Remember that building your own 3D printer is a big deal? We began to think that building your own laser cutting machine might be the next hot topic.

With a 16,000 square foot facility, Dallas Makerspace is an impressive collaboration of local artists, engineers, manufacturers and thinkers. Recently, they set out to build a serious laser cutting machine. They chose to use an open hardware design instead of buying off-the-shelf equipment. What they built was based on the Lasersaur plan. (Another popular open source build is the buildlog.net unit.)

They ended up with a huge 24-inch x 48-inch cutting bed and a laser tube rated at 100 watts of continuous output. It can easily cut 1/2" plywood and 10mm acrylic. The whole machine is made of 20mm Misumi aluminum T-slot extrusions, which is more like a huge erector than a commercially manufactured machine. We don’t have it in the field. See too many laser Tyrannosaurus, so we think you might want to take a look too.

Now, before you start ordering parts to build your own parts, you should know that a top-level build like this will cost you about $7-10,000. But in contrast, if you want to use a product with the same cutting area and power, you will see a product like "Epilog Fusion 40" with a price of up to $40,000. Having said that, we expect to see more budget laser cutting machines. If you use a smaller machine, less cutting area and less power, you can significantly reduce costs. With it, you can use cheaper steppers, drivers and frames. We suspect that a smart shopper can produce a very respectable laser cutting machine for just $700.

If you are interested in learning more about the Dallas Makerspace, we conducted a video tour in early 2014.

so…. I assume it is a 100W CO2 laser, liquid cooling, not a solid state device? Some details will be fine, cutting speed, smoke recovery, etc...maybe a video of it working?

Yes. Any laser of this size will be water cooled. Tobacco elimination is an interesting topic, I want to introduce it in an article soon in a very DIY way. As for the details-the link should give you some good specifications. But you are right-we should post a cutting video (but honestly, once you see a laser cutting machine, you have seen it a bit)

no way! Laser cutting machines always look cool, unlike 3D printers that watch the paint dry/the tap drips!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te69Qq8srds

The first time I tried these ribs, my power settings and speed were wrong, there was flames!

Soooo, what building? Have you found a way to place targets to reduce the waste of plywood (I mean less space between them, and exchange a target end-to-end?)

This is a large drone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHt6Tu-DhnY Due to a major "hard landing" in this video, I had to reconsider the rudder and elevator for a full flight, they worked well in a small area , But like a bitch when zoomed in.

I wasted a lot of balsa wood cutting, and it was a pain for 30 people to want to use a laser cutting machine! This is the penultimate day of the "Digital Manufacturing Master Class" by Zoz Brookes, great!

Thank you for your prompt reply!

The CO2 laser manufactured by Universal has a power of up to 150 watts and is air-cooled.

Well, we bought a G.Weike machine for our hacker space-it is 100W (measured 98.9 W), 900x600mm Z axis all possible upgrades and a spare tube = we spent about 7k euros (at the time 8-9k USD) All VAT imported cranes.

Since it is made in China and we have not encountered any major problems, it works well and the build quality is very high.

I understand the pleasure of building something by myself, but I don't understand the 3 axis (or just 2 axis for laser saur) laser machine at all.

Should be more bargaining with them, we have the same specification cutting machine, about 2k less from them.

Most of the additional costs are used to import them into the European Union and pay the logistics company for additional lenses and mirrors. It may be 1=1 excluding tax.

We must also pay for all these costs, including freight, port taxes and crane rental. To be honest, although using the included hte mirrors is a waste of time, please replace them with good ones.

However, the structure of G-Weike is not so good, which is too bad. They look impressive, but you look at the wiring and start to question the purchase decision. We have one of our makerspaces. They do a good job, but they need a lot of help. They replaced the door hinge, laser lens and power supply in only the first year of operation. I'm sure they have some other problems that I forgot.

I am not saying that Lasersaur is a better idea. Although its working area is a third wider (1200 mm instead of 900 mm).

But even so, people should still look for the work area they need, not just because it is large, because there is a lot of trouble focusing on giant machines.

The software is rubbish, but the wiring is not bad. The only strange thing is that the non-high voltage power supply is divided into multiple, the smallest is an AC->DC power adapter that looks very cheap.

We placed a slum POE injected into the RPi Arduino mini pro AN522 RFID with the screen so that the access card can be used to turn it on/off to calculate the light pulse between the controller and the high power supply.

I want to see a hacker space build a waterjet cutting machine.

certainly. http://hackaday.com/2014/01/14/hydro-the-low-cost-waterjet-cutter/

It turns out that waterjets are more difficult than lasers. Due to Chinese labor, laser tubes are now very cheap. Until we find a new way to generate tens of thousands of PSI at significant flow rates, building intensifiers and the like may still be very expensive. What's more, the basic horsepower requirements are very high. Business machines run north of 25 horsepower, and even this is relatively slow. The consumer-grade device that can be installed in an ordinary garage will be SLOOW.

There are also issues with supporting infrastructure, such as groundwater levels, abrasive recycling, nozzles, etc. Even if you figure out how to generate stress cheaply, the problem still exists. Unless you want to cut stone or glass, plasma, milling machines or machining centers provide higher speed, versatility, or both at a lower cost.

Man, I would love to make one at home. Kind of wanting a DIY CNC first.

For a typical HaD reader that requires a laser cutter, I recommend buying DC-K40 from eBay and repairing (ie replacing) the terrible electronic device. I did this because I thought I would play for a while, and then use it as a donation machine for tubes and PSUs, but to be honest, it can meet my needs now, so I insist on using it.

Yes, I did the same thing, put a boat at home, I even got a new gantry, but in the end it stayed the same.

I added a motorized ztable, changed the optical system and managed to tame moshidraw to make it usable. You really can't go wrong with $400. There are several versions of k40. I got a version with a digital readout. It is a good small-scale platform, if you grow up, donate it.

Do you end up designing your own electronic product or use some other existing open design?

Oxfred, is there a link to do this? I have been considering buying a "damage guaranteed" commercial laser cutting machine for $500, but your suggestion looks promising. What does it take to make one of these tools usable?

I did some details here. https://0xfred.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/first-laser-improvements-ditch-moshi/

The basis is to abandon the moshiboard and replace it with a stepper driver that can be controlled by Mach3 (or LinuxCNC). I bought a drop from chriscircuits.com, but anything that can control 2 steppers and on/off signals can do the job.

I have a K40 and expanded the default cutting area (to get 200 x 300).. Adjustable lens mount to adjust the material thickness (it is troublesome to build a mechanism to raise and lower the bed).. But I got that version using Corel Draw boards and plug-ins. Its effect is surprisingly good.

The only thing that prevents me from building more powerful machines is the lack of electronic equipment and software. The electronics and software of 3d printers are obviously very mature. There is no outstanding, outstanding, open source electronics or laser software tool chain.

Of course.. There are one or two.. But although it is worth noting.. It is old and insufficient, especially when talking about raster engraving.

I anxiously await the maturity of laser electronics and software. As previously commented... Nowadays, laser tubes, lenses and structural parts are very affordable.

How do you zoom in? Or is the new housing just squeezing more out of the factory case? I hope to get about 10% of the benefits without changing the case. I see some options, but I want to see how others do it.

How did you enlarge your machine. Can you share some details?

Well, if it is intended as an entry machine, that's okay. But the working area is 200mm x 300mm.

EBay's check does not seem to yield and match. Can you provide a link to the model you are referring to?

Just search for "40W CO2 laser engraving machine" on eBay, and you will see a large number of sellers using the same blue and white metal boxes.

We actually sold a machine with very similar specifications that had been imported into the UK for about US$10,000. The price of hobby machines has been falling, so it all depends on whether you want to build a machine or want to use it.

http://www.justaddsharks.co.uk/cutter/silvertail

Is the Lasersaur software already available? Last time I checked that it is not suitable for any serious CAD work. The basic workflow is to import the svg and cut it. You can't even measure the known distance in the drawing. If the import is normal, more importantly, the zoom is not available.

I check their github account from time to time, but there is almost no activity. Then I stopped disturbing it.

Has the status changed, or is it still the same? Cutting beautiful decoration is certainly a use case. But cutting dxf (with tolerance) is a completely different problem.

There are 80 watt CO2 electronic chips in my local space, and we chose to replace them with Tyrannosaurus laser two years ago. After a year of dishonesty and one hundred hours of troubleshooting, we finally saw that it could not and will never (without a thorough overhaul) be able to do what it claimed. We threw it away and purchased alternative electronic products.

I strongly recommend not to use the lasersaur project. What a pity, it was one of the original kickstarters and it sounds great. However, no good solution is all there is to it. (The proprietary Chinese nonsense, dongle and terribad software we use are not...but...this should give you an idea of ​​how bad Lasersaur is, we *prefer* it.).

I have been looking for a fiber laser to assemble for metal engraving... Do people have successful plans/suppliers? Laser source, cylinder, vibrating lens, lens? At this time stage automation is optional. 20-70w advertising runs 30k-80k :-(

The fiber laser itself is ridiculously expensive at this time, you only look at a few thousand dollars for the laser...

A better option for DIY is flash-driven Nd:YAG. Although it is terribly inefficient, it should be feasible to get a few hundred dollars from eBay trash. If you add a zero for this, you might make it diode-driven. Galvo mirrors may be cheap, even dielectric mirrors (metal mirrors may not even survive the first pulse) because they can be cheap, but servo drives and f-theta lenses will cost you unless you are lucky on eBay ...

I use the DPSS UV YAG system I built and use it to carve and cut thin metals.

Is UV light the same as an ultrafilter? If yes, why? ? ? ? Also, are there any videos/pictures/articles? (Need inspiration: D)

For the belt tensioner, several pieces of metal cut with track grooves, two screws clamp them together, and then two long screws pass through the main body with a lock nut. When they are connected to the belt, they can be adjusted to Tighten the belt gantry. Easy to make, easy to tighten the belt. Picture of my laser photo frame. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ajq1VisZRfZUBL240gGfnZu79pXfXnx0v9QW30exo06T=w628-h1115-no

Only for golf with laser kit

I think this is all you need, including software, just add mirror and focus lens, exhaust fan, cutting surface, panel on the side of the frame and a PC. For 100W and 1200x900mm pig heads, I have a 1600x1200mm, but there is no frame kit for this size frame.

http://www.lightobject.com/XLE-1200900-XY-Stages-complete-kit-for-DIY-CO2-Laser-2-yrs-warranty-P737.aspx $995 http://www.lightobject.com/ Aluminum frame kit 1200×900-for-CO2-laser-machine-P868.aspx $850 http://www.lightobject.com/High-Quality-Reci-100W-Z4-CO2-Sealed-Laser-Tube- 10000hrs-P119 .aspx reci Z4 100W $995 http://www.lightobject.com/3MD560-Leadshine-compatible-3-Phase-84A-1-axis-Stepping-Motor-Driver-P836.aspx $62 one. Need two http://www.lightobject.com/100W180W-PWM-CO2-Laser-Power-Supply-AC110V-P74.aspx 100W PSUI for Laser $385 http://www.lightobject.com/AWC608-Commercial- DSP- CO2-Laser-Engraving-Cutter-Controller-P321.aspx Controller $385 http://www.lightobject.com/DC-24V-15A-Switching-Power-Supply-Good-for-CNC-Stepping-Motor- Drive-P447 .aspx 24V 15A USD 48 http://www.lightobject.com/CW5000-800W-Water-chiller-for-CO2-laser-machine-AC110V-60Hz-P823.aspx USD 600

Approximately US$4000-all parts purchased locally are US$450. I may have missed some parts because I just put them together, but these are all high-priced items and you can find cheaper ones.

Compare it to the smaller complete 900x600mm 100W RECI from gweike, which is shipped around 4K and has an electric Z-meter and exhaust fan.

Laser kit for golfing? Is this similar to "for gits and shiggles"?

This is a response to something. We are now in a new building, so it has 16,000 square feet. :)

Lasersaur's software LaserApp is very reliable in this regard. The grating is an elephant in the software room. As for cutting out an accurate design from a CAD file, this is fine. It requires SVG or DXF in millimeters (1220 mm x 610 mm cutting area).

We have adopted the open source version, so we can learn from it and explore more options in the future, such as significantly higher power tubes, integration with our RFID access system, larger bed sizes, etc. Through a completely open source design, we can access what we need to do for future builds. In terms of US dollar specifications, there are better deals, but this is not our main goal.

If you have any questions about the build or the Lasersaur stuff, please feel free to email me, luke@dallasmakerspace.org, cheers!

Another reason is that we are tired of purchasing small parts for $300. In this environment, you have to do this almost every week. (Can anyone here make an open source CO2 laser PS?)

Our FS unit is great for rasterization, but some of us want to do larger vector projects. Although we did consider Epilog, the ratio of power to size is not optimal. Yes, Epilog is faster... but you also have to consider people who don't necessarily need to sculpt every day.

Considering that people want to use it for hard-core CAD work, I have returned to my portable iPad display. So... it is possible, if you don't like to import it in SVG or DXF format, you can enter GCODE and cut your file in this way.

Invasibility is also a factor. We do plan to integrate access control into this unit, which is a huge pain for other units (such as the FS unit that uses the power supply voltage directly on the stepper drive). (Or use the conclusion of the servo system)

Having said that, we have a mini engraving machine under development. We also want to build another Lasersaur, perhaps using a Nd:Yag laser. (This is a fair hack in itself)

Anyone who has built a 3D printer can fully understand the principles of lasers. The parts are now super reasonable. Electronics, especially a good open source software package. This is the gap. There seems to be no work or progress. Smoothieboard is meant to support laser cutters, but I can't see any builds. Same as software...no real progress. It is a pity that my K40 electronics and CorelLaser plug-in are currently the best low-cost packages. Is there any community dedicated to this?

Thanks Luke for the update. Thank you for posting. cheers!

We have several of these 100-watt laser swords-we use them in mass manufacturing, 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Good-quality and inexpensive machines... it only takes a lot of sweat to put them together. But having a machine that can understand 100% of hardware, software, firmware, etc. is very worthwhile!

100W and only 1/2" acrylic? I cut 1.25 inches thick on 80 watts. If that is as much as they get, then there is a problem.

You cannot compare such a machine with Epilog Fusion. The laser in Epilog alone is more expensive than the entire laser dragon. The laser is a better RF drive unit, which I think is coherent. A linear encoder is also used on the grating axis for servo on the axis. In addition, software and control are on another level.

Well, they didn't say it was the limit, they said it was easy to cut.

Yes, I get annoyed when people compare their projects with some super high-priced products, and this is a bad comparison, and a more realistic comparison is needed.

My car can reach the speed limit like this supercar! In addition, it is 1/10 of the cost!

What speed limit? American residential areas or German highways?

I like things like this, but the space is too small.

Can they be placed vertically? (Assuming I hold the artifact)

I have never seen a vertical one-it is likely to be more troublesome than its value. There is no reason why this cannot be done.

Can't work vertically, the parts you cut will fall off. When it's level, try to keep your work level :)

After cutting the inch think steel plate on one of these babies http://www.bystronic.com/en/Products/laser-cutting-systems/Bystar.php, whenever I see one of these 100w, I All I can think of is "aaaawww, look how cute it is"

With such a low-power laser on such a large cutting bed, unless you adjust the optics to 110%, you will have a difficult time. In the makerspace, this may not be a big deal, after all you can file the edges and so on. But even on professional machines, when you talk about the process of cutting 90% of 10-15 mm thick stainless steel, the molten stainless steel comes out of bubbles and then all the cutting heads are smashed, because there is a little sticky substance on the mirror, which is Things you really need to pay attention to.

Unless you absolutely need to use a large bed, do not choose a large bed, and usually, the optical system will be out of focus and cause endless problems, which is not worth it.

Engrave your city map with laser -> http://ideee.3deee.ch/?p=784

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