right now, laser engrave my own parts. it's a demo unit of the 15W model here: http://rmilaser.net/...s-1064nm-ndyv04
do i really need this, as in will it pay off? right now, no, not by typical ways of looking at investments. if i double the amount of laser engraving that i do, which i should as i introduce new models and phase out the older silkscreened ones, then maybe it will. i can also add personalized engravings or start a 2nd business for engraving outside work, which may be difficult as i would have to hire & train someone, and also this machine can't do glass or wood, and engraving very large parts would be hard.
on the plus side, i dont have to worry about a vendor screwing up this part of the process (Head-F1) and making it extremely difficult to fix. it will also take a couple weeks off of the duration of parts going through the vendor supply chain.
to date i have spent $10,500 engraving the front/back panels of the Pico (does not count Pico Slim). The 45 BHSEs that are about to be done would be $3,870 + shipping both ways (and time to package them) for engraving. This is well above market rate IMO, but they know the quality I expect and are charging me for it. I'm confident I can get results just as good on my own, as I did receive samples of parts marked by this machine. so, with the BHSE order about to happen, i pulled the trigger on the laser engraver