MadModder
The Shop => Tools => Topic started by: John Stevenson on July 25, 2012, 06:46:14 PM
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Bought meself a laser cutter.
No pictures as yet but it does exist, still trying to get that bench sorted that it sits on.
Bog standard CO2 40W jobbie, takes an A3 sized sheet of material.
Freaking awesome machine, not a stranger to laser cutter as a few years ago I used to do maintenance on 5 Bystronic lasers for 3Kw up to 5Kw but never in a million years would I have thought you could get one in a home shop.
When I ordered it a couple of months ago I reckoned it was going to be 80% toy and 20% workhorse, if, and I see no reason why not, I can get up to speed I reckon those figures will change to 30% toy and 70% workhorse.
A few years ago I bought a little router, only 300mm x 300mm [ 12" x 12" ] capacity as a toy as I like engraving but it's spend most of it's life working.
Pics to follow but done an awesome 4" Aztec calender in 7mm thick ply, would have come out better if I hadn't used an old packing case thats been out in the rain for ages, and found a bit that didn't have nail holes
Now playing with different materials, can't cut metal like mac's but can engrave on some. Be ace for making new screw cutting charts up. Had three people who repair gearboxes interested in doing gaskets.
This should put the VM-B conversion back a few months. :wave:
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Hi John,
Once you have got your new toy, sorry, tool sorted perhaps you ought to look at getting one of the machines demonstrated on this video..
&feature=plcp
When I first started watching this chap's videos, I did wonder if he was your New England cousin :wave:
On a separate topic, after your recommendation for those gloves, I went along and bought some, great find. :thumbup:. I think the chap was a little disappointed that after paying you all that money to spread the word his sales did not increase very much, still it was only a day or two later so he might be happier by now. :lol: :lol:
Ned
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Which one did you get?
Did it cut through the 7mm ply, what sort of 'finish' did you get? Much charring?
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blar blar blar ,,,,Mr JS were are the photos :poke:
This should put the VM-B conversion back a few months
ANY EXCUSE ! :lol: :lol:
Rob
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John, get the piccys up - I wanna see!
Chris
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As Chris said Lets have some pics John, what drawing programme are you using?
John
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As Chris said Lets have some pics John, what drawing programme are you using?
John
How about some laser cut ply for my model aeroplanes? Is this summat u can do :dremel:
I guess the limits are endless... :scratch: Well within reason..Can it cut ally?
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OK the laser.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/laser.jpg)
Thats an A3 piece of perspex on the bed to give an idea of scale, never thought to measure it but I know from the bench it's 700mm deep say 28" and I reckon it about 40 to 43" long.
I have been too busy today with work but small son has been playing with some 3mm coloured perspex doing key fobs to sort settings out etc. Nothing fancy but all helps.
Last night we did get to experiment on marking metal. They say they won't engrave on stainless but as some people have said they will but not very clear.
This is a 40W laser direct onto stainless set to cut not engrave.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/lasertest1.jpg)
The word TEST was done 7 times at different settings but a scotchbrite pad has virtually removed the lower 6 of them.
Re ran the same test on the bottom of the same material but this time coated the stainless with some patented home brewed gunk [ all will be revealed a bit later ].
Can't afford Thermark it costs £100 plus VAT per aerosol here [ no typo ] which is an insane price but they have the US patent on the stuff.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/lasertest2.jpg)
These 7 test pieces have also been scotchbrighted at the same time as the upper ones.
Very pleased with this and reckon I could probably do better with just a few pounds worth of ingredients.
Although this is the first laser I have owned I have been around them for many years and one of the top laser guys in the world is one of my customers and friend.
Back to playing and this is the Aztec calender that we cut out.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/lasertest3.jpg)
This is cut out of 7mm plywood, engraved then cut. It's probably on it's limit for wood as it has charred the edges. Could probably get it a bit better than this if I went onto to nitrogen as assist gas but it's not been bought for that. Awesome detail though. Ignore the black mark above center, that's a nail hole as I was using a piece of crap plywood off a packing case.
Hopefully I might get a couple of hours tomorrow to experiment further.
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To put it simply :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: . Congrats on the new tool. I truly cannot wait to see more of what you make with it.
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Very cool , JS :thumbup: , etching looks sharp :clap:
Rob
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That's a great toy John! :bugeye:
Love it! :thumbup:
David D
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OK done my first paying job, well not really paying as these gaskets are worth 3K
Gasket for the bottom of a vacuum valve, you can't buy these, you have to buy a complete valve assembly and all that goes wrong with them is crap gets on the seating and doesn't seal, Unscrew clean the seat and refit but the gasket always tears.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/vacuum%20gasket.jpg)
OD is 35mm or 1 3/8" and the small hole in the outer bit of the leg is 0.5mm or 20 thou.
Crap video of it cutting, bit blurred as it shot at an angle thru a tinted lid.
12 seconds actual cutting time. Did 10 off to keep them going and then started playing. Still using ply wood at the moment whilst learning.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/Rolls%20Merlin.jpg)
Not as easy as it looks, had to do this about 4-5 times before it was acceptable. There is a lot of detail on Merlin just under his hat and on his wand and it burns the wood away. Going to do this on gold and black laminate or silver and black for a guy who takes a Merlin to the shows and runs it under power.
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Impressive JS ,,,,,,,,, :bow: :bow: :bow: Goes some dunt it :headbang:
Rob
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Wow, that's a neat tool. It really knocks out those gaskets fast. The engraving on the SS looks quite good
once you used the juice on it. How long was the run time on that stainless for one "test" word, John?
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Never timed it but I'm guessing about 15 - 20 seconds. It does give a time on the display after cutting.
I do some 5" engraved plates for the water board to go on big valves, quite a lot of detail on them and on the engraver they take 20 minutes. On the laser they take 3.
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Still doing a bit of playing. machine is dead easy to use but getting parameters right for different materials is a different learning curve.
Been doing an Imperial screw cutting chart for my metric C3 lathe and can get consistent results like this now.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/screwcutting%20chart1.jpg)
This in metallic laminate, scaled the merlin badge down and did it on the same material, came out reasonable but the merlin artwork is quite fussy and doesn't like scaling too much.
(http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/Rolls%20Merlin1.jpg)
It's only 2" x 2 1/2" but was just an offcut of the laminate, not cut the sheet of gold coloured laminate up yet.
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Hi John, how much please for one of the RR plates? i live three doors away from the two seat Spitfire. i'm sure if i took one of those around to him i could get another pillion ride...
Lyn.
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Suppose it will do :coffee:
Rob
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Suppose it will do :coffee:
Rob
Yer, definite room for improvement, I'll keep trying. :(
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This thread left me feeling left out so I'm now also 'lasered up'...
So John, I have a question about the 'engraving' you did on metal.
I did some reading and the stuff I found suggested that Thermark is actually a suspension of glass...
Now it turns out my other half is a glass artist (which means a bloody huge kiln occupies the space the Bridgeport I don't have should have been in) so I 'borrowed' some of her fine glass powder and mixed it with alcohol, painted it on and 'engraved' it.
What I found was that it did indeed work, although my application using a brush was a bit 'uneven' but the etching isn't really etching, instead it's a fine glass 'bead' that's attached to the metal and as such it's raised.
Am I on the right track here? Looks like the real issue would be to get the suspension into an aerosol form so that it can be applied as a thin even layer.
You're right about materials, experimenting to find the right power and speed for the job in hand is something that would benefit greatly from experience. Good fun though, although looking at the amount of smoke that sometimes pours from the exhaust I'm not so certain of it's ecological credentials...
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Kwakers,
instead of making a glaze from powdered glass how about looking at ready made ceramics glazes of a kind that are already spray-able? Does your other half spray glazes?
Regards, Matthew
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Steve,
:worthless:
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I didn't really have any pics and more importantly I didn't have anything I'd made - other than lots of scrap that I'd chopped into bits/set fire too or had filled full of holes...
So I quickly made the dinosaur out of 3mm scrap MDF, six inch vernier on the top to give some idea of size and took a snap.
(Took longer to figure out how to put the dinosaur together than to cut it out!)
Laser is an eBay Chinese special, it worked out of the box and the optics were even aligned! All nicely modular with 'proper' electronics and slides so I figured if it was a bit rubbish I could mad-mod it. :dremel:
Max work area is 300x500mm, laser is 50w and it comes with a load of chaff. Currently as you can see it backs on to my garage door - this is because the exhaust consists of cracking the door open and chucking the pipe out underneath it. One of the other nice things is the seller has them on 'buy-it-now' or 'best-offer' and it appears they'll take a significant drop on their best offer, the cutter is also on the south coast so was here within 3 days.
@Mathew, nope she doesn't have any spray glazes but that's a good idea. There certainly seems to be mileage in spraying glass on stuff and then 'welding' it on...
As an aside, having played with and seen one now I'm contemplating whether when I make my CNC router mark II I shouldn't give it the ability to have a laser head... The extra footprint would be handy although it would need some method of being able to add and remove the optics easily and accurately - along with some way to avoid sticking something fleshy into the path of the beam as it bounces around the machine.
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8428/7725962416_d5214861b7_z.jpg)
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Can these things burn on a curved surface? (i.e. something that is, say, 20mm higher in the middle than at each end)
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I don't think mine would - I think the laser would have diverged too much.
You can get lenses with longer focal lengths which would help - presumably the higher powered stuff that can cut through 20mm materials have these (mine cuts 6mm acrylic easily enough, I think it'd do 10mm at a push).
Failing that I wouldn't be surprised if someone's figured out a way to do it...
I should add I'm presuming something quite large here - if its effective diameter is less than about 8" then I have a rotary attachment which with a suitable jig would allow it to cut.
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I should add I'm presuming something quite large here - if its effective diameter is less than about 8" then I have a rotary attachment which with a suitable jig would allow it to cut.
I'm think laser engraving rather than cutting
This is the piece I had in mind (i.e. engraving on the green surface)
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I tried a quick test, flat piece of ply supported on a 20mm block at one end and focussed the laser in the centre so the height varied +/- 10mm and 'lasered' a line along it's length.
As you'd expect the line width varies. Either end it was close to 2mm wide with signs of charring whilst at the focus point it looked like a line that had been drawn with a scalpel.
Finding the right power setting would improve things no end but assuming the material doesn't burn then at the very least I think you'd lose resolution at the ends.
I think it would be possible to make a jig that 'rocks' the part as the laser moves along it but unless you had a production run or could think of a simpler jig than I envisage I doubt it would be worth the effort.
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Hi John , I like the thread cutting plate :thumbup:, very handy to replace old one with larger one too as they all seem to be tiny writing on the original plates, looks like its going to be a real handy bit of kit.
Cheers Mick
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I tried a quick test, flat piece of ply supported on a 20mm block at one end and focussed the laser in the centre so the height varied +/- 10mm and 'lasered' a line along it's length.
As you'd expect the line width varies. Either end it was close to 2mm wide with signs of charring whilst at the focus point it looked like a line that had been drawn with a scalpel.
Finding the right power setting would improve things no end but assuming the material doesn't burn then at the very least I think you'd lose resolution at the ends.
I think it would be possible to make a jig that 'rocks' the part as the laser moves along it but unless you had a production run or could think of a simpler jig than I envisage I doubt it would be worth the effort.
Oh well :(
Thanks for trying Steve. :cheers:
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Old thread this I know, but has anyone on the forum with one of the Chinese generic laser engraver / cutters done any tweaking of the laser tube current, and if so care to share their experiences ?
I've relatively recently got a supposedly 60 watt 500 mm x 700 mm version. It works but I reckon it's down on power. I've been through the alignment but my cutting rate seems down on what comparisons I've been able to glean from Googling.
There is at least one YouTube video showing someone setting the laser current, but his set up seemed rather lethal to me :bugeye:
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Andrew, Can't help myself but ask here.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/forumdisplay.php?8-Engravers-Forum
There are some very knowledgeable people on this forum
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Fantastic stuff, I can see this site is goning to be bad for my bank account :mmr: