[Noisebridge-discuss] Laser Cutter!

[Michael Prados]

I also want to reinforce the importance of ventilation.  We had a nice
unit from Universal Laser Systems at my old work place, and initially
we connected it to an exhaust vent that didn't have a lot of pull.
With any decent amount of cutting, the room the machine was in would
fill with fumes.  This is a moderate nuisance with wood smoke, but a
nightmare with acrylic.  Acrylic fumes are sensitizing, and give
almost everyone headaches.  We had people running outside and bitching
and moaning, and because the fumes were vented out a side wall, we
also had complaints from the neighbors.  Soon enough, we invested in a
dedicated stove pipe out the roof with a powerful fan.  Debate went
back and forth as to whether acrylic or delrin fumes were worst, but
neither is a picnic.  Wood didn't seem to irritate humans as much, but
it did have the most persistent odor.

I have started mild fires in laser cutters, and have seen others start
more severe fires.  It needs varying levels of supervision depending
on the material and the job.  The worst fire hazard is putting
verboten materials in the thing, either out of ignorance of the danger
inherent in the substance, or ignorance of what substance your gee-gaw
is made of.

I'd rate my user experience as best with ULS, second best with
Lasercamm (local in Hayward,) and third best with Epilog.  But, that
isn't fully calibrated for cost or the 10 year span between different
experiences.  I've generally used the Windows printer drivers; but for
most cutting tasks, I really just wanted a custom app to read a DXF.
I cry a little on the inside recalling importing my DXF's into
Coreldraw at the Techshop.  I've had better results printing directly
from a CAD program.  The ULS driver was a lot less hassle than the
Epilog driver.

I think Techshop got all of their Epilog machines used, and didn't
seem to suffer for it, from my limited knowledge.

I'm interested to hear about water cooling; we never water cooled our
ULS machine, and I don't remember Techshop watercooling.  Maybe
necessary for 60 Watts?

The feature I always lusted after was inert gas shielding.  Would
probably result in cleaner edges on wood, and my favorite (but not the
cheapest) service firm Laser Custom Designs once did a pretty decent
job of cutting polycarbonate for me with inert gas. I don't think
there is too great an investment to this, aside from procuring and
refilling the bottle (which will of course add up fast if used
injudiciously.)

Anyway, I'm in for $100.  My impression is that it will take ~$10k to
get something worthwhile, but I haven't probed the market too closely.
 It needs to reliably cut 1/4in acrylic or MDF for it to be worth my
while.

-Mike




On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 4:04 PM, Jacob Appelbaum <jacob at appelbaum.net> wrote:
> Michael Shiloh wrote:
>> and perhaps this is one machine that needs keyed access?
>
> I hope we solve that keying issue the way that we've solved other key
> problems. :-)
>
> Best,
> Jake
>
>
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-- 
sent from my computing machine