Comparing inexpensive Laser engravers: the Decaker 1.5W laser and Eleksmaker A3 Pro 2.5W 

The laser “losing its place” as you said is just the motor skipping steps. This happenes because it needs more current, which can be adjusted using the potentiometer on the a4988 drivers (red squares pluged onto the arduino)

I have one of these too. The misalignment that you see is not the controller software but most likely the hardware. The motors can be a bit underpowered so if either the friction is too high or the cables tug on the system, it can cause the steppers to skip or slip. I did change my motors for more powerful ones to overcome this problem. You need to understand all the parameters of the software in order to get good control of the burning (esp. speed of movement and pulse time of the laser). Also, be very aware that burning some materials is very toxic (e.g. PVC releases lethal chlorine gas) - there's a sizable list of materials you should not burn especially if you don't have a proper exhaust system.

Good day, Jeff ! Thank you for this review. Actually, I had this very same type of LED Laser (using A5 format .. yours is an A3 format, I believe). After a few months of expensive and time consuming cuts and tries, I went CO2. Wow! What a difference ! PRICE was also a matter, but the results and possibilities are not the same at all. One thing you may want to try to get rid of the smoke residue is covering your wood surface with painter's tape. The Laser goes through and it is easily removable at the end of your job. Also, brushing oss the excess sut with a simple toothbrush (and tap water) can give interesting results. I noticed the you experimented with Tac Craft material. You might not know, but this material contains Chlorine. DO NOT use this material .. or ANY material containing Chlorine for that matter, with a Laser (Diode or CO2). Fumes are highly poisonous and potentially deadly. That also corrode metals and can scrap your machine's insides. This was a friendly warning. Thank you for reading me and have a great week !

Owning the Eleksmaker A3, I must say that they are an impressive platform for the price. It's definitely not plug and play but of course, no laser truly is. I use Inkscape to design my files and export the Gcode from there using the Jtech Photonics extension and load them up in Laser GRBL. I've had some very impressive results from the machine, it just takes patience and trial and error. I installed a drawing attachment to the laser mount and have used a ball point pen to draw some awesome stuff with the machine. If you have a 3d printer, there are also many upgrades available to make it a highly adjustable machine. Happy Lasing!

Hey Jeff, thanks for an HONEST review on free items. Not often found on RU-vid

Just a suggestion: Watt setting to high causing overburn, in turn causing excessive smoke which causes interference or laser skip. Set wattage appropriate for material type as well as depth and speed of burn. With setting shown, try a piece of 4"x4"x 1/2" thick maple or oak to make coasters for your cups with last name or deer head.

Actually I've had really good results with the Eleksmaker A3. For engraving you must limit the power and the depth of cut or amount of burn is based on the correct combo of speed and power. The Mana SE controller has dynamic power control through pwm which is a big plus! You did not install the on/off button on the switch. I added a 4.7k pull down resistor on the laser head between gnd and the pwm signal which prevents the laser from accidentally turning on when powering up. I will be adding limit switches and a fireproof enclosure. Out of the box it definitely needs some upgrades, but it's a great framework for a nice machine. T2laser can drive the machine through gcode. Benbox.laser.us has a great support community!!!

If you had a tube near the laser running ventilation or a fan to blow the smoke out of the way, your image wont be so bad....the smoke affects the laser lights accuracy.

I have the same A3 Layer, and I can say, that when you know what to do, and you use a print server like LaserWeb you can get excellent results. You have to reduce the power by setting the power modulation setting accordingly. If you run it on stock setting with the inferior standard software which comes with the machine, it is no wonder that nothing good comes out.

Thanks for the input Jeff. I was considering a purchase of the second item in your review but now I’m having second thoughts.

This issues you were seeing were mostly software driven, T2 laser works much better with these lasers allowing more control and reliability. It is a pay program, but well worth the investment to be able to use these lasers to do exactly what you were trying to do. I have four of these in various configurations and they work perfectly.

I have an eleksmaker clone. The skipping and losing place in my experience was do to improper voltage from the circuit board to steppers. A very small Phillips head adjustment knob on the circuit board and a multimeter solved the problem

I have a Alfawise 2W laser/CNC from gearbest, and I found that the SW that comes with it is terrible. Try Lightburn, it is a way better software, and has a free trial.

Thank you for mentioning the eye protection. Very serious blinding risk

When you enable pwm it will gauge the laser power better and not use only 2 states, high power and low power, it will use a percentage of power ranging from 0 to 255. Also if you didn't assemble it properly, the belt may be loose and the motor will spin under the belt causing it to ruin the image, some software will even tell you something is wrong and either stop or attempt to finish. I use basically the same laser with software I've downloaded for free and it works great. The pictures come out exactly like they do on other printers that I've seen on RU-vid videos. I recommend this laser.

The stair step problem on the jean label is hardware. The stepper motors are physically losing steps when they reverse direction. Go slower and reduce power. Great video.

At 6:00 all lasers do this. Put tape on the workpiece to get a sharper image.

I have an older version of the Eleksmaker. I ran into a lot of the same issues you did with it. What I found is speeding up the movement to stop it from burning too deep, the slop in the belts starts causing issues. I think the only way to really use this on thinner stock is to bump down the power on the laser (requires flashing the arduino and using different software) or to replace the laser with a lower power unit. I have a friend with a 500mw unit that doesn't run into these issues.

I Have the same Eleksmaker A3 Pro 2.5W and it works great make sure your rails are smooth rolling and belts are tight and that running in to your wires. I did upgrade the software to T2 lazer

Thanks for the honest review. I was thinking of buying either one of these - don't think I'll waste my money on them now.

Thank you so much. I actually purchased the larger version of these 2 units (different company). Has no instructions whatsoever (had a video... that included the man assembling it getting confused).

I bought the same frame but a 15 watt diode laser for it. I flashed the arduino and uploaded grbl as the controller and used Laswerweb4 for gcode and it works great. Only other mod was to print new belt tension clips as the ones that come with it are crap and cause the laser to bind and miss steps towards the end of the travel in the X and Y

Nice thorough reviews. You gave these cheapy machines a fair shake. I'm an absolute beginner with laser engravers and the old saying holds true: you get what you pay for.

So the laser turning on is actually a hardware design flaw and not a software flaw. They forgot to add a pulldown resistor to the laser control board. So when the machine control board initiated its handshake with the PC the laser turns on. It can be fixed by adding a resistor. I just keep mine unplugged until I'm ready to hit send. Software is a major issue. I prefer t2 laser but lightburn is good too.

It might be interesting to purchase the larger laser with the slightly better build quality and either run Machine Kit on a Beagle Bone or just run LinuxCNC on a small single board computer and build an enclosure to collect the dust and smoke and have an interlock to prevent the laser from operating with the lid open. Five watts isn't enough for serious cutting but it would be enough for serious engraving. The engraving depth could simply be controlled by the speed of the laser head.

I find all these laser engravers interesting. I used to service RGB entertainment lasers which also use diode lasers which are priced much higher!

I have had the Eleksmaker for a couple of months now - check out the T2 laser software - it makes it work they way it should. A good machine for a couple of hundred dollars

Late to the party, but you can get the wood to look really nice if you increase the speed and really lower the power. It looks so charred and is so deep because you probably ran it at full power. You will be able to etch much better at half power or less

there is a chance that when it skips the power to the laser isn't high enough to trigger it, like the small neon bulbs maybe they wont light until you hit around 80v, once you hit that threshold it lights up

I was going back & forth between both engravers. Now ill look else where thanks to this video. Didnt waste money

Thanks Jeff. The software deficiency is unfortunate. Like the design, but after viewing your video, its a no go.

If you use a fan where the laser is it will make the image more crisp

A drop of got glue on the decaker during assembly would have prevented that but nope Also that glass probably won't protect your eyes

Jeff, I have had the A3 Pro for over a year now. Suggestions: Make an enclosure with fume extraction (An old PC fan is sufficient) Dump the supplied software! At present I am using T2 Laser which allows a lot of control. I am about to test Lightburn (Linux, Windoze and Mac versions available) which has even more options. There are also free programs out there. With the correct software and a few minor tweaks it's a good piece of equipment. I've been making and selling coasters and decorations with mine for over a year.

You just saved me from buying a this nightmare of a machine, it would definitely make me angry, very angry and most likely do costly damage to a customers phone in an attemp to do an engraving job. Thankyou.

Is their a good affordable laser engraver for stippling? What one would you recommend?

thank you ... i was looking to buy one of the a3's ... you saved me some money with a very honest review .. cheers. but i would still like a laser for picture making ... whats next on the list ?

There is a decent amount of support for the A3...similar to a lot of the Chinese 3d printers. From what I understand the software is their biggest issue. A friend has one of them and he uses an additional stepper with a 2in 3 jaw lathe chuck mounted to it. He uses it to "stipple", or whatever you called it, on tobacco smoking wooden/cork/corn cob pipe bowls.

Hello Jeff. Good review on cheap lasers. What laser would you suggest if I want to print simple images on cutting boards and charcuterie boards. These are obviously always made of hardwoods. I usually use Maple. Maximum print area would be 12" x 12".

PSA: Usually those cheap goggles that come with the laser do next to nothing to protect your eyes from the laser, especially if the beam hits you from a highly reflective material. Also its good to remember that different laser wave lenghts require goggles specified for that wave length. So invest in some QUALITY laser safety goggles. Laser can really frick up your retinas even if it hits you indirectly. 20-40$ is worth your eyesight.

Looking for inexpensive laser engraver to print on the bottom of wood bowls I turn. Any suggestions?

Thank you, very honest review. I prefer Lasergrbl software for all arduino based laser engraver machines, it is fully featured to control all axes and the amount of laser power.

i wonder if the shifting laser cuts are similar to layer shifts on a 3d printer...which might be belt tension/eccentric nut tension?

Very glad I came across your page. Your review saved me a lot of money. Not really impressed with either, and the fact that the larger one is basically a box of [expensive] parts that you have to assemble piece by piece...no thanks. Appreciate your honesty!

I use the a3 with modifications and it works very well t2laser software and Inkscape works as a really good hobby laser, as others have said not plug and play but its paid for itself and contributing to bigger and better

I need to make some labels for identifying wiring in an old bus. None would be bigger than 80 x 80 mm. Don't really care too much about special fonts or quality of print. Just need to be able to read the label. Will the Decaker work for this, more specifically, will it work with the special laser engraving plastic I see for sale ?? Thanks !!

Hey Jeff thanks for a really clear and honest video. I have been looking at the second laser and have noticed other RU-vidr's playing with them and not caring for them. I thought if anything the frame is great for a CNC. I know you have been probably using this lasers for a while but have you gotten the laser to focus better? Also, I do know a lot of the people I watch increased speed to keep it from burning through the items.

Well you talked me out of these. Thanks for the honesty

Jeff, good review, professionally done, would you please review the "lazerpecker" it looks pretty good, but who know till you have in your hand, Thanks

I know nothing about lasers but at the 10:20 mark it looks like the material is bowed up in the center which is why the text skewed?

I think a change in software for the eleksmaker would make it much better.

Thanks for these reviews bro. I think I was about to waste money and risk health on these things, until I saw this 🙏 Do you think the NEJE brand one is also the same low quality and problems???

software would make some difference.. but it's mainly setting it up properly (elekslaser) power v speed

I have the 5 W A3 laser from Bangood and found the same until I changed the software then the power settings could be changed to suit the material and effect and there is online back up for the new software via a forum if you get into settings trouble.

Actually the most interesting thing from this video is the part about the leather like material. Could I get a link to a supplier?

Thanks for the review of some more affordable options. Just a thought, you really should clean up the cables before you end up burning right through them. Honestly, I'm sorry because I was fully prepared to LMFAO, wait for the cables to get hit. You kept saying it wants to keep cutting all the way through. Can you not turn the power down so it doesn't cut through?

Okay, this is my first look at this. Didn't know they made them for personal or small business use. How would I go about seeing the choices, or could you give us advice, if we wanted to use it on knives or hard plastic or whatever? What is reasonable. Would any of them be effective for engraving aluminum, like on an AR15 or metal, like a gun barrel, or wood, like a gun stock? Help?

I bought the decaker laser a while back and after engraving with it for literally no longer than 30-40 minutes, the laser just stopped engraving. I noticed that when focussing the laser to see the dot, it would no longer form a dot but instead a short line. I assumed that the laser had somehow burnt out due to being a cheap laser and just gave up on it.

Is the laser power adjustable for various materials? Or is this simply regulated by speed?

Replace the roller bearings that ride in the channels of the frame. Specifically the ones on the laser assy.

Can u recommend me one, Not to expensive but one that will do a nice cut. Thanks!

the small laser will not work unless you take it all apart and reset the worm drives. i bought two and love them but before using either I had to take them apart reset and grease them. they would not work at all before I fixed them right out of the box. but for under 100 I make lots of cool engravings and wooden business cards etc.

The batman came out weird because its skipping steps. The tension on the rails may be wrong.

Didn't you try to reattach the USB connector? The pads where it was look clean. I guess for the price you paid that is one of the downsides. I would certainly try that or tell the seller about it. Who knows they might send you a new one or refund the money. I remember once I got an SSD on eBay and it was bad (not functioning at all) the seller refunded my payment and didn't even want it back. I wonder if he knew it was bad and just quietly took responsibility for it. Also it would not cost a lot to send that thing back but more than it is worth if it is broken somehow.

yesterday my Eleks servo motors were working just fine and then all of a sudden they quit after it made a cut I tired to move them with the back and forth buttons and nothing worked looked on the Eleks forum and they talked about the Micro USB cable can go bad so I bought another one and its still not working, the laser comes on when I change screen but no movement what do you think? the Error im getting is "Still in running"

Good video, nevertheless I hope you were wearing a mask with protection against chemical fumes when lasering those plastics. It is good to inform of other viewers the safety issues involved with using such high energy sources, particularly when using it in a clearly unsafe way without mentioning the precautions one should take. FYI in case you were not aware: PVC when exposed to high energy sources (such as welding, laser engravings, markings, etc.) can cause severe health problems including cancer, neurological damage, as well as reproductive and immune system damage. PVC emits extremely toxic and corrosive hydrogen chloride acid gas, dioxin, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride, which make a very toxic carcinogenic combination. Phosgene is an ingredient in most plastics composed of hydrochloric acid. Originally designed for military purposes as a poison in the First World War, when inhaled, phosgene destroys lung tissue causing pulmonary edema. Rubbers that are exposed to high energy sources (such as welding, laser engravings, markings, etc.) emit benzene, a VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) and recognized carcinogen that may cause death, low white blood cell count, anaemia and cancer. In other words, ALWAYS WEAR A CHEMICAL FILTERED MASK WHEN LASERING PLASTICS, especially ones that you do not know what type they are.

Glad to see another video from you, I really enjoyed it. What’s the plan with the decaker now? Are you going to attempt a fix? I’ve wanted to try one of these out but haven’t pulled the trigger on anything yet.

Hello.... just a simple question . Which lens do you use to record your videos (face view ) thanks

Thank you for this review video I appreciate it. Especially as a newbie in the engraving world. But what would you recommend for someone like me who's just starting out I need something that is solid but easy to use

Unfortunately my decaker quit working out of the blue from being stored for a few months. The USB connector just falls of and the unit does not power on. Any ideas how to take it apart and perhaps replace the control board?

Did you get any feedback from the manufacturer on the issues you pointed out?

Hi Jeff... Congratulations !... I wear the software "T2Laser" ... more reliable... (LaserGRBL also!)... A hug !...

3:22 " 2500 MW " oh yeah? Does it come with your own power plant?

Enjoyed the review. I sort of expected it would come out like that. Just remember if it don't cut metal it aint no good.

Can the second laser be used to cut through plexiglass acrylic

i dont know how many noobs blinds themselfes, others (walking by) or pets by these dangerous open Lasers. Its just insane to drive it without a case which shield all sides.

Fusion 360 and Grbl worked for me on a similar laser to the A3.

by the way this was a really helpful video. thanks a lot for it! so informative and honest!

There was a LOT more anime girls in this video than I thought going into it. LOL If the boxy one hadn't broke would you have thought it was a good device?

What attachment for cylinder engraving would work best with one of the less expensive lasers?

Have you seen any improvements in the A3 software since this video was created? I've been wanting one, but this video may change my mind.

I admire the few Tarantino film references. lol

Can someone 3d engrave wood with those cheap engravers?and do you need specific software? Or any free software will do the work?

Sir can you explain about software.

Glad to see you posting again 👍🏼 Enjoyable vid to watch regardless

I just wish I'd watched your vid before buying. The one I bought was the one where the connection came off. Now I have to wait 6 or 7 days, to see if the same happens?

What laser would you suggest for cutting plexiglass things of that sort?

Thank you for this review. Is it possible to tell me if the smaller one engraves metal?

hello can you advice or recommend an inexpensive laser engraver for gold metal jewelries? thank you

This A3 pro,,, it the max work area lock in the software or can one enter a bigger work area, ie if i put longer rails on it?

I just got a Neje 1.5w laser engraver and yeah it's pretty good for small simple stuff but now that i've had my taste I need a more powerful bigger laser. Found a "40w" chinese laser 12x8 inches for around £350

HI , MY DECAKER SEEMS TO BURN ONE ITEM ITEM, THEN WILL NOT BURN AGAIN , I KEPT IT ON THE SAME SETTINGS AND SAME PIC BUT THE LASER SEEMS TO BE WORKING BUT WILL NOT BURN.....ANY HELP WOULD BE GREAT, THANK YOU....

Thanks for review, I am just curious if can cut glue trough of back glass 8 and other models of any of this machine ( cheapest way if possible) have you try that or can you try and advice

Which one can i user to make very small logos in very small pieces. such as 2.5cm (Wide) x 6mm tall

What is maximum cutting depth for Eleksa engraver ?

You said compare/contrast. Not sure that a 200+ vs 70 dollar product is a fair contrast. I thought the first had promise to play with. Till the 2nd came up.

9:21 you could just sand off the soot and it'd probably be fine.

i wanted to know the length of the 5 Aluminum sticks 2020 and 2040

Honest review and Thank you for that. Looking at Glowforge Next video.🍀🍀🍀👍

Enjoyed this video review! 😊 thanks for sharing! Peace from Welland Ontario Canada 🇨🇦