These guides have been specifically designed to assist the user of a typical moderately priced Chinese laser engraving machine fitted with a constant HV tube and running the software RDWorks.
Although instructions will be specific to this category of machine, much of the information such as that referring to optics and techniques, will apply to any laser machine. 

Laser Mirror Alignment

Throw out your instructions. It's not just a poor translation, the manual doesn't even show a proper understanding of the optics involved. Align your machine this way.

Laser Cutter Focus Setting

While not as critical as aligning the mirrors, making sure the focus is set correctly, and understanding the beam profile of your cutting point, will help you squeeze that last few percentage of performance out of your machine.

Laser Power Measurements

The power quoted on the ebay listing won't be what you will actually get. While demonstrating how to use a thermopile laser power meter I have some results to show the sad truth.

Upgrade and Align Laser Cutter Table

Without a doubt the best mod you can do to a cheap laser cutter is this upgrade to the table bed. Also I have some instructions on how simple it is to make sure the laser table is properly aligned.

Speed & Power Settings for Various Materials

These are some settings I use on my 50W Chinese laser cutter. This should provide you with a good starting point to experiment from.