Homebuilt laser cutter pictures

[Tony Burch]

Hi all,

We have built a computer controlled C02 laser for cutting and engraving.

Thought some of you may be interested to have a look.

http://www.theblakelaser.com/

Any comments are welcome.

Cheers,
Tony

 

[OBones]

Hi all,

We have built a computer controlled C02 laser for cutting and engraving.

Thought some of you may be interested to have a look.

http://www.theblakelaser.com/

Any comments are welcome.

Cheers,
Tony

Any indication of the cost ?

 

[Rene Tschaggelar]

Hi all,

We have built a computer controlled C02 laser for cutting and engraving.

Thought some of you may be interested to have a look.

http://www.theblakelaser.com/

Any comments are welcome.

I'm also impressed by this setup.
A better question : how many hours did it take ?

Rene

 

[martin griffith]

Hi all,

We have built a computer controlled C02 laser for cutting and engraving.

Thought some of you may be interested to have a look.

http://www.theblakelaser.com/

Any comments are welcome.

Cheers,
Tony

very nice, some info about the hardware/software would be appeciated


martin

After the first death, there is no other.
(Dylan Thomas)

 

[Tony Burch]

Hi, this is a hobby project, so most of the cost is in time. Like most
hobby projects, the hours have not been logged. But I can tell you that I
paid a couple of thousand Australian dollars for the second-hand laser head,
which was a one-off purchased from a private seller.
Cheers, Tony

 

[Tony Burch]

Hi Rene, thanks for your kind comment. You are right, the real cost is in
the hours spent. As I mentioned just now in my previous post, this is a
hobby project in which the hours were not logged. Like most hobby projects,
mostly we don't realise how much time we spend, and we forget how much time
it took
Cheers, Tony

 

[Tony Burch]

Hi Martin, thanks. I'm going to put up more technical details on the
website. I just thought that initially I would put up as many photos as
possible, showing most of the details. I constructed the drive electronics
for the stepper motors using bipolar transistors and a CPLD board for the
step & direction decoding. I'm using Danplot software, which outputs
signals to the parallel port, but other CAM software (such as MaxNC) that
outputs signals to the parallel port can also be used. To turn the laser on
and off, I currently have a microswitch attached to a stepper motor, which
is the Z-axis motor. I will be changing this to a pulse width modulated or
delta-sigma signal to the laser, for variable power.
Cheers, Tony