As you can imagine, I’ve looked at many chargers, lots of them have proven to be disappointing, many are just plain boring. Early days but this ISDT C4 charger (from Banggood) looks neither. Indeed it looks marvellous.

From initial impression through to operation this looks like a complete winner to me up to now. 4 sides of the manual are in English, certainly enough to get started. The unit does charging, discharging, storage charging, activation (for batteries that look dead, I so wish other chargers would do this), analysis and USB charging (to charge phones)….

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Update June 29 2018

After much delay and I have to say patience from Banggood, I have now put together this A3 laser engraving machine. Originally, a 500mW module arrived complete with its own power supply (the laser which was not included in the basic kit). It turns out that was the wrong laser and now I have the 2300mW violet laser complete with upgraded 2.5A power supply. In the photo you also see the green protective glasses that came with the kit.

It is important to note that this is not a toy. Never fire up without the glasses and also be wary of reflective surfaces when the laser is on. It is powerful enough to do damage (obviously, it is used for engraving).

And here it is, up and running at last. I have some cardboard in there and clearly the unit has the capacity to engrave, however, it came out with vague edges so I have some focusing to do, preferably without putting my eyes in peril. I need a little more info for that.

Seemed like a good idea relying on mobile signals instead of high speed broadband for a week o so before heading off to Spain… well,, it SEEMED a good idea at the time, but now I’ve used some considerable downloads to get this laser set up precisely.

Attempt 1. Very small text (14pt in computer printer terms). Came out in reverse, but even using the LOW setting on the laser thinking I might test paper for speed, I managed to go clean through half a dozen sheets. Clearly I need to master the use of speed. However, everything worked and now I know there is no shortage of available power.

Sitting on a box, this A3 engraver has yet to be tidied up but if you want promotion pictures there are lots of websites for that.

The important thing is, this photo shows the complete Banggood-supplied EleksMaker Laser Engraver and NOW I have some decent software to run with the laser (which does not have microswitch end stops before you ask – I may add those later. I have a copy of Lightburn 0.7.02 which works a treat for me on Windows 10 64 bit. The LightBurn company were very helpful when I had questions.

Continue reading EleksMaker Pro Laser Engraver →