my new pride and joy. Getting the machine out of the box, there are a couple of things that I feel need to be said – they are huge and heavy and it’s a 2-man job to move it around.

So, once out of the box I started to think that maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea, did I say its huge! Where was I going to put it? Would the table take its weight? How was I going to vent it outside? How was I going to set up the water pump and cooling system?

Nothing, but nothing was going to stop me now though. Having followed the instructions to take off the protective wrapping from the vision panel and remove the packaging and attached the vent hose, figured out where the bucket of water could go for the cooling and carefully man-handled it into position on top of the table at the side of the sliding door so it could vent outside, filled the bucket with filtered water, I stood back and thought ooooooooooh…….

Excitement was building to say the least. I’d been waiting so long for this Yora 40W CO2 to arrive, I’d watched lots of videos and read lots of articles, I was scared that when I’d read of machines needing lots of adjustments and re-setting to get them to work that this would be my experience too.

Everything ready, it was time to set up the software and the machine and cross my fingers. Turned on machine and the light turned on, all good to this point. To set up the software, you need to have the provided USB stick plugged in and the machine connected by USB cable to the laptop and carefully follow the instructions.

Following the protocol with the software and so on, I couldn’t wait to get started. As soon as it connected to the software, the laser went straight to its home position – great start!

Time to see if the lasers were aligned, holding my breath I went through the simple test of firing the laser at a piece of masking tape across each mirror. Oh wow, it was bang on, couldn’t have been better lined up if I tried.

So, I loaded up a design and crossed my fingers:

Peering through the vision panel I could actually watch the design taking shape, very quickly! I’m not saying there were tears of joy at this point, but my eyes were just itchy.

This machine is amazing, once I’d got used to the idea that it really did work, I moved on from basic burns to cut-outs:

I then disappeared for a bit, I just went dark, as they say – I was so busy making Christmas decorations to sell, I’d come home from work, turn on the machine and run it till I needed to pack orders ready to send the following day.

I can honestly say, it took me less than 3 weeks to cover the costs of the Yora 40W CO2 Laser Engraver with items I was selling.

Lessons learned, just wait, stick with a company you trust, one that gives amazing customer service and technical help, do yourself a favour and buy from YoraHome. You can be sure that the wait will be worth it to get a machine that meets all the technical and quality requirements you expect from Yora.