Lasercutter

From NURDspace
Revision as of 19:07, 14 May 2014 by Buzz (talk | contribs)

Moeten we als nurdspace investeren in een LaserCutter en hoe gaan we dat betalen.

Money stuff

What does running the cutter cost

  • Per hour use?
  • When does the tube die and how much does a new one cost?
Cha0z: 60W CO2 Laser tube $150-$230 aliexpress
The0: plus 200$ shipment, and length&power are related so getting 60W in a 40W frame might be difficult

In favor of getting a cutter

  • zarya
  • The0
  • niz
  • FwD
  • buZz
  • Cha0z97

In favor of a fee per hour to amortize acquisition and running costs

  • The0
  • Cha0z

I want to *lend* money for a cutter

  • The0: up to 1000,-

I want to donate monyz for a cutter

  • The0: 100,-
  • FwD: 100,-
  • buZz: 100,-
  • Cha0z97: 200,-
  • Fierman: 50,-

What can we sell to buy a cutter

  • The audio multi track recorder/mixer
  • 3x APC UPS -> Sold for €200, which is now available.

Technical

What do we want?

  • Size?
  The0: 20x30 cm seems to be the smallest, 40x60 is one size up and considerably more expensive
  The0: some cheap ebay engravers seem to support only 20x20, with variable reports of mechanical limitations (short axes) and software (irrelevant) causing this
  • Features?
  Cha0z: Should be able to cut through 0.15mm steel to be able to produce SMT stencils.
  Theo: motorized up/down and rotation axis (engraving round objects) would be neat.
  • Hardware?
  The0: performance of software-only solution is horrible. while in theory they could achieve results extremely fast (with a fast computer), even the best software only solutions are rumoured to have difficulty cutting even paper. So, I, for one, am definitely in favor of a hardware solution,.but not definitely against some software-hardware combination.

Where to get one

The0: Buy cheapest ebay (~600,-), eventually replace controller (e.g. laoslaser.org), total budget ~1200,-

The0: Mood swings. Cheap ebay requires upgrades to become marginally usable, and will forever be stuck with puny working area.

The0: Aluminium t-nut profiles have become remarkably affordable recently. Add motors, pulleys, belts, nuts and bolts, and you have a XYZ robot. Then mount your choise of extruder/spindle or a laser head and mirrors and you have an ultimaker-ultra/CNC mill/lasercutter. Mount all and you have fireworks. Lets design a frame and put a price to it, so we can decide if this is feasible.

buZz; motedis

bjornl: remcoo (tkkrlab) advised us to look at Lasersaur, an open source laser cutter: http://labs.nortd.com/lasersaur/ (Link is dead)