Hi

I have a small independant aquarium shop and we go through a lot of filter foam, Most of our aquarium are independantly filtered in order to limited cross contamination of disease. That also means that we need to spend a lot of money on foam - approximately 50-60 foam replacements a month which can cost up to £300 a month.

Being a DIY and electronics/computer enthusiast, I thought it would be a good idea to spend some time building my own CNC and cut out filter foam by machine. Most of the foam cant be hand cut as they are complex shapes.

The foam we will use is this: (Reticulated polyether) https://www.efoam.co.uk/aquatic-filter-foam.php

Thee foam is really easy to cut and a boxcutter can go through it like [extremely] hot knife through butter. A standard milling method looks ideal but it might produce a lot of waste so I am wondering whether I should spend more money and look into a laser cutter or a vibrating foam cutting knife cutter.