Re:The Guide to Not Buying a 3D Printer
by jacquesm on Wednesday August 27, 2014 @10:08PM
(#8235620)
That is very nice. What kind of thickness can you cut with those diodes in various metals and other materials? At what kind of speeds?
Re:The Guide to Not Buying a 3D Printer
by spiritplumber on Thursday August 28, 2014 @12:07AM
(#8235854)
You can't do metal, but you can do wood and acrylic up to 3/8inch (5mm). It's not fast, but it's just the thing if you want to make wing profiles for a balsa RC airplane. Working on making it do very thin copper, just so I can lase PCBs.
It's not fast.
FWIW, I not only provide the design, I also provide the design (and a video) of the jig I use to make them.
Consider me very much impressed. That's the first workable DIY lasercutter that I've come across.
If you're going to do the copper thing make sure to get some kind of fume extraction going, metal vaporization is an excellent way to poison yourself!
A poor mans version of this would be amazing:
http://www.thefabricator.com/blog/direct-diode-lasers-enter-...
Poor: a few thousand $ for a head.
Re:The Guide to Not Buying a 3D Printer
by spiritplumber on Thursday August 28, 2014 @02:14PM
(#8238802)
I guess mine is the poor man's version of that :) I'm working on a more powerful unit (14W) but I have nothing to show yet.
Funny enough they were starting to be a lot less interested in the deal when they heard I had a patent on it. I even tried the "look, you've covered your behinds, I'm covering mine" angle.
(I do have a patent on the design, but I'm choosing to not enforce it - http://robots-everywhere.com/re_wiki/index.php?n=Main.LCheap... if you want to either buy one, or download the designs for one)