Howdy.
For a while I have been wanting my own laser cutter for rapid prototyping stuff at home. Normally they are the prices of a new car, and the cheap Chinese ones are a bit crappy.
I have access to a £16k Epilog for production runs (I design robots - www.botbuilder.co.uk), but using this for prototyping eats up time and money.
So I find on the bay one starting at 99p. Advertised as running but not working with any software. I have built my own CNC machines in the past, so not daunted by this. Yup it is a Chinese one, so probably a bit shoddy, but it has a sweet USB control board. Most of these come with horrid controllers and software that is not ideal for my uses, so I have avoided them in the past.
I won it for £230, went to pick it up and bought home this:
(Car is a Tamiya Mad Bull for scale)
Sure enough it fired up and I could move the X/Y axis, and fire the laser. Sweet!
After 2 days of debugging, I have it working directly from CorelDraw, as if it was a printer. It detects different coloured lines and lets you set speeds and powers etc. It will also engrave vectors and bitmaps!
So one all the comms were sorted, I took it all apart, as these things are assembled badly. No 2 bolts were the same and lots were missing!
They are all the component parts, at least the controllers and X/Y table were relay good quality. The c02 laser tube is at the front.
While it was in bits, it got a paint job as the factory colours are horrid.
Finished in gloss white and gun metal, with some nice warning labels cut on my vinyl cutter.
I put it back together with all new bolts and locking nuts. Nice and sturdy.
I really wanted a honeycomb bed, as this had a clamp, and not ideal for my cutting needs. Honeycomb is expensive, around £200 sqmtr. I Googled and put a call in to a UK factory. Asked for any off cuts, and next day I had a Jiffy bag containing a cut piece to size FOC! This stuff normally is used in missile fins!
Next I had to remodel my tiny workshop to get it in. New worktops cabinets etc were added.
It also needs air extraction to the outside along with a water pump to cool the laser.
Not done a lot actually using it, but for aligning the mirrors and focusing the head I have cut a few things out:
&
The smallest hole on the rocket is 1.3mm
So there we have a £4k laser for £230 and a few days hard work.
Hacktastic!
BTW It is a 40Watt (That is Watts of power not Milliwatts as you get on the laser diodes. This is a C02 laser and yup I have already burnt my self using it)
For a while I have been wanting my own laser cutter for rapid prototyping stuff at home. Normally they are the prices of a new car, and the cheap Chinese ones are a bit crappy.
I have access to a £16k Epilog for production runs (I design robots - www.botbuilder.co.uk), but using this for prototyping eats up time and money.
So I find on the bay one starting at 99p. Advertised as running but not working with any software. I have built my own CNC machines in the past, so not daunted by this. Yup it is a Chinese one, so probably a bit shoddy, but it has a sweet USB control board. Most of these come with horrid controllers and software that is not ideal for my uses, so I have avoided them in the past.
I won it for £230, went to pick it up and bought home this:
(Car is a Tamiya Mad Bull for scale)
Sure enough it fired up and I could move the X/Y axis, and fire the laser. Sweet!
After 2 days of debugging, I have it working directly from CorelDraw, as if it was a printer. It detects different coloured lines and lets you set speeds and powers etc. It will also engrave vectors and bitmaps!
So one all the comms were sorted, I took it all apart, as these things are assembled badly. No 2 bolts were the same and lots were missing!
They are all the component parts, at least the controllers and X/Y table were relay good quality. The c02 laser tube is at the front.
While it was in bits, it got a paint job as the factory colours are horrid.
Finished in gloss white and gun metal, with some nice warning labels cut on my vinyl cutter.
I put it back together with all new bolts and locking nuts. Nice and sturdy.
I really wanted a honeycomb bed, as this had a clamp, and not ideal for my cutting needs. Honeycomb is expensive, around £200 sqmtr. I Googled and put a call in to a UK factory. Asked for any off cuts, and next day I had a Jiffy bag containing a cut piece to size FOC! This stuff normally is used in missile fins!
Next I had to remodel my tiny workshop to get it in. New worktops cabinets etc were added.
It also needs air extraction to the outside along with a water pump to cool the laser.
Not done a lot actually using it, but for aligning the mirrors and focusing the head I have cut a few things out:
&
The smallest hole on the rocket is 1.3mm
So there we have a £4k laser for £230 and a few days hard work.
Hacktastic!
BTW It is a 40Watt (That is Watts of power not Milliwatts as you get on the laser diodes. This is a C02 laser and yup I have already burnt my self using it)
