[Nav] got the bug for a tiny little laser cutter. He pulled off the build, and has just finished the second rendition which makes some nice improvements. He’s was hoping for a laser cutter, but we think this really shines when it comes to branding objects like the scrap wood seen above.
This joins a long line of optical drive parts builds. For instance, we saw this plotter that used the lens sleds from some CD-ROM drives. You may think that [Nav] doesn’t need to worry about the Z axis since this is a laser but you’d be wrong. The focal point of the light needs to hit at the right place to cut efficiently, and this is often the trouble with laser cutters. As material is burned away the laser becomes less efficient if you don’t adjust the lens for vertical position. That’s why we think it’s best as an engraver, but the original build writeup for his cutter does show some success cutting letters in dark paper.
Check out a clip of this design being burnt into the wood after the break.
nice!
Great hack, reusing existing parts.
I was looking into modding a spare turntable with a stepper motor or just a plain rotary fan motor so that the small build area could be multiplied up.
A good day today on HaD: after the glue gun reprap thingy, another hacked contraption that is actually useful! I’ll have to come back and check these 2 projects in details.
This would be a nice addition to a 3D printer, though I worry about the safety of the laser.
This really needs to be in an enclosure. Even specular reflections can damage your eyes here.
Would this be useful for engraving circuit boards? I’m not really familiar with the scale of power here.
No. a bluray laser would need about 3 months to punch even a pinhole in a circuitboard.
faster to order a board made from sparkfun.
A couple projects engraved circuit boards by spray painting them and then taking off the paint with a laser cutter. You wouldn’t need to actually cut the pcb, but you would still need to etch it.
I would like to see it making some plastic SMD Stencil for past solder.
This was one of the things I wanted to do with my 445nm laser. Seriously, just swap out the bluray for one of these diodes, and your output will jump 3-4x with the right power. With proper cooling, 2w output is totally possible.