ACMER P2 33 Watt Laser Engraver
I recently reviewed the ACMER P1 S Pro and the ACMER P1 and now have been provided the ACMER P2 33 watt Laser Engraver ($799) to review. At no time has ACMER attempted to influence the content of my reviews. What you will read is exactly what I think.
I’d be remiss in not mentioning that ACMER is releasing their P3 IR and Diode Dual Laser soon!
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I’ve spent a lot more time on Laser Engraver forums lately and picked a few flowers out of those fields. I’ll do my best to keep this brief and fun.
Go to any laser forum and there is always one mama bear who will gasp with disbelief when some people post photos of the items they laser. She (it is usually a she) will then post something like this:
“OMG, don’t you know that item releases Hydrochloric gas which will kill you and corrode your machine?”
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LaserPecker 4
I recently got my hands on a LaserPecker 4 (LP4) and am giving it the old one, two. Conversely, I already own an xTool F1 and thought it would be fun to do a head to head shootout with them.
Both have similar specifications. And both contain a 2 watt 1064 nm IR laser, and a 450 nm blue diode 10 watt laser. The working area is roughly similar on both lasers. Additionally, both have an extension conveyor and both can be used with a rotary device.
So you’d think that it would difficult to declare one to be better than other? Trust me. It wasn’t difficult to determine which one was better.
But we’ll get to that.
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Digital Mobile Radio, aka DMR Radios are expensive. If you are a Ham radio operator you can get a hand held radio that is decent for less than $50. Not so much in the world of digital hand held radios. The radio that seems to be ordained for the top slot costs around $329. John’s Tech Blog has ordained that the best DMR radio for 2024 is the Retevis RT3S which costs about $86 for a non-GPS version, and about $90 for the GPS version.
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John’s Tech Blog will be down on May 4th sometime after 7 PM EST. The downtime may be as long as 2 hours during a 10 hour window.
This is my web host performing maintenance on their servers and outside of my control.
ACMER provided me their M2 Rotary Roller ($89) to review. I am no stranger to laser rotary devices and own at least 7 at the moment.
Many of these rotary devices are similar, however, there are elements that make some better than others.
The first thing I want to say about the ACMER M2 Rotary Roller is that it COMES ASSEMBLED.
There is nothing quite as enjoyable as taking parts, belts, motors and gears out of a box that contains no instructions and trying to put it together. That simply isn’t the case here.
And it will engrave items from 4mm to 138mm in diameter. Within that range are 4 width adjustments of 20/40/60/80 mm.
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TIDRadio TD-H3
Seems like there is no shortage of new Amateur Band and GMRS radios out there for sale. Today we’ll take a look at the TIDRadio TD-H3. TIDRadio has been around since 2013, however, this is the first one of their radios I have owned. They are available on Amazon for about $32. When you see what this radio can do you will recognize that $32 is a STEAL.
This radio follows a trend that I, and many others have noticed. The consumer wants a radio that can do it all despite any FCC rules or regulations stating otherwise. The buying public seems to want radios that can be unlocked to do much more than they are certified to do.
And that is pretty much what we have here with the TIDRadio TD-H3. It should be noted that if you buy the Amateur TD-H3 (HAM) it doesn’t break any rules. When you buy the TD-H3 (GMRS) version it is also set up for GMRS rules and regs.
It is when the owner unlocks the radio is where the fun begins. Again, it seems like this is what radio customers want these days.
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My new friends at ACMER recently sent me their P1 S Pro to review and they promptly followed that up by sending me an ACMER P1 10 watt laser engraver, an M2 Rotary Roller, and an R10 Enclosure.
I’ll just be featuring the ACMER P110 watt laser in this blog though and will cover the other items in a subsequent entry.
The P1 laser checks in at $339 on their website with the 10 watt laser head.
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SharkRF Openspot 4 Pro
I bought a SharkRF Openspot 1 in around 2018. So I have been a long time user of SharkRF gear. I absolutely, positively did NOT need another DMR hotspot but I sprung for the SharkRF Openspot 4 Pro anyway.
Boy I sure am I glad that I did.
I am no hotspot rookie and currently have 4 Raspberry Pi with various MMDVM boards in rotation here at Casa John’s Tech Blog. I run Pi-Star and WPSD OS’s. And have toyed with various other OS’s over the years.
There are strengths and weaknesses in all these DMR hotspots. One weakness in the Pi-Star world is that it needs to be shut down elegantly. When you have a hotspot plugged in a USB port in your truck which uses your cell phone for internet it is kind of hard (and very inconvenient) to find the IP address, open a web page on your phone and shut it down. Sooner rather than later you are going to corrupt the SD card on the Raspberry Pi if you just kill the power. In fact I have done this a few times.
The SharkRF Openspot 4 Pro caught my eye because it is battery powered.
And that is all I really wanted for my mobile hotspot. Something I wouldn’t kill from uncommanded shut downs.
What I got was so much more than I expected. Read on.
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DMR Hotspot
So you have decided to take the leap into Digital Mobile Radio (DMR). DMR uses the internet as the backbone for carrying communications. Adding an MMDVM board to a Raspberry Pi is one common way to create a hotspot.
To get to that backbone you need to enter the internet either through a DMR Repeater or through a DMR Hotspot.
A hotspot is just a gateway to the internet and your radio talks to the hotspot and then your transmission is carried through the net to someone else’s repeater or hotspot.
I’d be remiss in not pointing out that so far no radio companies have really jumped in this market. You would think that the big dog radio manufacturers that sell DMR radios would also produce DMR Hotspots, but they really don’t.
It is mostly amateur operators who design and produce MMDVM boards and sell them to the public. You then roll your own. There are a couple of exceptions here as Bridgecom Systems sells pre-configured DMR Hotspots. Also, a company called Shark RF sells a hotspot called OpenSpot. Both are kind of pricey.
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