I’m going to have a special guest in my workshop for a while: an Epilog Mini 24 45 watt laser cutter. This is entirely thanks to Epilog Laser down in Golden Colorado. Here’s today’s hackit: If you had access to your own 45 watt laser cutter – with a 12″ x 24″ work surface, what would you make with it?
Oh, and there’s a prize on this one. Whoever comes up with the best idea will get a free laptop engraving session. (You can always just ship me the display cover.) You can have your own art put on, or we can always tattoo your machine with the Hack-A-Day logo.
(Pictured is Ladyada’s laser cutter. Mine’s coming tomorrow!)
1) I would anodize 100 lbs of aluminum sheets (the size of a business card), and etch my business card info onto them
2) I would start etching every computer case/perephrial I could fit in there – mouse, keyboard, etc.
3) I would etch my cell phones
4) I would etch my neighbors dog (oh wait…)
5) I would etch the handles of all my knives
6) I would build a laser 3d scanner, and using only sheets of paper, I would etch out a bust of myself. And anyone else I liked. And then charge people a few grand to do it for them, woot :)
a big hackaday logo would look cool
I’d put it to use in the MIDIBOX community!
I read the article on the MB-6582 that Wilba designed http://www.hackaday.com/2007/05/23/mb-6582-diy-c64-based-midi-synth/
and decided that I had to have one. I’m fairly well on with it now and am just waiting for the base-board parts kits to become available. We had some PCB’s made which turned out wonderful. However, the front panels, although accurately cut came through with a poor quality out of line silk screen and there’s no way we can get them re-done in a cost effective way with the same company.
So, if I had a laser cutter I would put it to use for the guys at ucapps cutting front panales and doing a nice job laser engraving them. Any chance I could borrow it for a month or so :D
G
I would write a little game program like tic-tac-toe or something like that. Each time a player would fill in a spot I would have the laser cutter fill it in on a sheet of metal. At the end of the game, you would have a physical copy of the game board.
I’d make an aluminum Portal cube:
http://greg.medding.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/weighted-companion-cube.png
BATARANGS!!!!
Custom bong, no question.
if it were me, i would use it to engrave custom designs on the removable computer tower panels that i use when i can afford to build a nice computer for someone.
First of all, I would like to say that the barrel of monkeys idea is really awesome, and so is etching a vinyl onto your laptop!
I am currently using a laser cutter to make a PCB etching tank (to etch the PCBs i made on the laser cutter) … After I finished that project up I would probably use it to etch randomly generated procedural artwork onto things (you never know what your going to get and each cut is unique!)…
I would cut small pieces and form them into a suit I could wear like a Mobile Suit Gundam,
or Transformers. It would cut all the pieces for a sweet one of a kind costume.
Not sure how the tech would work, but it’d make a handy way to trace out protoboards. I also like the stencil idea someone suggested. Maybe cutouts of vinyl decals too?
A buddy of mine had something similar and he marked a piece of cooked macaroni in addition to almost anything else he could fit in there.
Well, I’m an art student in San Francisco, and would love to make it available to my sculpture club for various plastic components for our models, but personally would do a bunch of Peter Callesen type / Chinese paper cutting art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_paper_art
http://www.petercallesen.com/index/index2.html
Being able to use the tables 1200dpi setting would let for some Very intricate paper and thing material designs far nicer than you would be able to get with exactoknife use.
Other art projects that immediately come to mind would be custom LEGO mods and ingravings…
I would put everything I could int the thing but after a while I’d get bored and take it apart to make a laser pointer from hell to shoot my best friend’s xmod. I don’t know if the laser would do much damage but the look on his face.
p.s. how do you enter the contest?
I would love to see what the laser cutter could do to an egg, remove the egg slime first if there’s a concern of exploding eggs in the brand new machine.
Hello there from Lebanon :-)
American laser machine to make American coffee aluminum filter with thin laser holes.
How about making my own custom shirt buttons, unique power switches and change plastic box shape of my electronic device routers CPU speakers or just rack mount anything like floppy drive :) or write and draw whatever you like on your wrest watch or big one’s but my first trial would be to engrave my girlfriend face on coin
Love you , Labib
I’d personally use it to cut intricate mother of pearl inlays.
I guess its not all that exciting, but it would sure the hell beat sawing the stuff with a jewelers saw :/
.. I suppose you could also use it to etch the mother of pearl to. That’d be cool to.
I for-vision a hackaday logo the size of a poster make with perfectly cut mother of pearl jigsaw pieces inlayed into a nice piece of ebony.
of course most think I’m crazy. ?!
I would like to make various plates for the face of my guitars. they are like kids to me and i always wanted to find a decent way to “pimp” them. chrome or brushed aluminum pick gaurds, pickup accents and my band logo on the headstocks would be perfect.
laser engraved bacon. Could you imagine cookin’ some bacon with a circuit burned in to it? Better yet, Hackaday bologna/ham/turkey. Make some hackaday bread and you’ll have a hackaday sandwich. Ahhh.. The geek rep would go up ten-fold when you break out your sandwich at work.
i would etch my own Flying Spaghetti Monster decals and make my EEE pc touched by His noodly appendage with custom etching. RAmen.
I know what I’d make: MONEY! Now and into the future!!!
The 45W Epilog lasers are incapable of doing anything but etching
metal (pretty much impossible to cut any metal). I have an Epilog
Legend EXT, which I’ve done a lot of neat stuff with.
Obviously engraving is neat. I’ve done iPods, laptops, pens, mugs,
and even glass. If you’re going to engrave metal, you need to use
Laser Dark for the etching to be visible at all. Engraving plexiglass
and glass is definitely the neatest though. The higher the DPI, the
better it’s going to look.
I’ve used it for paper and origami projects before. You can take
manila envelopes, draw something up and then have it lasered out.
It’s best to use vector cuts along the edges, and raster cuts for
folds. Beware though, keep your raster lines horizontal or you’ll be
there for a while. You could also use color-mapping to vector cut the
folds at a much lower intensity. I’ve used this for little paper
folding giveaways (great for promotions) and I’ve cut the parts for
paper bridges on it (engineering class).
The neatest thing to do is definitely making models. You can cut
balsa wood or EPP foam on the laser, which is perfect for making
homebuilt RC planes. You can also cut certain types of plastic, which
you can use for robots and other projects. The hardest part is
planning out how to turn a 2d cutout into 3d, but it’s easy to get
used to. Right now I’m in the process of drafting a UAVP frame on the
laser with balsa wood. If the balsa wood model comes out how I like
it, I’ll be sending it to an aluminum CNC mill.
They’re definitely really cool machines and have a lot of potential.
Remember though, always do a practice run before you run it. The
first time I tried to engrave an iPod, the auto-focus was off and the
air blower on the laser head came down on the iPod, before dragging
itself back up toward the top of the machine. It left a long dent in
the back of the iPod, and severely scratched the front of it (iPod
nano + honycomb aluminum + dragging = not fun)
I would take the ultra-sound of our twin sons (due to be born 8-11-08) and incorporate the image in a Ying-Yang emblem and engrave it into a piece of wood and use it as a cover for a photo album for my wife. We were told 6 years ago we could have children and God blessed us with twins.
I’d start cutting out the parts I need to make my own laser cutter. Since you said it’s only a temporary installation.
I’d defiantly etch some serious pcb, case modding, popcans, a laser-engraved engagement ring(Assuming you could find a girl who would enjoy such a thing), laminations for a high-voltage transformer… After a few days everything I owned that could fit inside would have some really intricate designs burned into it.
I know, Write a book on .045 aluminum sheets! A copy of the laser’s operating manual perhaps, a copy of Dune, or a shit-load of promotional pamphlets for the laser company and then beg them for sponsorship.
Find anything organic (fruit, veggies, wood, some plastics, etc…) and after you’ve done all the cutesy raster art, do vector-mode. If you so happen to have the piece that rotates round objects, i mean this is the most glorified pumpkin (or smaller, apple perhaps) carver. oh.. i did once for a chemistry class get a glass bottle internally silver lined (by-product is explosive, cool….) then etched the chemical equations on the outside (only slightly risky…)
I think it would be awesome to etch a Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 with some cool game art, like Master Chief for the 360, Solid Snake for the PS3 or Link or Mario for the Wii (It has 2 usable sides so one of each would rock). Of course I don’t know how well this thing would work on plastic so it may not be realistic.
Not that it’s all that innovative, but I just got done using one of these to carve heavy cardboard in order to make templates for cutting styrofoam with a hotwire tool. This was all for the Concrete Canoe my university’s chapter of ASCE is making. The laser cutter is really just to do a precise job of cutting those templates, but it’s a really easy way to make big 3D molds for things like canoes, or other shells. You could probably use a similar method to make a fiberglass hull for something.
Anyhow, I’ve been meaning to take some of that extra cardboard and foam to make an airfoil shape and some other templates to construct a foam glider.
I would do some awesome guitar body work.
I would laser myself a new face. ;)
I’ve got this really cool piece of burled tree root that I plan to cut into cookies and build into a mosaic floor. Since each slice will be different, hundreds of tiles would need to be custom cut to fit the shape of the wood. You could do the same thing with an interesting stone or a big solid piece of scrap metal in an interesting shape. Cutting the cookies seems like it would not be a job for the laser, but the tiles to go around sure would be.
Are you a fan of fruit? Sure you could sculpt ice and other mediums, but were is the originality in that? Try carving an Apple Iphone clone, I’m talking exact replica, out of a actual Macintosh apple. Even Jobs would get a kick out of that. With the fine point laser print all the default apps that appear on the screen. And then eat it! You could be the first to consume the Iphone. Similar popular feats include throwing it in a blender: http://youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI Besides Engadget is hating on them spontaneous exploding anyway:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/12/ipod-touch-burns-from-within-with-fiery-passion-and-fire/
It would prove to illustrate the speed of the laser since the apple yellows in a matter of minutes.
Take the material they use for nametags and such(normally a white layer of plastic, covered by a black one…where you can etch off the top layer to show the bottom layer while writing names), or just take plexiglass and paint the upper layer, and use it to burn through the top layer. If you use plexiglass you could put a light behind it, or something of that nature.
I’m honestly surprised no one has mentioned slicing pizza with it! How sweet would that be? Have the thing cut perfect pizza slices with out dirtying any knives or cutting wheels (which are annoying to use anyway, and never quite cut all the way though).
It would also be entertaining to turn in a paper with all the letters “punched” through instead of just printed, although I’m not sure how feasible that is, as the paper might combust during the process. But the look on the professors face would be priceless.
I would have to go through and engrave some of my stuff, like my Zune and laptop, and then engrave the hostname of each of my computers into the front of the case or one of the spare drive bay covers.
I had a question though, what wavelength is the laser diode? Is it the standard red ~650nm or something in the infrared spectrum?
Make some basic microfluidic circuits on shrinky dink material like that postdoc researcher lady that was on slashdot a little while back.
Start by copying some of the mixing circuits off the web. Then mix in some flow control stuff. Then move up to a tiny factory for making fruit “caviar”:
http://blog.khymos.org/2007/03/30/first-experiments-with-sodium-alginate/
a laser cutting mill? i’d probably engrave a large number of logos usually found on a laptop (graphics, cpu, wireless logos etc) just to spice up the now generic-looking laptop lids. personally, i have the original backtrack dragon logo enlarged and splayed across the back of my screen, wrapping around the logo and looking just plain intimidating
first off, this post isnt complete without a SP ref somewhere so..
1. Laser cutter
2. ???
3. Profit!
and mad props to the tools idea. Craftsman does that on some of there tools, but doing all of them would be bad ass!
my idea? besides trying to hold still long enough to get a laser tattoo on my leg (i guess lots of rope could be used)
re burn in the letters on my tivo remote? I have used it so much you cant read em all anymore :(
laptop art is pretty obvious.
what about taking a square piece of drywall out of your wall, paint and all, burn in a picture that you would want, you and your GF… whatever, then tape over it with masking tape, re mud it into the wall and paint touch up the edges so you have a laser cut picture in your wall? when you move just paint over it (or leave it to really freak out the new owners lol)
the fingernail art was a cool idea, altho more practical ap would be for acrylic nails for a girl, and not a calender but typical girl crap, butterflys, stars, her name…. etc
how about etching custom logos in your drinking glasses? or mugs? or even your silverware!
(on a side note, what about etching in a bullseye in your reading glasses so you can walk around pretending to be that bulls eye guy in that movie daredevil)
how about cutting in your own family crest into books? or on the edge of books (the paper side not the rib side) you could have your name or something. be good for college kids incase you lose your book, or it gets stolen.
get a cheap silver ring from some random online place and etch some love note thing on it for your anivers with your girl? or something for mom?
do a plate of allum with just text about who you are, what you do, a few personal things you never told anyone in your life about, some general info about current events and hide it inside the walls of your house? or out inside your garage, or under your house. so years and years later when/if someone finds it, it would be a time capsule of sorts.
there was some mention of car related things, i guess you could take the little pop open door thing for your gas tank and etch in a logo, I had batsmaroo airbrushed on when I was 16, just cuz he was bad ass :) but im sure you can think of something better/political to put on there about oil prices.
ya thats all i got for now, I gotta poop… oh! you could piss off your room mate and burn thru all the rolls of toilet paper in the house so when they unroll it all they get is 3 square chunks! lol (ya i know it wouldnt work, the paper would just burn… but still would be funny)
REALLY tiny art/graffitti, kind of the opposite of GRL. More along the lines of the images you can get on the die of an IC. Engrave everyday objects (stick pens, coins, etc) with a miniscule message and release them back into circulation. Perhaps include a website where people can track them, like wheresgeorge.com.
I would cut parts for a 6 legged walking robot
Considered adding a 3rd dimension to the thing? The idea of using coherent light to affect a 3 dimensional media intrigues me… Maybe even have it be a sorta 3d printer?
I had the joy of being able to play with one of these (an older model) a few years back. it works great for etching glass jars, full bottles of champagne and mirrors, but the best thing we did was take an anodized maglight, set it in the roller and create custom logos.
i would hack up a toast calendar.
every morning my laser cutter would print out the date and basic forecast for the day on a piece of toast.
it would then have a way of spitting the toast out on the counter for me to grab on my way out the door.
(of course i wouldnt eat my toast until i got a chance to show it off to someone at school or work!)
I would try to see if I could turn it into a PCB etch resist Printer. Take a large copper sheet and cover it with a layer of toner in powder form. Then turn the laser on and see if the heat will cause the toner to melt enough to bond to the copper. Since you probably don’t want to damage your laser cutter from all that toner powder or risk fogging up the lens from fumes I would recommend the toner and CU board be housed in a glass box of sorts. That way it is completely isolated from the machine and whatever you use will still be transparent to the laser.
I really love the idea of Aluminum (anodized or not) business cards. Stick the hack-a-day logo on them, your contact information, put a small skull-and-wrenches in the middle on the back. Pass them out at FIRST competitions!
I’d get a laser capable of cutting and deep etching metal.
I’d set up a business making laser etched circuit boards – single side PCBs to start with, then possibly 2 sided.
Using copper on a flexible material like plastic, I’d make flexible circuits (even laser the holes for component leads, mounting screws, etc.)
Then maybe some nice panel layouts to go with them.
Use the laser cutter to cut hundreds of layers of thin wood or plastic to generate a 3D object. I’d love to ‘mold’ something really cool, like a lifesize R2D2 for use as a casemod or something larger than life that I can keep and display for years to come – you’re returning the laser cutter after a while, so make something really cool that will last for a long time. Perhaps a book shelf with intricate and ornate carvings of all web 2.0 logos burned through the walls of the book shelf or something. Would make for a great conversation piece and I’d guarentee that you’d be the only one in the nation to own one. :)
I saw the laser cut business card idea come by already so I’m out of luck… instead of winning those, can I pay you to make some? :)
I think I’d like to put Wiki-tan on my laptop lid and bits of the glyph-globe on all my keys, using a grating pattern (ca. 200lpi, but this is an image grating rather than mirror or after all) on Wiki-tan and just Bas-cutting the keys. Incompatible materials even with nitrogen cover gas? How about just making some Microsoft Natural thing look more like an exotic fruiting body of fungi (plus of course overkill burning in glyphs on all sides of the keys.)
Cackling Hillary Clinton White Mudflap Appliquês and Avalanche Warning Signs! [ducks]
Add tabs/insets to a split globe-projection and print out globes in farmer’s cheese (using nitrogen cover, spare baffles probably) with one variable-density hatching for population and another (circular) for per capita income? Then try to find Denver or cut people pieces? Maybe just make ‘Planet Colorado’ to make it easier to grab those stats…. Wha…better to make an acrylic mold of it and pour globes at liberty, you say?
1200lpi and 40W is really good. What power and speeds did you burn/ablate the logo in?
You should try complementary patterns on natural stuff like wood to try and produce superoleophobic surfaces…like lotus leaves with water, only -everything- beads when it touches them. In Science recently (the AAAS pub.) they made ..dammit all my caps are gonna be lost aren’t they…. some of those with old litho. equipment, I think. Just another contrast method for your toolbox, even if you have to intaglio the finish on a top layer.
Why not laser engrave a second language on a keyboard? With a laptop like the macbook pro, you could even make the 2nd set of keys illuminate witht he backlight possibly?
I’d hack currency. Modify the faces of coins. Ya know…put sunglasses on George Washington on the quarter, put a burger in front of his mouth, and then spend it in a vending machine.
Explosives…
Come on! The best use would be to engrave (aka cook) the customers’ name on their pizzas. Especially aprops for birthday parties, superbowl parties, and weddings.
Though i did wonder how it would work with an ant farm…