Lasersaur – open-source laser cutter
github.com
github.com
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.
edit here is another example of a wooden faceplate: https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Brass-W10848-Decorator-Unfin...
“
Lasersaur -- open source laser cutter
The Lasersaur website is in the gh-pages branch and mapped to www.lasersaur.com. “
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.
[1] https://theshamblog.com/a-tour-of-the-lasersaur-laser-cutter...
[2] https://github.com/scottshambaugh/driveboardapp
[3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasersaur/Ieu6aAG_0s...
Hard pass.
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.
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.
In theory (!) plasma cutters require the material being cut to be conductive.
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.
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 that's if you cut the right material on it, some materials will release much much more toxic compounds when burned.
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
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.
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.
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 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 :\
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.
*shrug
- ed added a line in
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
[1]: https://www.tog.ie/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eU_76EaB256B_k3UIFOs...
I'm surprised the laser tube is $1000. It's not much different than a light bulb. Sure it is different, but not by that many zeros.
You can get cheaper laser tubes but there is a difference between them.
Finally, it's what the market is willing to pay.
https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/laser-machines/laser-cutte...
Heck, you can get a greenbullv2/bluechick router/laser etching (not a great cutter) kit for $9000.
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.
http://www.recilaser.com/en/index.php?m=&c=Index&a=lists&cat...
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.
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.
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.
I’m an electrical engineer and I love looking at boards like this but it seems like the linked github is just a manual at best.
"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...