Software only
The controller-aware core driving a machine you already own, per seat. Machine profiles, saved setup, and a heat map preview showing the generated toolpath colour coded by power rather than the source artwork.
Business systems
The core is deployment-form independent. Here it arrives as one machine on your floor.
The controller-aware core is written in Nelson and it drives every form the mark is delivered in, from an inline galvo station marking a moving line to a single machine on a workshop floor. In this form it arrives specified around your parts: the source selected against the material, the machine profile read off the controller at connect time, the part library configured so a job is set up once and repeated correctly, and the modules, install, training and support scoped as one engineering job.
- One internal, dialect-neutral motion program emitted into GRBL, Marlin, Smoothieware and Generic, with power scaling read off the controller's own registers at connect time rather than assumed
- The source specified against the material the part is made from, from fibre at about 1064 nm and pulse-controlled MOPA through green at 515 or 532 nm, UV at 355 nm and CO2 at 9.3, 10.2 or 10.6 micron
- Hardware, software configuration, modules, install, calibration, training and support quoted as one scope with every line itemised
Three ways into the same core
The core is identical across all three. What changes is how far it reaches into the plant and how much engineering sits around it. The scoping call settles which one the work calls for.
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Business system
The core plus the hardware it drives: the source specified against your materials, modules built around the parts, install and calibration on site, training on your own jobs. This is the page you are on.
Enterprise programme
The Light Lane Control Layer reading the PLC tag at the head, pulling the job from the ERP or MES that already owns it, composing the mark per part at line rate, and writing the completion back against the job.
A business system is an engineering scope, not a machine and an invoice
Hardware specified against the material the parts are made from and the volumes the floor actually runs. The controller-aware core configured to your part library, so a job is set up once and repeated correctly rather than rebuilt by whoever is on shift. The modules the work calls for: a rotary for drinkware, a conveyor for batched flat parts, jigs for repeat product lines. Installation and calibration on your site. Training that runs on your own jobs. A support tier scoped with the system and written down before commissioning.
Whichever controller ends up on your floor, the core emits one internal, dialect-neutral motion program into GRBL, Marlin, Smoothieware and Generic, each with its own laser-on command, travel strategy, power scale, precision and streaming discipline. That is what keeps the source and the controller a specification decision rather than a lock-in decision: the machine bought this year and the machine added beside it in three years take the same job. The dialect by dialect mapping, down to the register the power scale is read from at connect time, is set out in how it works. A head decelerating into a corner deposits more energy per millimetre than a head at cruise, which is what burns corners, so power is modulated against actual velocity and an inline power value is emitted on every move. Constant power is not a constant result, and the software asks the machine what it can do rather than assuming.
The specification discipline is the same one that runs on a processing line. Parameters are established on your own material rather than carried over from another shop, the first run is validated on your own parts before the system is called done, and what the system holds is written down before it is built. Modules are dimensioned off the parts themselves, which is why the scoping call asks for the drinkware, the panel or the casting rather than a description of it.
What is scoped, itemised
Every line is quoted on its own, so each module and each service can be seen, priced and cut on its merits.
- Hardware specified against the parts and materials you actually run. The source is selected against the material: fibre at about 1064 nm on steel, stainless, aluminium, titanium and coated metal; pulse-controlled MOPA where pulse duration, repetition rate and pulse energy have to move independently, typically 4 to 200 ns at 1.6 kHz to 1 MHz; green at 515 or 532 nm on copper, brass, gold and silver, where absorption climbs sharply below about 600 nm; UV at 355 nm on glass, ceramics, PCBs and heat sensitive plastics; CO2 at 9.3, 10.2 or 10.6 micron on timber, board, acrylic and coated surfaces. One source is specified per system unless the part mix genuinely calls for two, and that call is made against the parts you send in.
- The controller-aware core configured to your part library, with machine profiles and saved setup so a good result is recovered rather than rediscovered, and a heat map preview showing the generated toolpath colour coded by power rather than the source artwork, so a bad setting is caught on screen instead of on the workpiece.
- Modules built for the work and designed and built in our Nelson facility: rotary fixtures for drinkware, conveyors for batched flat parts, jigs for repeat product lines, extraction and filtration, and safety enclosures and interlocks.
- Class 4 laser safety as specification rather than accessory: enclosure, interlocks, beam containment and a rated safety circuit, specified to ISO 11553-1, IEC 60825-1, IEC 60204-1 and ISO 13849-1, and designed into the install rather than added to it.
- Code generation held to the standard the scanner reads at: QR in square, rounded and dot module styles with centre logo embedding at 5 to 29 percent of symbol size and error correction raised to level H whenever a logo is enabled, plus Code 128, Code 39, EAN-13, UPC-A and ITF-14 with input validation enforced at entry rather than discovered at the scanner.
- Installation, calibration and a first run validation pass on your own materials before the system is called done.
- Operator training on your own jobs, until your team runs it without us in the room. It is booked against your shift pattern, so the people setting up a job at seven in the morning are the ones who stood in front of the machine.
- A support tier scoped to the operation, remote diagnostics on the software side, and software updates for the life of the system, fetched from a signed version manifest and verified against a published SHA-256 checksum before installation.
What moves the price
A system is quoted against the scope rather than listed, because the number moves on real drivers: the source class and the power the material dictates, the machine bed size, the number and type of modules, the depth of the software configuration and any integration, install and training time, and the support tier.
Every one of those drivers is settled at the scoping call and itemised in the written proposal, so the figure arrives with a scope behind it rather than a range you still have to qualify. Systems are bought outright, funded through your own facility, or staged so the spend lands across more than one budget period rather than in a single year.
The arithmetic that decides it is commercial rather than physical. Where the outsourcing spend is real and the same jobs come round again, a configured part library turns repeat work into setup that happens once. Where the work runs a few hours a week and the spend going out the door is small, the software on a machine you already own is the route that earns its place, and the scoping call says so with the numbers attached.
The work this system is specified around
Where the case is made
Signage, branded product, drinkware, timber and joinery, apparel, packaging and part marking currently going out to a queue somebody else controls. The case is margin and lead time: one line cuts, engraves and marks across timber, acrylic and metal, so a job stops changing hands between steps and the schedule stops depending on someone else's backlog. Repeat volume is what turns that into a number, because a part library configured once is a job set up once and repeated correctly for years.
- Work currently going out to a queue you do not control, with the lead time set by someone else's schedule
- Enough repeat volume that the same job is set up again and again, which is exactly what a configured part library removes
- Materials and parts specific enough that the source and the fixturing are chosen against them rather than worked around on a general purpose machine
Go deeper
Why bring it in-house
The commercial case at driver level: lead time, margin, minimum order quantities, and the costs worth having on paper before capital is committed.
What you can make
Signage, branded product, drinkware, timber and joinery, apparel, packaging, part marking and prototyping, with the substrates named and the process window stated against each.
Book a scoping call
Bring your products and your volumes. You get back what the system would be, what it would cost, and what it would hold on your own material.
The same core, running at line rate
The composition engine, the connection patterns with their authentication models and failure edges, and the acceptance document set stay the same as the deployment form changes. Where the mark has to be composed per part out of an ERP or MES and fired on a moving line, these are the pages for it.
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Manufacturing and fabrication
In-fixture marking on a cutter you already own: the machine pauses part way through a cut, the head fires the traceability code onto the part where it sits in the fixture, and the cut resumes.
Branded production and signage
Branded and promotional production tied into the order system that already owns the job, with the mark composed per item rather than pre-rendered.
The record architecture
For work where the code on your product has to survive the wash, the yard or the years, and be read back later against a record rather than only look right at the machine.
Engineering questions, answered before the scoping call
How do the software, a business system and an enterprise programme differ?
By how far the core reaches. On its own it drives a machine you already own from a seat. As a business system it arrives with the hardware it drives, specified against your materials, with the modules, install, training and support scoped around it. As an enterprise programme the Light Lane Control Layer reads the PLC tag that identifies the part at the head, pulls the job from the ERP or MES that already owns it, composes the mark for that individual part, fires it at line rate and writes the completion back against the job. The core is identical in all three, and the scoping call settles which form the work calls for.
Do we choose a source before the call?
The parts choose it. The source is selected against the material: fibre and pulse-controlled MOPA on metals, green at 515 or 532 nm on copper and brass, UV at 355 nm on glass, ceramics and heat sensitive plastics, and CO2 on timber, board and acrylic. Bring the parts in the material and surface condition they actually arrive in, and the source, the power and the fixturing follow from them.
What does a system cost?
It is set by the drivers: the source class and power the material dictates, bed size, the number and type of modules, configuration and integration depth, install and training time, and the support tier. The scoping call settles each driver and the written proposal itemises every line, so the number arrives with a scope attached to it.
What happens to our output when the software updates?
The part you sign off at the first run validation pass is the reference. Emitted machine output is regression checked against a fixed fixture suite before a release ships, so a version change reaches you as new software rather than as a new result on the workpiece. On a single machine that is also the week's capacity, you decide when an update goes on, and the saved setup that produced the accepted part is still the setup that runs after it. The fixture suite and the conformance validator behind that are documented in the engineering specifications.
Can the system run on a workshop network with no internet access?
Yes. Every licence state transition works offline, activation, lease refresh and deactivation alike, each carried as a signed exchange the application checks on the machine itself. For a workshop that keeps the production side off the internet, that means the laser runs on an isolated network, and retiring a seat from an old machine and standing it up on a new one is something your own people finish on the floor without waiting on us. The key handling and the signature scheme behind it are set out on integrations. The assistant features are the single part that needs a live connection, and they sit outside the path that generates and runs a job.
How is a good result kept repeatable across operators and shifts?
Machine profiles and saved setup hold the parameters on the system and in writing, so a setting is recovered rather than rediscovered. The part library is configured once, so the job is set up once. The heat map preview shows the generated toolpath colour coded by power rather than the source artwork, so a bad setting is caught on screen instead of on the workpiece. Training runs on your own jobs and your own saved setups, so what an operator learns is the work they will run on Monday rather than a demonstration part.
What proves the mark holds on our material?
Send a part in the material and surface condition it actually arrives in, and tell us what happens to it afterwards: the wash, the chemistry, the abrasion, the years outdoors. What comes back is a numbered capability study on that part, and the process window in it is what the system is then specified, quoted and accepted against, so the machine on the floor is sized to a measured result rather than to a hope. Published figures are typical envelopes from our own testing, and the binding number is the one determined on your own material.
Scope a system against the parts you actually make
Bring what you make, the materials the parts are made from, and the volumes that actually matter. You get back what the system would be, what it would cost with every line itemised, and the process window determined on your own material. Send a part ahead of the call and the numbered capability report is on the table when we talk.
Last updated August 21, 2026