A Home Made Laser Cutter For $700
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When some decent lasers are out there for beneath $400 USD, they tend to be a minimal small. What if you desired a thing a small nicer but didn’t want to jump to the $2,000 class? The remedy for [Owen Schafer] was to establish it with pieces he experienced lying all over and a number of strategic buys.
While he was originally scheduling on using a diode laser, doing something much more than engraving is challenging. He purchased a low-cost 40 W CO2 laser tube, but it meant that he essential water cooling, mirrors, and much more advanced stuff that a diode doesn’t will need. The frame is aluminum extrusion held jointly with 3D printed plates. Offered there was a impressive laser bouncing about with mirrors, a plywood box formed the enclosure.
The stepper controller is an Arduino Mega functioning the Marlaser firmware, although [Owen] admits perhaps a laser cutter-unique driver board would have been improved as he expended a lot of hrs making an attempt to get the Arduino to do what he preferred. Air ventilation is a tube with a supporter that vents out a close by window. Drinking water cooling is just a bucket of water with a pump in it. A uncomplicated nylon hose connected to a compressor with a utmost airflow valve supplies an air guide even though chopping. Eventually, we’re satisfied to report that [Owen] purchased basic safety eyeglasses specific to his laser to secure his eyes and researched how to floor the high voltages generated.
We specially loved observing all of [Owen’s] examination cuts. He proudly exhibited his containers, sharks, and lamp shades like any person with their new laser cutter is wont to do. If you are hunting to up grade your laser, there’s an incorporate-on for detecting resources optically or a fairly inexpensive laser bed you can toss in your laser.
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