[Gene-Yo]

I see a lot of talk about building a laser on CNCZONE but curious if anyone out there has actually done this?

I'm deciding to sell my laser kit that I assembled consisting of a 25 watt co2 laser, honey comb table, 3 axis CNC driver kit with steppers, power supply with ttl inputs and several cog wheels and matching belts. I'll probably just list everything on ebay and take my beating on the price.

I came to the conclusion it's too dangerous to build your own laser engraver. I've searched in vain for months to find someone that has actually started and completed a flying optics type design on CNC Zone and so far nada. Something tells me there is a reasons I'm not finding anyone...

Anyone?? (nuts)

[KTP]

The moderator of this forum has built at least one complete engraver.

I don't think the problem is that it is really dangerous, rather that there is a lot more that goes into making a easy to use, reliable, fast laser engraver than people think.

I have started and stopped and started again building an engraver, but it is very hard to produce a one-off and feel like you are saving anything (money-wise). Also, when you are done, will your engraver be as easy to use, fast, portable, reliable as the better made comercial models? Will it have much value if you decide to sell it? (People might be a little more hesitant to shell out $$$ for a joe-blow homebuilt 60 watt engraver versus an epilog or universal model).

I probably could just sell off the lasers, motors, linear rails, etc. and add a few bucks and buy a lightly used epilog...

[Alex101]

Hello everybody!
How you estimate prospect of creation self-made laser engraver. I see a lot of hobby cnc routers but can’t find laser engravers. My machine will be based on soviet pen plotter A3 format. I find it new at box. Electronic will be replaced to microctep controller based on Toshiba microcircuit.
Laser tube will be 20W 500mm length. What did you think about it?

[MonoNeuron]

Hi Gene,
I have built one.
the link is here for a video of it in action.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi4dKAseDCg[/ame]

It's not dangerous if you observe all the precautions when first starting it up and aligning the laser beam path. After that you only need to check alignment every week or so as they do go out of alignment a little bit.
Rich.

[Switcher]

Very cool video!

.

[largohome]

Rich, you did a superb job! I have built a engraver also, I use flying optics like you but more interested in raster than vector, I have a 48 x 96 60 watt that I use all the time in my business but needed something to pick things up from 700 IPM to 2500 IPM. I am wondering what software you are using on the machine you made? I found out that Mach 3 will not support raster, I will have to buy a spot with wincnc to get the other machine working on raster, it does vector very well with wincnc. I am experimenting with a 60 watt yag diode laser now, I think it could do some awesome fine vector cutting on thin metal.
Check out my site.

www.thelaseretcher.com
Jack

[MonoNeuron]

Hi Jack.
I'm using Linkmotion from Solustan Inc which works very well but is a bit slow in rastering. It also ties up the whole computer until the job is finished. It can be found cheaply on Ebay from time to time and while mine cost $599 on special($1300 usually) it can be had for under $100 secondhand. It uses a dongle which I don't like very much, also.
I like the hardware and software package from www.testra.com as they used to supply all of Universal Laser tables for the past 10 years and the whole package cost about the same as the Linkmotion software and seems to go really fast while rastering.
Linkmotion will go very fast but overshoots the raster a proportionate amount depending on the speed you travel so, if I have a 4x4 picture and raster at, say, 3 ipm then it will only move the 4 inch amount. If I raster at 20 ipm then it tends to overshoot the end by about double the size or about 8 inches. It's no big deal but you need the room or the laser head hits the side of your ways. Ok, it is a big deal if you want speed.
They, Solustan, also have a very good after sales service which I have to say is impeccable and at no time, if I had problems setting thing up, was I waiting for no longer than 2 days (over a weekend).
Rich.

[MonoNeuron]

I'll have to make a video detailing just what happens while raster engraving at different speeds with Linkmotion. It's interesting. I think Solustan have an upgrade of their Linkmotion software but I believe it's very expensive.
Rich.

[largohome]

Rich do you mean 20 Inch per minute or 20 Inch per second? 20 IPM is real slow. With a machine like yours I would expect to see 4000+ IPM.

When I raster on my 4x8' table, I run the machine at 700 IPM but it also has an acceleration and declaration of 3 inches at the end of each line. The big table has the laser connected to the x axis and moves all the time, this is what is limiting the speed and more than likely the laser life. I will check into that software, is it smart raster? (only rasters where the laser will fire and skips all the lines it doesn't)

[MonoNeuron]

The mononeuron kicked in. Yes it is 20 inches per second. Change all of the above to inches per second and you'll get it right. (And so will I for once)
Yep, it's smart raster. It will only fire on the dots so, say you have a tree 12 inches in dia, it rasters all the top canopy then only rasters the trunk which is say 2 inches in dia. This saves a heap of time but the overall job still takes ages on my 30 watt machine.
I am saving up for an 80-100 watt Synrad so that will be a heap better.
Rich

[largohome]

You built the most professional machine I have seen. It looks factory, I will take pictures of my machine today and post, its built from T-slot and is beefy, I decided to use the focus lens as the as the height adjustment rather than motorized focus adjustment. I do tombstones that weigh 300-400 lbs. I also used lead screws for the Y axis as most of what I do is raster, the X axis is syncroness belt like yours. I purchased one of those 60 NGYad diode lasers which I might so some experimenting with as at that lower frequency it has a different reaction on stone, it will actually vaporize marble. Where are you located?

[lamicron]

Rich, is the linkmoption like the chinese software ( lasercut 5.0), that you import your PLT or DFX file direct to the software and then cut it? Or do you need two softwares like sheetcam and mach?

[MonoNeuron]

Thanks Largo, I appreciate the cudos.
I live in Broken Hill, NSW, Australia. Basically in the middle of nowhere.
I don't think I will use screws for any axis again as the belts are just so trouble free and absolutely no maintenance (unless I had to shift around 300 lb of rock so that would be another story)
I would like to see a video of your setup running one day. I'm still thirsty for anything to do with lasers. I also wanted to get into monument and headstone decoration as I think there is a market for it here and it's always nice to see the picture of the deceased person to gauge what they were like. A bit morbid but I would like my tombstone to have my picture on it.
To Lamicron, Hi.
The Linkmotion software just acts as a print driver so you need a front end program to use it. Most people use Corel Draw but you can use a few vector drawing programs like Illustrator. I think there are about 3-4 listed as good ones on the Solustan's site. I use Corel Draw X3 (picked up on EBay for $80 as a corporate version without manual)
I then bought an E-book with videos for $50 to learn the program and, after I setup linkmotion (another story), I was up and cutting in about 3 hours. I'm a slow learner sometimes.
In Corel to cut vectors you set "hairline" and "no fill" as the line properties and when doing raster you just convert everything to a bitmap. Took me about an hour to realize that and a certain amount of hair loss.
When you are ready to cut/engrave you just hit the "print" icon and when the requester pops up, check for the home position and click on print to start the job. Dead easy.
An 11" square bitmap picture at 340 dpi takes about 4 minutes to process before the laser takes off and does it's stuff so there is a lot of information to process.
The only drawback I have so far is that it doesn't save the processed file into memory so you need to process the same file EVERY time. P.I.T.A. when you want 6 jobs done but that is very rare for me.
You have to have a very fast computer to run the software and they recommend anything over 2.6 GHz with 1 Gig of ram......2Gig is better. I had a lot of issues until I upgraded the computer then a lot of my problems went away.
Rich.

[largohome]

I have a couple friends in Australia, one of them bought an airplane I built, he came to the USA and we took it apart and put into a container, hes flying it now on the Gold-coast of your country.

I decided to stick with something that works for me, I use wincnc for my waterjet, router and laser so I just purchased another spot for the new laser motion control. I have the new laser running on Mach 3 now which will not support raster unless you have a g code for every firing, so a file that would normally be 12meg in size can be 100+ meg. This is not acceptable so Mach will be on my cnc mill when I convert it over. Wincnc motion control is easy and straight forward, doesn't require a engineer to program and has been bullet proof for me. I will have to see how to make a video when I get the new hardware up and running.

I use corel in my preparation of the file, then use photograv with my personal parameters. Here are some pics of the work I do with the shop sabre, its a wonderful machine and paid for itself in 1.5 years. I am going to buy a 6'X12' machine this year just for the router.

[largohome]

Here are a couple more pics. The cabinet doors are vector files but total project after they were painted and stained was stunning. The vine started from a grape vine in the center of the kitchen then went from door to door.

[lamicron]

Thanks Rich, Then the linkmotion works like the lasercut 5.0. I was thinking if it could be used for plasma cuttings, I have cnc plasma and i use the Mach and sheetcam softwares.But it means a lot of work more than using the linkmotion or the lasercut. I only need to cut vectors. The PWM works as trigger isn´t it? Or is there any other option on - off to trigger the plasma? i think I can handle the heigth of the torch with a THC control.
The linkmotion comes with dongle as the lasercut?
Luis

[lamicron]

Hey, nice work!!!! I also have a laser, how many watts do I need to do that over the stone????

[largohome]

I run my 60 watt laser at 2.5% @700 IPM. I don't like not having a larger margin to work with, so I have a 10 watt that will give me 100% control at 2500 IMP on the new machine I built. When engraving on stone it depends on a couple factors, #1 and most important is the quality of the stone, Black marble is the best as its sediment base and the laser vaporized sediment and leave a perfect white. With granite black is the best but the smaller the crystalline structure of the stone the better the fracture of the crystal, the smaller the crystal the better the resolution. I hope not to confuse you but I import granite and sell it to fabricators of counter tops, this is what got me going on the lasering of granite, over the past couple years I have had the opportunity to use different granite and colors to experiment with for free, this is something that is very beneficial, if you had to buy the stone that I have screwed up you would be poor.

#2 is speed, and if you own a laser than you know that the faster you go the more power you will need. (my big machine is max at 700 IPM so 60 is WAY overkill)

But on stone it is #1 which is more important than #2. If your going to only etch on stone then go with a small power laser that will give you a control of power from 0 to 100% for the speed your going to run. I would much rather etch at 75% of laser power, then you can adjust from 0 to 100% and control the fracture of the crystals much better. I use a pocket microscope to see the different aspects of stone and fractures.

Thanks for the nice comments.
You can see more work at www.thelaseretcher.com or www.jhegranite.com

[lamicron]

You did show only an easy piece !!! I´ll be really happy making that kind of spectacular jobs.! Thats the kind of work I really enjoy. Good machines also.
Thanks for the parameters.
Luis

[largohome]

Thanks for the kind words!