
Laser-Cut Music Box [video] - kgwxd
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GC3tJzbuYo
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TheSpiceIsLife
Neat! The confluence of skills to dream up, model, cut, and build a musical
instrument is pretty cool!

My full time job is operating a 4kW 1070nm fibre laser setup for cutting
metals, mostly steel; stainless steel; aluminium here in Launceston, Tasmania.

Unfortunately the supplier advised us _not_ to cut timber / particle board due
to the potential of an ember reaching the fume extractor which contains
regular cardboard type air filters. Oddly enough, last year I reached out to
some other laser cutters locally and one mentioned their laser was down due to
a fire in the fume extractor!

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antt
That seems like a very small town, is there enough demand for the machine?

Are there any good resources on how fiber lasers work? I have a co2 laser 200W
that's pretty good for all things non-metal and would be interested in getting
a fiber one, alignment seems like a breeze, but the prices for the fiber
lasers start at $100k or so.

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TheSpiceIsLife
I moved here 5 years ago due to other life factors conspiring to bring me
here. I had no idea Launceston is a little manufacturing powerhouse. The city
is growing and there appears to be a lot of opportunities in the arts,
manufacturing, technology, there’s even a bit of software development fling on
here. Plus a bit of skiing an hour away. I’ve met a lot of great people here
an occasionally get to laser cut art.

Without going in to too much detail, yes there’s a _lot_ of demand for machine
time.

I haven’t really looked at smaller machines, ours was in the vicinity of 1MM.

I would have thought a lower power laser diode module, and associated optics
would be available at a reasonable price by now.

