[Noisebridge-discuss] When are we getting a laser cutter?

[Josh Myer]

Assuming the last few ducks line up, my company will have a 60W epilog
legend on which people can rent time.  I have a space secured at the Box
Shop, and need to pull together the actual laser cutting rig now that I have
all the business side lined up.  The last hurdle is the most obnoxious one:
financing.  I'm trying a different tack next week, and will see how that
goes (apparently nobody wants to loan startup funds to this sort of a
business right now, which makes sense.  small business expansion is
fundable, but not startup).

My conclusions after the process of (mostly) setting up a laser cutting
business:

   - Setting up a business is the stupidest/tedious-est idea I've ever had
   - The equipment is extraordinarily expensive
   - The equipment is pretty fussy and requires regular, not-cheap
   maintenance

FWIW, TechShop requires that you take a safety course, then seriously
restricts access to their machines, including making people check in and
list what they'll be cutting.  Despite this, they still have people cutting
inappropriate materials, using options that take the machine offline*, use
settings that kill the laser tube, or are flat out irresponsible about
what/how they cut and gunk up the optics such that it's a fire hazard.

If noisebridge wants to run one of these, we need to be much more
comfortable with the idea of access restriction.  The equipment itself
requires careful use and maintenance, the neglect of which isn't so bad: not
being careful means that the laser cutter will regularly be out of
commission when people mangle the optical alignment.  The bigger concern is
that reasonably-sized lasers (40+W) are significant fire hazards, and people
using them have to be attentive and responsive during the whole cutting
process.  45W seems to be okay, but everyone's eyes get a little big when I
say I'm getting a 60W laser cutter, and they tell me a story about someone
they've known whose friend had a (50|65|75)W laser cutter and it burned down
their ${building} when they left it unattended to watch Jeopardy or use the
bathroom or whatever.

The biggest concern for me is one of fire hazard; I'd love NB to have a
cutter, however its maintained or kept up.  It's a great tool, and will
allow people to get hooked, then need to come use my rig for larger
production runs =)

Hope this is informative and helpful for people,
-- 
Josh Myer 650.248.3796
josh at joshisanerd.com

* Auto depth finding simply doesn't work on the Legend!  Don't try to use
it, it'll just take the machine down for a couple days while your helpful
Epilog rep works a realignment visit in on his busy maintenance circuit.
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