Well, I've been asking questions and gathering for awhile, and figure's it time to start the thread. I have a very sturdy and accurate 12" x 12" cnc table I'm going to convert to a laser head. I just received my 40watt sealed tube yesterday (in one piece :cheers: ) and the powersupply and lens will be here today or tomorrow. I have the two gold mirrors necessary also.
The lens I'm using has a 2.5 inch focal length, and is a GaAs lens. I was told that it was just as good as the ZnSe lens, and for the price I was willing to take the gamble. Plus, I can't seem to find too many ZnSe lenses on ebay right now.
I will post pictures tonight when I get home of the tube and setup, and show you what I'm going to do.
Also, a little background. I converted the CNC table to use a HF trim router, and it worked well. The repeatability is amazing, and there seems to be no perceptible backblash when using a dial indicator. I'll have each axis move back and forth numerous times and it will still return to zero. I love the bishopwisecarver bearings and rail setup it uses. I'm going to emulate this for my larger CNC router. But I started a scrapbooking business with a partner (female,or course) and she had a lot of ideas for products. Well as it turns out, most of it's made of 1/8" hard board, and then acrylic sheet. Also stamps. So I started doing them on the router, but it was very annoying. The accuracy and speed were more than acceptable, but the hold down situation was awful. I have to use a ton of double stick tape, and then it's so strong I'll always loose 10% of whatever is on the sheet. So after researching, I knew a laser would be the best bet. There's only one other scrapbooking supplier I've found that uses a laser table as well. Most of it is die cut, but then you're limited on what you can buy. If a sheet took 30 minutes of run time, it would take an additional 45 minutes of prep time, removal and clean up time. With the laser I'll simply have to place the sheet on, cut, and remove. So I'm pretty excited. Plus, lasers apparently do very well with acrylic, which is were the bigger profit is.
After I post some pictures, I'll have a few questions for you guys. And I certainly welcome any questions you might have for me! :rainfro: