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

Martin Bogomolni martinbogo at gmail.com
Wed Dec 16 03:54:11 UTC 2009


That's another reason I think a J-TEC would be a better choice than an
epilog.  Chinese made, parts are actually pretty easy to get, and they
are relatively bulletproof for a lot less money.   Not as many bells
and whistles, but built like tanks.

-M

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Josh Myer <josh at joshisanerd.com> wrote:
> 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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