Mike, a couple more responses from our Facebook group. From Claire - "

I've been doing this investigation myself recently, and have settled on the OmTech Polar 350 (50W desktop CO2).

I've previously run an emblaser and found that nothing I did would get it to actually cut acrylic, that and the issues with translucent material have put me off diode lasers completely. After that, it came down to balancing cost, work area, software versatility, and support availability. I've gone with the OmTech because I felt the potential lack of customer support (from reading online) was offset by the lower cost and the fact it runs RDWorks, not some proprietary software (like the Flux lasers)."

and from Chris - "Get the Lightburn software, it is worth the slight investment cost, you get a 30 day trial."

Hi Mike, not quite what you were asking for, but here's a bit of advice - 

"The desktop ones used to be useless because they didn’t have enough power.

The key is getting enough power otherwise they are too slow and so useless for classes. Can a desktop one do that now? I would tell you to see a demonstration on a range of materials to see speed/power etc before making a decision."

Will post any more feedback we receive .

Post your questions, requests, ideas or tips here for other secondary D&T teachers to respond to;