I got me a laser cutter, awesome!

Pinter75

Pinter75

Pinter75

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Joined
23 Oct 2004
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Brighton
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:

laser.JPG

(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!

bits.jpg


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.

refurb.jpg


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.

laserin.jpg


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:

lasercuts.jpg


&

rocket.jpg


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)
 
cheets64 said:
You sir, have some skills, TEACH ME
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Nah I just hack stuff. I ain't scared of technology, but invisible lasers that will burn your retina in nanoseconds do. When I was aligning the mirrors, I hit the pulse button with my hand still in there. It was only on 10% power but my skin vapourised! No bleeding as it cauterises as it cuts.

If you want to know what a co2 laser is like, Wikipedia a class 4 laser. Whoo.
 
Tefal said:
what's that mean? :o

oh a side note, all round pinter's in the case of a zombie/robot apocalypse :p
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A honeycomb bed allows the laser to disperse after it has annihilated what was placed in front of it. It also allows air to be circulated and extracted under the workpiece. A flat bed will simply get scorched, and most probably mark the material on the underside.

And yes I have welcomed out robot overlords, now I need to get the laser tube portable for the zombies. How can I create 20Kv on the move?
 
SideWinder said:
So if i bought a laser cutter, what else would i need? Would i have to be able to draw/use some form of software?
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1st deep pockets.

Unless you want a world of pain with the cheapy Chinese ones, get an Epilog.Made in the USA and act just as printers do. Tube recharges run at £1-2k and machines command a heafty premium even 2nd,3rd hand.

Think of it as a Plotter. Rather then a pen, it has a tiny spot of very powerful light. Whatever vector shapes you draw, it will "draw" or cut them out for you.

I normally design in 2D, then export to 3D to physically test fits and things, before I dump to the laser.

Have a look here to see atypical process... http://www.botbuilder.co.uk/boxbotbirth.html
 
GreatAuk said:
How hard was that to get working? did it not come with any software at all?
also, awesome :cool:
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Well, it is a bit of a lottery on these things. Most come with a board that works only with the software designed for it. Great for engraving and stuff. Not good for those (me) who want precise vector cutting.

On this one I noticed the digital control panel. This is a TopWisdom USB board and very neat indeed. Somebody imported it with all the bells and whistles, but probably gave up trying to get it to work. It had a total of 50 jobs passed on it, and the last one stored was a Chinese symbol. So I assume it was a factory test.

So a little research and a good look at the board reveals it has an FTDI chip on it. FTDI is a rs232 to TTL converter or a USB Serial port. Plugged it in and it enumerated as a virtual com port. This is good as it means the software to control it was not propriety.

A quick Google and I quickly found the plugin's and drivers on another Chinese website that uses the TopWisdom board in their laser machines.

Now I may use AutoCad, 3dMax etc, but my tool of choice is CorelDraw. I actually prefer it over Illustrator, and lucky for me the Laser manufacturers all seem to like it.

I got a direct plugin for Corel. Plugged in the laser, set the plugin to the correct com port, and I could connect. I was able to read off the configuration settings, prooving comms worked.

I drew a few simple vectors, and set them in different colours. Hit the laser output button, and it showed me all the objects. I could set different speeds and powers for each coloured line. Also the cutting order, so you can cut holes 1st then the outer cut. Also engrave 1st then cut. There are lots of options and I am slowly figuring out what they do.

So that was it, not too hard really. If you are comfortable with hardware and know what a com port it, you can probably get one working too.
 
PhillyDee said:
I have been after one of these for quite a while. I too am a hacker.

Since you now have one, have you visited www.thingiverse.com ? I have a 3D printer and have used a couple of models from there.

I also want a CNC lathe and CNC milling machine, although lack the space to even get manual versions. I did price up laser cutters and prices them around £4900 from a UK company. Not capable of cutting metals, but even came with a C axis for engraving circular objects. But I again, lack the funds and the space (currently anyway!)

If I ever need anything done, I may give you a shout . . . .
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I have an option on a very nice Epilog machine, I may get it an start offering a laser cutting service for small projects, much like Thingverse.

I have some acrylic ordered, and I am gonna make some boxes for some of the circuits I have designed. Will post if they work.
 
AcidHell2 said:
wow they aren't that expensive, loads on the bay for £500 ish. Now if you could take the innards out and make teh work area a meter square, or maybe fit it to a reprap and do the same that would be awesome.

Why are work area so small. Surly it's just a matter of making the axis bigger.
and how do these things do engraving, how does it know how far it has cut through a sheet.
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Yup there are loads on the bay. If you want one, please make sure it has a USB port, and a decent controller. Else you day will be spoiled. Saying that you can retro fit with new boards and drive from Mach3 etc..

As for cutting depth, it is all about focal lengths.I can whizz through 3mm acrylic. 6mm will need 2 or 3 passes, with the material being raised.
 
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