I can engrave at 1000 MS with the results being perfect on lamacoids, same as before at 200 MS. Crisp edges, and consistant depth. The stepper motors I have are capable of higher - But I find the belt slips if I go higher... It'll engrave it crisp 90% of the time at 12-1300, but sometimes it'll skip a step and the text will shift. That may be because Of my belt though... it came with slow steppers, and I upgraded to closed loop - I havent had time / cared enough to find just the right consistency of tightness to make it work perfect... I'd say thats one of the drawbacks of the omtechs... Theyre great if you're willing to tinker and do upgrades... Where as the trotec just works.
I bought the Omtech as a "Entry level" machine so I could learn on it / abuse it, then swap to a higher end Trotec once I was sure I wasn't going to destroy it. But sadly even though I use it multiple hours a week, it hasnt died on me yet.... and I abuse it, I never clean the mirrors..... never changed or refilled the water/antifreeze (Another benefit of RF lasers), I dont think I've cleaned the bed once.
A 24 x 24 sheet generally takes me an hour if it's 3"x12" lamacoids - 1" x 3" ones a lot more. It's definitely way slower, which is why I think it's a good starter machine... I'd say 90% of what I do is cut coro and acrylic though, If I were more focused on engraving I'd likely want a trotec... but for me bigger bed size is more important than Faster speed... it's all about the convenience, I'd never buy a laser thats under 48" wide with a pass through! Omtech makes some 50" wide lasers, and they have a pass through - So you can put a 4x8 sheet in and just pass it throughand cut a full 4x8 sheet.
The cheaper thunder you linked is a 12" x 20" Working area - and only does 1000 MS engraving. even for people who want smaller footprints, I don't think I'd go under 24x24 since thats what most materials get cut down into. Their pro 32 with a 32 x 20 bed size is 15K usd... So getting up there in price!
Personally if it were me, and I was going to cut patches, maybe get started into lamacoids / acrylics... I'd go with an omtech polar if space was an issue... But those still feel like hobby hobby machines, so Omtech pronto for a shop that has space - $6000 USD for a 100 watt machine that can engrave at 1000 MS. 28" x 20" Working bed...can cut acrylics up to 1", so you can at least load 24x24 sheets, or 24x48 sheets with the pass through.
I havent found anything the trotec can do that the Omtech can't, same quality of cut, same quality of engraving... Maybe if you get into really intricate designs RF makes a difference, but even my .5" x 2" Lamacoids I make it looks great... I've done a lot of tiny text metal plaques as well, the beam on glass tubes is still needle size, so I can't see how RF tubes engrave at better quality.... Google says they do though, so I'm guessing it must be photos / super thin lined stuff or something else. but for patches / lamacoids, I'd say quality wise they're equal.
