An LASER cutter is a really productive device to have around. It's very easy to create 2D parts.
Another way to go Open-Source for a lot less money (~$1500) is to buy a K40 on EBay and refit it with a Buildbotics controller.
The other day I needed a faceplate for an outlet with a circular 240v US dryer plug and a two port 120v US plug. I couldn't find anything at the hardware store that would work but I found drawings for the junction box and plugs online. After an hour or two with LibreCAD and CAMotics, I was ready to LASER cut my faceplate from 1/4" poplar. I was really happy when it fit exactly the first time. Now I keep looking behind the dryer to admire my handiwork.
Disclaimer: I'm a creator of CAMotics and Buildbotics.
Slightly offtopic: is poplar really the best material for an electrical wall plate? Wouldn't it be flammable? What's the dielectric withstand going to be like for a wooden wall plate in a humid environment like a laundry room?
solidwood faceplates are not uncommon. take a stroll down the electrical section of a major chain hardware store and you should be able to find a few. a lot of them seem to be made of bamboo. as for the dielectric properties, even in a “humid environment” its unlikely to be an issue. i mean, does a foggy morning short every outlet without a protective cover? if your voltages were high enough, sure you could draw an arc through the humid air...but it seems like you would have to hit closer to the kV range
No closed loop stepper support at this point. We are taking about making a driverless version of the Buildbotics controller which you could pair with any external driver or closed loop steppers.
Am I the only one still waiting for the first open-source kW fiber laser solution? Open-source laser tinkering has always hovered at subpar wattage levels...barely enough to cut any metals above 0.060” (1.5mm) thickness...all while the Chinese have already surpassed closed-source companies like IPG and developed affordable ($11-15k...compared to $90-150k) closed-source solutions for fiber laser.
I built a lasersaur of my own last year! I put together a project writeup[1], and have been doing a little bit of development on my fork of the firmware in order to significantly speed up raster & fill engraving, and to and put in some quality of life software mods.[2]
Unfortunately the original creators have abandoned the project, but fortunately it's completely open source so it's still buildable. Mine cost about $7k for the parts and all the accessories I had to get along with it, but I think that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in someone going through and updating a lot of the more expensive parts in the BOM. I saved about $2k by doing so and put together a spreadsheet linked to from [1], but there's definitely still room to upgrade the steppers to something cheaper and more powerful, etc. There was a good discussion in the mailing list[3] a few weeks ago about whether it still makes sense in 2020 to build a Lasersaur. I'm personally of the opinion that if you want a laser cutter for the purpose of creating stuff with it, the best option is going to be getting a Chinese cutter, doing a few upgrades, and buying Lightburn as your software interface. But if you want the experience of building / intimately knowing the machine and find that rewarding in and of itself, go for it.
Hate to plug them but their product is pretty good: glowforge. the opposite of open source, it does plug and play for around $2,500 with a smaller work area(12x20) and 40W laser. We prototype enclosure cut outs with ours. Working with wood and acrylic is fun.
A 120-watt laser like the one in the Lasersaur can maybe cut 6-mm MDF at 50 mm/sec. A typical plasma cutter can maybe cut 6-mm mild steel at 50 mm/sec. https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/ASTM-A36-SS400-S275-Struc... suggests that A36 mild steel is 25 times as rigid and 25 times as strong as MDF.† So I think that in some sense a plasma cutter is about 25 times as useful as a low-power laser cutter like this one.
Of course, there are a multitude of other properties to consider. Mild steel fails through ductile deformation; MDF fails through brittle fracture. Mild steel rusts when it gets wet; MDF swells and loses most of its strength. Steel weighs 8 g/cc, and MDF weighs 0.75 g/cc. (That means that if you can make the steel thin enough, you can get the same tensile strength as MDF with 60% less weight using steel. You might even be able to cut the steel with a laser cutter, though probably a higher-power one.) Steel is cold to sit on and not breathable like MDF. MDF won't cut your fingers if you don't deburr it. Lasersaur claims precision of 30–100 μm, and even 100 μm is hard to reach with plasma cutting. Steel rings because its elasticity is almost perfect, with a Q over 1000, while MDF thuds because it has a lot of elastic hysteresis, so it eats vibration for breakfast; by the same token, though, it is not suitable for high-precision positioning. Lasersaur can cut some transparent materials, while a plasma cutter can only cut metals. And plasma torches are kind of dangerous but far less treacherous than a 100-watt laser.
But, at the crudest, most oversimplified level, you can build things just as fast and 25 times as skookum with a plasma CNC table, or several times as fast and just as skookum, or equally skookum and much lighter. And a lot of the same design principles carry over, although plasma torches have more trouble with sharp corners than laser cutters do, because they can't ramp their power down to zero.
† According to that site, A36 has a Young's modulus of 190 GPa and an ultimate tensile strength of 480 MPa, though you probably don't really want to exceed its yield stress of 290 MPa. MDF has a Young's modulus of 4 GPa (no word on whether that's in-plane or transverse) and a tensile strength of 18 MPa.
I'm not sure why one would ever consider mechanical properties of MDF when one could cut plywood, etc.
The appeal of a laser cutter is you can cut things with no hold-down, engrave in the same pass, and get nice finished edges on acrylic or wood, including sharp corners and very small intricate details.
I have a milling machine, a plasma cutter, a CO2 laser, and 3D printers (and some other stuff). The laser cutter can't be used for everything, but for the stuff it can do I prefer it over any other tool. It's just easy and good.
MDF laser-cuts a lot more predictably than plywood, and it's cheaper. I agree that laser cutters are super awesome. I wouldn't want to try to cut plywood or acrylic with a plasma cutter!
What kind of tolerances do you get on your plywood cuts? Lasersaur is claiming they get down to 30μm on some materials. I'd think plywood would be more like 200μm, from what I've read, but I don't have any real experiences.
1/8" plywood is about 70 micron tolerances, once you account for kerf. This is dependent upon not getting super fine tiny thin pieces that tend to warp.
1/4" plywood-- there's a whole lot of taper and edges aren't quite square. Multipass helps a little bit. Probably about half a millimeter of taper? For most things it just does not matter.
Just one more note: my default construction material at this point for many things is sandwiches of 3D printed nylon innards with sheets of plywood or acrylic on the outside, all screwed together with M3 or M4 screws. It is stronk and fast to fabricate.
The 7000 price point is an interesting middle ground. That is past the hobbyist range and into small industrial cutter range. So trading works out of the box and a warrantee for bed size and wattage
For that price you might as well get a proper laser cutter from glowforge or that Colorado corp whose name escapes me which includes an exhaust plan as well as saftey interlocks.
Not sure about the Colorado corp. But I have a 40W laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser (Las Vegas) which cost me ~$1700. (Their hobby series laser, which got much more expensive afterwards). Now they have their "Muse" which seems pretty nice for ~$2800.
But Glowforge doesn't give you an open source laser cutter; rather the opposite extreme — their product is nonfunctional without its constant surveillance-capitalism umbilical back to the mothership. This is like suggesting buying a motorcycle to someone who's looking for a bulldozer.
"Do not stare into laser beam with remaining eyeball."
Seriously, this sort of project is dangerous. While there's a big fat disclaimer and warning on their home page, the wiki info about exhaust filtration is sketchy at best, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of serious attempt at health and safety guidelines.
Remember: any laser cutter that can actually cut wood can actually cut skin and muscle, cause serious burns, boil your eye in your skull, and creates toxic particulate exhaust.
And Q-switched pulse lasers for hair removal (i.e. to be aimed at your face) whose included safety goggles are more than a little suspicious: https://youtu.be/-BeTq99LqUo
You should see how some low budget Chinese factories that pump out laser-cut cards (etc) operate.
I've seen videos of workers huddled in a small room operating wholly unshielded galvonometer-type lasers (as in the sort that were popular in laser shows in the 80s.. but with lasers designed to actually cut) without any extraction, using bits of corrugated card to manually waft away fumes.
They don't come with safety glass, but 'safety' glasses, which I recognize as brazing/welding glasses. They are absolutely the wrong color to protect from that blue led laser.
I'm with anonsivalley652, who has had his response here killed - for sure, lasers can be dangerous, but caveat emptor, and all that.
I've a plan for a type of laser rig I've never seen before and as soon as I have the readies I'm going to try and build it. The more information that is out there from people in the same boat, the better and ultimately - safer.
I’ve stopped going to Makerfaire-like events because home-made laser cutters seem to be the thing now and I’m vary of visiting hackerspaces. I’ve seen too many of these things out in the open with zero protection, just waiting to blind some random onlooker. A lot of people building these have zero respect for eye safety.
That's mind-boggling considering the amount of children that go to those events. You'd think they'd have more safety regulations before someone gets their kid blinded when they just wanted to show them cool technology.
And then ten years later. after seeing TopGun IV, one of those kids wants to become a fighter pilot. "Sorry kid, the optometrist just discovered your right eye has a huge blind spot in blue wavelengths. You will never fly, and you might want to think twice about driving after dark." One slight accident as a kid can vastly alter future career paths. Safety equipment or not, children simply should not be around lasers at these powers.
Lasers like this, even diffuse reflections of the working surface, can instantly and permanently give you color-specific blind spots. The human brain quickly fills in the gaps. After a couple days you will think all is fine. Your standard eye-doctor visit might not turn up anything. Only years later, when you get a colour-specific field test, do you finally realize that you just don't see blue/red from one direction.
I've been working with lasers for a decade now, no problems - up until a few months back.
I had the Worst Cold I've ever had, and had to drag myself in to the studio on a couple of occasions to run a couple of cutting jobs. Deadlines.
Feeling as awful as I was, I had a couple of Ibuprofen (Advil in the States, I believe) and tried to get on. Checking a job that was cutting I peeked at the machine - which has a protective clear plastic screen, as I have a thousand times before - and then got on with things. When I walked away from the machine I realised I had a small artefact in the centre of my left eye's vision.
It was clearly the reflected light from the cut, in a v-shape, about 3mm high at arm's length. Sort of like the seed of a visual migraine.
It didn't go away.
It wasn't huge, but it was incredibly bothersome - if I winked with that eye open and tried to read, this artefact would block the centre of focus, making reading very difficult.
It still didn't go away.
I started researching light blindness, lasers and even reactions to nuclear flashes and such, trying to ascertain whether I was now permanently slightly-blind.
In this search I happened upon research from the early seventies that attributed similar blindness artefacts from Ibuprofen consumption.
Months later, it's barely visible and - as you say - my brain's routed around the problem, but I still see it in certain light conditions and I think it might be with me for the rest of my life.
A bit of a bugger.
- ed
incidentally, i've had a few visual migraines spurred by looking into the machine over the years - low light gloomy conditions (as now here in LDN) and a bright point of light seems to set them off for me. I've always checked with clients who want to view the process whether or not they have visual migraines, and warn them if so. Now I also ask if they're on Ibuprofen :\
Reading this, it really seems like you entered this conversation by amplifying someone who was mocking the thread for expressing safety concerns with laser cutters, and closed it out by telling a story about how you quite probably permanently injured yourself with a laser cutter.
I agreed with the sentiment of the guy, not his tone, and my experience here is a peculiar one more likely to do with the particular medication than an unsafe laser set up - the paper from the 70s indicates ibuprofen has this affect on people without lasers too.
As I say, I've been doing this for years and have done exactly what I did literally thousands (tens of thousands?) of times. The machine I have is a commercially manufactured, slightly expensive thing that is compliant with regulations covering the EU and US. It's not some shoddy DIY adventure.
I put it down to one of those statistically unlikely fuck yous that life throws out. One day I'll add it as a footnote to my version of a homemade machine and we can both be happy.
Isn't this basically what people said about SawStops ("I've ripped thousands of boards and..."), and then it turns out that the cost of all table saw injuries exceeds the total value of the table saw market?
People are really mad about SawStops, too! They're patented! But like, it's not crazy to suggest that nobody should have a table saw without a SawStop, and that it would be irresponsible to sell such a saw to the public.
Just to clarify - I have all of the safety measures in place, and am a 'respecter of safety' (to misquote Larry David) - my tale of woe here is specifically in reference to the Ibuprofen angle, which was such an outlier case.
However, I don't think over-wrought fears about safety should preclude the sharing of information on practical, industrious subjects (unless we're talking explosives or whatever..). I do think that concerns should be higlighted and manuals and media updated to reflect.
"then it turns out that the cost of all table saw injuries exceeds the total value of the table saw market?"
I don't understand this comparison. The benefit from people using table saws is not equal to the "total value of the table saw market". I mean, if it was, even if there were no accidents, we could improve society by just not bothering making them.
I agree that unshielded diode lasers are scary. But CO2 lasers like Lasersaur are a great tool for kids. I'm purchasing one for a school right now.
CO2 lasers at around 50W are not such a particularly scary thing. The laser light itself is absolutely stopped by the enclosure.
The thing being cut can glow, but only with about a quarter of the light power put into it at most (diffusely). So we're talking about a 12.5W omnidirectional small light, which is further shaded by the 75% tint on the laser enclosure.. It's quite reasonable to consider this class 1.
(I do see the scary sibling comment. Obviously one should not stare at the bright cut; one should have a tinted enclosure; and one should have safety glasses with tint, too).
When I go to the dentist, nobody questions the dentist leaving the room when we turn on the X-ray machine. Is it too much to ask the kids not to be in the same room as such a laser? If CD players need to be shielded inside DARK boxes, why not the multi-watt laser? The kids can watch the process through a camera.
1) the laser is already in a box that makes it into a class 1 laser device (same regulatory category as a CD-ROM!). Already adding goggles and extra distance is well beyond recommended occupational protections.
2) the process does need to be supervised and stopped and fires extinguished now and then.
3) the kids acting as the actual machine operator is an important part of the process, IMO.
I've been a laser safety officer for actual class 4 lasers. A proper commercial medium-power CO2 laser cutter is class 1. It's not free of hazards (fumes, fire, and somewhat bright non-coherent light-- not as bright as some LEDs), but the number of boxes of concern you can check are far lower.
Just one little anecdote: the stray reflection of a beefy laser off the side of a chrome chair frame was enough to puncture a hole in a car tire standing outside the space where the laser was. So through a window as well as being reflected already three times.
Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully. Posting like this destroys the community no matter how right you are, so it's not ok on HN.
That’s debatable. I had a laser cutter for a couple years and used cheap tubes off eBay with zero issues. Cutting power was probably less per watt than with an expensive tube and lifetime was lower, but at 1/4 the price it doesn’t really matter.
The problem with laser modules is that they're expensive, fragile, fussy and consume a metric ton of energy.
I saw some 150W+ CO2 tubes drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress available with and without power supplies. These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too.
It's doable, but careful engineering principles have to be applied. Also, Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Might be good to have some proven tested safety gargles to protect yer peepers and wear welding gloves/neck/chaps when nearby during operation.
I figure a small budget gantry and system maybe had for $2500 US (with lots of scrimping and repurposing) or a nicer one for $4000-9000. A vacuum table, indexing (calibration/zeroing) system and 60° tilt table for floorspace compactness might help too.
> These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too.
This can be a $20 immersion pump, a 5 gallon bucket, a filter, and some tubing. This won't let you cut all day long in a warm room without a slope off in performance, but you can run several long jobs a day.
If I wanted to cut more, I think I'd add more water before doing anything fancier like radiators or even chillers.
Slightly harder is the air assist, but again cheap pumps will do it, and then there's the exhaust system-- usually you use a small industrial blower and dryer vent.
> Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating.
Usually one just makes it class 1-- put it in a box, with a window opaque to infrared, and an interlock that disables the beam if the box is opened.
E-stop is important because you will eventually have a fire.
> A vacuum table,
The whole nice thing with a laser is you don't need hold down because there's no cutting forces.
> indexing (calibration/zeroing)
Usually what you do is just combine a red diode laser onto where the beam goes. I do have a square fence I added to my laser that I can align work against, but I usually don't use it.
Zero cutting forces, but some veneers and thin plywood warp readily, which takes the workpiece out of the focal plane, leading to various inaccuracies.
Yah. Sometimes you may need hold down of some kind, but overall this has been rare for me.
I replaced the bottom of my laser with a piece of tooling plate (MIC6) with drilled and tapped holes at intervals, and sometimes will screw down to that and sometimes will put a piece of steel I magnet to in there.
But this is like, 1 job out of 500 that I do something for hold down. IMO not even worth the work I put into the plate.
According to the home page (linked down thread edited: linked by you!) it is fully diy. They gave a bill of materials, construction directions, etc, but you source and build it all yourself. They list an estimated cost of 7000 usd/eur depending on location.
You can build it for way lower than that - in their BoM they use quite expensive distributors like Misumi - if you only source your steppers from other places that's already hundreds saved. If you buy the laser tube and power supply from China it's few thousands shaved off (the only problem is the risky shipping of fragile laser tube).
As far as I can tell it's more expensive than getting a cheap one from China in that power range. The China ones vary in quality and usually require some hacking but this one you need to assemble from scratch so probably still less time investment.
Yup. If one had the cash to burn (puns are mandatory to clear out the sigh-ing glands in the sub-cockle nether-regions) in a commercial laser cutter, there's always Trotec.
They sent a note about closing down their store to the Lasersaur mailing list in February 2019. The store for custom Lasersaur parts is closed, but the project is still open and open source.
"The time has come when we close the Nortd Labs Lasersaur store. For almost nine years we have supplied parts to nearly one thousand builders and owners. It allowed us to have a budget for software development and made the BOM sourcing more convenient. It was a great run but its time for us to move on. "
https://groups.google.com/forum/?path=59#!msg/lasersaur/QQTS...
Another way to go Open-Source for a lot less money (~$1500) is to buy a K40 on EBay and refit it with a Buildbotics controller.
The other day I needed a faceplate for an outlet with a circular 240v US dryer plug and a two port 120v US plug. I couldn't find anything at the hardware store that would work but I found drawings for the junction box and plugs online. After an hour or two with LibreCAD and CAMotics, I was ready to LASER cut my faceplate from 1/4" poplar. I was really happy when it fit exactly the first time. Now I keep looking behind the dryer to admire my handiwork.
Disclaimer: I'm a creator of CAMotics and Buildbotics.