Video A Maker Space Favorite: Using a Laser Cutter (Video) 83
Video no longer available.
Slashdot editor Jeff Boehm visted Maker Works in Ann Arbor, MI, where they not only have an Epilog Helix Laser Cutter/Engraver, but let him use it. Which, of course, he happily did, just as you or I would have done if somebody said, "Here. Borrow my laser cutter and engraving machine." The sound in the video is a little rough, since it was recorded live in a room full of loud machines -- like laser cutters. But it's still fascinating to watch (and hear) the process. The only downside is the "Ooh! I want one of those!" effect. There are used units available out there, but they cost as much as a pretty good used car. Maybe that's why there are so many Maker Spaces, also called Hacker Spaces, out there. Here's a global Hacker Space list. Hopefully, you'll find one near you, so you can do a little laser cutting (and lots of other neat stuff) yourself.
Note: Slashdot accepts reader video submissions. Email robin at roblimo dot com for details.
cool (Score:2, Insightful)
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Have you seen the latest water jet cutters yet? Just as fast, if not faster, than the laser, but with pre-de-burred edges
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Agree, like all tools.
Except slashdot editors. They're never neat.
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Exactly. I don't see what the fuss is about. We've had one for about 10 years at work so it's nothing new.
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Transcript - and about that "eyeballing"... (Score:3)
littlebigbot pretty much sums it right up, but here you go anyway.
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Title: A Laser Cutter Demo
Description: Slashdot editor Jeff Boehm visited Maker Works in Ann Arbor, MI, where they not only have an Epilog Helix Laser Cutter & Engraver, but let him use it.
00:00 TITLE
Slashdot Editor Jeff Boehm, as identified by titles, is shown standing in a room next to a piece of machinery.
00:00 Jeff
Over the past several months we've run videos of various Maker Spaces around the country, and several readers brought
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Amazing. Don't you have work to do or something?
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Didn't you have work or something* to do when you wrote that comment?
*write, play adventure games, read, taking random and not-so-random photos
For me, this is a pastime (and no, I'm not getting paid for it - unless I missed it and an e-mail fell down a deep black hole again) that helps me listen, type, and every once in a while actually learn something.
In this particular video's case I had hoped the video would actually be about how to get involved with a Maker type place, rather than going to one and a ver
Dallas Makerspace (Score:2)
Dallas Makerspace has a laser cutter on site. It is almost certainly the most popular tool (outside of the internet connection which is terrible and will be until they put up the tower). Pretty easy to use too though using it does require a class.
hackspace list /.ed already (google cache link) (Score:1)
Wow, only 3 comments, and already it's unavailable. Here's a link to the google cache page:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:XFtVgljXVTQJ:hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera
Oh, come on... (Score:2)
This [youtube.com] is the video you're looking for.
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Need a -1 "I do not need a nanny" moderation.
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Don't lase me, bro.
See also: eye, remaining.
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No, this is [youtube.com]
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Yup, laser cutters are very cool (Score:5, Informative)
All the TechShops have laser cutters. They are very popular. Once you have access to a laser cutter, every problem starts looking like it can be solved by dicing up something thin and flat. That's not quite true, but acrylic and hardwood plywood both cut very nicely and can build some great things. The nice thing about laser cutters is there are zero fixturing problems -- just lay the material on the cutting bed and start the cutting program. You get exquisitely straight cuts and sub-millimeter precision, so assembly and glue up go very smoothly without any fiddling.
Commercial laser cutters are pricey. Here is an open source cutter project that I have been watching, I'll probably build one of these when my current cutter craps out:
http://labs.nortd.com/lasersaur/ [nortd.com]
(I have an ancient laser cutter that is no longer support by the manufacturer -- when the tube goes, it's a paperweight, so I'm always looking for good options for when the fatal day arrives.)
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Umm, anyone with half a brain would use millimeter. Most people don't know what microns are, yet the meter is the SI unit of distance.
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Half a thou. for roughing, a tenth for finished. Of an inch, natch.
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Surely all systems of measurement are standard? They wouldn't be much use if they weren't standardized!
By law, Britain is a metric country, though I think that the pint and the mile are also legal. In practice, we are a hodge-podge of metric and Imperial. In my job I use metric exclusively, but I'll tell people that I'm 5'9" and weigh 11 stone (Brits weigh themselves in stones, rather than pounds). We buy petrol (gasoline) in litres, but measure fuel consumption in miles per gallon. We buy cola in litres, b
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Cambo.
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Half a thou == roughing? Ha ha.
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Prawn.
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It's also much cheaper and has more cutting capacity.
As cool as this is, 99.9% of prototypes won't need any more accuracy than that.
Re:Yup, laser cutters are very cool (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. So I can't say "sub-millimeter" without you deducting a dozen IQ points from me? Sheesh. The terminology I use depends on the tools I'm using. I talk thousandths when my work is in Imperial and I'm working on a Bridgeport or a CNC mill. I talk millimeters when I'm working on drawings dimension in millimeters, as I do with my laser cutter or 3D printer, or metric work on CNC. I'm an amateur machinist, and have written G-code (and other) CAM back ends. Professionally, I'm an electrical engineer -- when I worked in the semiconductor industry we talked in microns and nano-acres. So, I don't know what all machine tools you have used, and how many different fab technologies you have worked with, but unless you have 10+ years as a professional machinist, I doubt if the list is longer than mine.
BTW TechShop (TM) is a reference to the chain of open-access workshops, not a generic reference to machine shops.
I'll tell you this, I doubt if you are machinist -- I've met a lot of old time machinists, and they don't carry around your attitude. The more grey in the hair, the more modest they are -- there is always something to learn and machine tools keep you humble.
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I haven't done any machining in close to 20 years now.
But what a thrill it was to program a heavy cut with a big end mill at high speed in just the right direction to spray hot aluminum chips at the operator on the
big Fanuc next to my little Hurco.
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How difficult and expensive is that to do, and what would be the best way to do it? What would be the limitations - e.g. effective DPI for X shades of grey (assuming that if dithering is used, then the effective DPI would be much lower than the laser DPI), and how many shades of grey?
I've been looking for before and after pics with a grey scale from darkest grey to lightest g
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I have a home made CNC machine that drives a laminate trimmer (like a baby router). It seems like the things you can make are only limited by your imagination. The advantage of it over a laser cutter is that is will do 2.5D cutting, laser only does 2D. The downsides are many though: noisy, much slower, you can't "crash" a laser cutter, bits wear out, material fixturing. But you get to control the depth of cut which allows for some very nice finished results (pocketing, carving, facing off - not possible wi
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Hey DBC - in case you're still watching, i'd love to hear about your thoughts on the lasersaur. Email me at jonnyh at gmail dot com, if you'd be so kind.
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Just heat up a Jesus figurine and use that to burn the image into toast.
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Build your own! (Score:1)
Small, very low-cost CNC for milled circuit boards:
http://makeyourbot.org/mantis9-1 [makeyourbot.org]
3D printer:
http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page [reprap.org]
Desktop-sized to shop-sized CNC mills:
http://www.buildyourcnc.com/ [buildyourcnc.com]
Full Spectrum 40W laser cutters for ~$2400 (Score:1)
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I bought one of these last Friday and it was delivered on Monday. Lots of fun to play with!
Fortunately for me, all the optics were still aligned when it arrived. Everything was in working order and the software is pretty good. Their printer driver makes sending jobs from Inkscape and CorelDRAW trivial.
One thing to note - if you get the deluxe version the power is controlled by the software, not the knob on the front. If you hit the test fire button on the control panel instead of the one in the software you
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We have one (AllHandsActive.com - Ann Arbor, MI). Ours works slightly differently than what you said. The knob on the front limits it. The software limits it further. When running if we set ours to 15MW (on the knob) and set 50% power in software we get ~7.5MW read out on the gauge during the run.
The software (RetinaEngrave) is pretty terrible. It does make multiple passes and splitting colors (different power/passes) easy, but alignment of raster and vector images is a pain. It also only seems to consist
I have a dumb question (Score:4, Interesting)
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The laser is focused on the material. The beam is automatically out of focus if it goes past where it was supposed to hit the material.
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Made you think?
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Two things.
- Most (all?) lasercuttesr don't cut metals. They only cut flammable materials since they need to burn the material away. Think plywood/plastic not metal.
- The laser cose in the machine as a very wide (about 1 cm) bundle, and is focused on the cuttings surface with a lens. This focus needs to be quite good, if you put your material too high or low (i.e. outside the focal plane) you'll get bad cuts or even no cuts at all. Like trying to burn paper with a lens and sunlight.
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I presume you would put some kind of sacrificial material behind it and adjust power to cut through the work piece but not the sacrificial. I've only used long-wave CO2 lasers that aren't much use on metal since that wavelength reflects instead of absorbing.
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It ends up being somewhat out of focus after the material, and the base you rest material on is usually made of pins, a number of sawtooth 'blades' or a honeycomb, so there's very little surface to cut.
TechShop (Score:2)
Here in the SF Bay Area we have TechShop [techshop.com]. I am a member. They all have laser cutters / engravers. They are a lot of fun to use.
TechShop also has 3D printers, CNC mills, lathes, lots of wood working tools, welding equipment, and even sewing machines. Lots of great stuff.
In a past job (Score:3)
Pretty easy to replace I might add. It's almost as though Epilog EXPECTED stupidity.
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Well, actually all laser tubes have a limited lifetime. So they do have to be replaced after a few thousand hours even if operated correctly. The tube does have to be a FRU.
Laser Tattoo (Score:1)
Amaaaaazing (Score:2)
Laser cutters are soooo amaaaazing. All the cool kids have laser cutters now.
With a laser cutter you can burn patterns out of plywood and assemble them. If you have a laser cutter you can even do advanced things like box joints.
If you don't have a laser cutter and want to put your arduino in a plywood box, you have to order the cut plywood from a place that has a laser cutter.
</sarcasm>
Apply? (Score:2)
Why do people insist on selecting Apply before choosing Print or OK?
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Well. He's probably right without knowing it.
At one time it may have tricked a web agent scraping for emails, but if you just have text like "joe at blow dot com" it is likely equivelent to having "joe@blow.com". I see no reason why one would be harder to match then the other in a regex. Its security by obscurity whos time has passed. Like trying to use leet passwords... ur only making it harder for those who really need to use it.
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So you can't not as easily program your scripts to harvest the addresses for your spamming.
Cheap 40W personal 'engraver' cutters - thoughts? (Score:1)
eBay search for 'laser cutter' or 'laser engraver' always seems to turn up the cheap ~$700 ones in the list. Just wondering if anyone has ever tried one.
Just thinking out loud, for some of us it might not be such a bad investment - if you aren't sure you will really get the $5k use out of a nice second hand one. Like getting a cheap battery drill to try the tech before splashing $500 on a 'tradesman quality' tool.
I'm sure everyone will say the more expensive ones are 'better', but what I want to know is if