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Household Laser Cuts

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Re: Household Laser Cuts

#11

Post by in_cahoots »

thomascountz wrote: post #10

Can anyone recommend a home CO2 or high-wattage diode laser cutter which can cut 3-4mm ply? We run an Epilog machine at my local makerspace, but I wonder if consumer machines have gotten reasonably good recently?

My 50W Omtech Polar Plus (since discontinued) can do 3mm in one pass and 6mm in two passes (or one pass near max power but I prefer two for reduced charring and to extend the lifecycle of the laser).

Basically any 50W Chinese laser should get you what you want. But at that price point you can't adjust the mirrors, no red dot to guide cuts, poor camera calibration etc. It's worlds away from what I expect you get with an Epilog.

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#12

Post by in_cahoots »

giarc wrote: post #5
zacharycohn wrote: post #2

Calculating kerf is the worst. :(

Can you not just cut a 1" square, measure it accurately then use that as the kerf correction (option to add in software like Lightburn).

I do something similar: trace a rectangle and subdivide it into 20 smaller rectangles. Then I slide the smaller rectangles to one side. The part that's missing (divided by 19) is the kerf.

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#13

Post by Terr_ »

> To add a little pizzazz, I constructed a cat’s head silhouette from an ellipse and two triangles, then randomly scattered them

Ooh! A scattering that avoids overlapping punching might benefit from another recent item on Poisson Disk Scattering [0]... Although on a boringly-practical level, I guess rejection sampling would make more sense for this need.

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#14

Post by matan0904 »

in_cahoots wrote: post #12
giarc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not just cut a 1" square, measure it accurately then use that as the kerf correction (option to add in software like Lightburn).

I do something similar: trace a rectangle and subdivide it into 20 smaller rectangles. Then I slide the smaller rectangles to one side. The part that's missing (divided by 19) is the kerf.

[flagged]

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#16

Post by donquichotte »

in_cahoots wrote: post #11
thomascountz wrote: post #10

Can anyone recommend a home CO2 or high-wattage diode laser cutter which can cut 3-4mm ply? We run an Epilog machine at my local makerspace, but I wonder if consumer machines have gotten reasonably good recently?

My 50W Omtech Polar Plus (since discontinued) can do 3mm in one pass and 6mm in two passes (or one pass near max power but I prefer two for reduced charring and to extend the lifecycle of the laser). Basically any 50W Chinese laser should get you what you want. But at that price point you can't adjust the mirrors, no red dot to guide cuts, poor camera calibration etc. It's worlds away from what I expect you get with…

I bought one of the 60W Chinese Laser cutters, 40cm x 40cm, with RUIDA controls for the steppers. It's a decent machine and it runs with Lightburn. I get shocked a little bit from the HV supply when touching fluid in the cooling loop, and there is no interlock preventing the laser from firing with an open hood, but it cuts well and the mirrors are adjustable. It was about 700$ for the machine and 700$ for shipping to Europe in 2023.

Just keep in mind this is not a desktop machine to run in a flat. You need some infrastructure like a cooling loop and air exhaust, so this thing best lives in a basement or hobby room.

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#17

Post by thomascountz »

donquichotte wrote: post #16
in_cahoots wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 50W Omtech Polar Plus (since discontinued) can do 3mm in one pass and 6mm in two passes (or one pass near max power but I prefer two for reduced charring and to extend the lifecycle of the laser). Basically any 50W Chinese laser should get you what you want. But at that price point you can't adjust the mirrors, no red dot to guide cuts, poor camera calibration etc. It's worlds away from what I expect you get with…

I bought one of the 60W Chinese Laser cutters, 40cm x 40cm, with RUIDA controls for the steppers. It's a decent machine and it runs with Lightburn. I get shocked a little bit from the HV supply when touching fluid in the cooling loop, and there is no interlock preventing the laser from firing with an open hood, but it cuts well and the mirrors are adjustable. It was about 700$ for the machine and 700$ for shipping to…

Being in the EU, VEVOR looks like they have a 400mm x 600mm 60W CO2 laser for ~1600 EUR* (somehow with free delivery to Denmark). I've never bought anything from VEVOR though.

*Back to School special, since everyone has to get a new 50W machine each school year.

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#18

Post by chias »

WillAdams wrote: post #7

For more on this in spades see boxes.py https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/ For my part, I've been working the CNC router angle, so have a much larger kerf to cope with (and the added advantage of controllable partial depth and no char): https://community.carbide3d.com/t/full-blind-box-joints-in-c... https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

I really love boxes.py, and have contributed several designs. The flexbook, shadowbox, coinbanksafe, and frameloom are all mine :)

I'm really proud of the loom.

https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/FlexBook

https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/Shadowbox

https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/CoinBankSafe

https://boxes.hackerspace-bamberg.de/FrameLoom

Recently I've been on a kick making bracelets with that frame loom. The rotating heddle bar makes it super quick to warp up. I've written about how to go from woven rectangle to bracelet here:

https://ojensen.net/musings/bracelet-on-frame-loom

Re: Household Laser Cuts

#20

Post by kowbell »

seemaze wrote: post #3

I've had great success designing durable objects using the sheet metal modeler in OnShape[0] and have them fabricated with SendCutSend[1] [0]www.onshape.com [1]www.sendcutsend.com

I've been using onshape for 3d printing and it never occurred to me that this kind of thing was a possibility. My mind is being blown, thank you for this comment!
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