A few months ago a question came up about cutting a square hole in wood or plastic - I posted a reply showing how I do such cuts with a Harbor Freight multi-tool.
I recently purchased an inexpensive laser engraver / cutter from eBay and, to say the least, I am thrilled with its performance vs price!
I did a few videos and have some notes on my web page here:
http://trainelectronics.com/LaserEngraver/
Please note that this page is not complete - there will be more to come as I experiment -
dave
VERY interested in your review of this. The price is definitely attractive.
Wicked Cool!
Thanks!
I second that - also very interested, it’s amazing how much these machines have come down in price in just the last couple of years. Pity you still need to have a more expensive ‘commercial’ one to get a large scale friendly bed size (3ft by 6 in cutting area for $400 or local equivalent would be just dandy, don’t mind how slow it goes…).
Out of interest, how does the machine cope with ‘floppy’ materials - say 20thou styrene? I’ve seen some other/bigger machines that come with a rigid slab of ?aluminium? homeycomb - presumably you put the mesh in the spring clamps and lay the victim on top. And hopefully the edges of the honeycomb are nice and reflective so it doesn’t get cut itself.
J.
Jonathan - floppy stuff is not a problem, you just lay it on top of the framework - I did some paper on it yesterday just to test a layout and, apart from a few flames until I turned the power down, it worked just fine - I also did some experiments with light cardboard laying on top.
I also plan on making a bed out of these mending plates:
and lay my work on top of it.
dave
Specs show the cutting bed is about 8x10? Thats not TOO bad for our scale. Couldnt do a whole car side, but you could do it in two-three pieces. Hmm…
The price point is very attractive for a little laser…
Be careful with cutting styrene, in my experience and others styrene presents an issue, it works with some caveats. I have a Universal Laser and had issues with styrene burning and flaming up. Fiddling with speed and power helped greatly BUT the real answer was an air nozzle system that is integrated onto the laser head that blows compressed air down into laser cutting path as it travels around. In part it extinguishes the flame up and clears debris as well.
STAY AWAY from anything PVC…
Michael
Bob McCown said:
Specs show the cutting bed is about 8x10? Thats not TOO bad for our scale. Couldnt do a whole car side, but you could do it in two-three pieces. Hmm…
The print head moves about 12" side to side and about 9" front to back - I’ll have to test the software to see if it will control it to those extremes.
dave
I added some more information to the web page that covers my experiences with the laser cutter / engraver.
http://trainelectronics.com/LaserEngraver/
These include a list of Pros and Cons of this unit and a test that shows that the unit can cut up to a dimension of 7 5/8" x 12 1/4" - not bad!
dave
Nice on the cut size. Thats very handy. Could do half a freight car side at a time, or a small-ish building.
Any idea what replacement laser tubes cost for it?
Bob,
if you go to the EBay page, there is another version with a spare laser tube, about another $175
Al P.
Bob McCown said:
Nice on the cut size. Thats very handy. Could do half a freight car side at a time, or a small-ish building.
Any idea what replacement laser tubes cost for it?
My understanding is that replacing the bulb is not a trivial task as you have quite a bit of alignment to do - hopefully the lifetime of the bulb will outlast the utility of this version on the cutter! By then solid state lasers might be more affordable
dave
Thank you for sharing, again!
This is very cool. I wonder if there would be a way to plot from a drawing. Like scanning, you’d plot out the cut points from a drawing and the laser could do all the work!
I’m amazed after taking so much time to do the cuts on my scratch build engines. Something like this would make life easy. I’d be producing all the modern stuff I’m after!
Would a water jet or something else, be better for cutting styrene?
Excellent demo Dave. Thanks very much…
Joe Paonessa said:
Thank you for sharing, again!
This is very cool. I wonder if there would be a way to plot from a drawing. Like scanning, you’d plot out the cut points from a drawing and the laser could do all the work!
I’m amazed after taking so much time to do the cuts on my scratch build engines. Something like this would make life easy. I’d be producing all the modern stuff I’m after!
Would a water jet or something else, be better for cutting styrene?
Joe - you can scan an image and convert it to a vector drawing using CorelTrace (included with the full suite of programs) - I have done some things using that technique and they work well.
A water jet would be excellent for styrene but might be a bit more costly.
dave
Thank you Dave. I realize the cost of the water jet as I ran one at work. Very expensive machine. I would hope that someday there would be a lower cost home model made. Maybe use the pressure from a pressure washer or similar.
What got me off track was the list of things that can be cut safely. 1/16" styrene is pretty slim. I’d like them to be about 1/8" thick. Maybe just double up the sheets then?
…or I’d have to make my engine shells from acrylic. I didn’t see brass sheet goods on the list or did I miss it?
How thick is the material that you were cutting for the faceplate ?
Gary Buchanan said:
How thick is the material that you were cutting for the faceplate ?
It is about 1/8", Gary - I haven’t tried but I have heard that it will do up to 1/4" acrylic.
dave
FYI, I just added a section on my web page that shows an example of doing an engraving. There is a video, too
see: http://trainelectronics.com/LaserEngraver/
dave
Here is a good selection for thin plywood and laser board
http://encompass-media.townvustore.com/
It is a good price also.
I am happy you have found and posting info on lasers, they are one of the most fun toys/tools
you can buy for the hobby
Dennis