Bending Laser Cut Wood Without Steam Or Forms

June 12, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

If you want to pretty up your project boxes, we can’t imagine anything better than [Shaun]’s walnut plywood, laser-cut, kerf bent Arduino case. Instead of the slot-and-tab construction of traditional laser-cut enclosures, [Shaun] used a technique to bend plywood without steaming, heating, and eventually scorching his somewhat expensive plywood.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this accordian style laser-cut kerf bend. By alternating laser cuts along the desired radius, the plywood can be bent by hand. The technique is called kerf bending and is perfect for putting an organic touch on the usual 90° angle project boxes we see.

[Shaun] has an Instructable for the smaller boxes that are part of his Arduino powered wireless sensor network. This Instructable goes over the pattern of laser cuts required to get a nice, smooth kerf bend, and also shows off how beautiful a laser-cut project box can be when cut out of aromatic cedar.

Incredible Home Made Low Cost CO2 Laser

June 7, 2012 by Jesse Congdon 26 Comments

[LokisMischief] wrote in to the tip line to let us know about this incredible home made CO2 laser. This thing is a complete DIY beauty, from the PVC cooling jacket to the toolbox based controller. The whole thing is essentially built from DIY parts, hand blown glass for the laser tube, plumbing store mirror mounts, a PVC cooling jacket with a caulked glass viewing window, and a neon sign transformer with a variac to control output. Even the optics are completely DIY, a hand drilled gold mirror and a NaCL window made from a polished chunk of icecream salt! [ThunderSqueak] says the control box only cost 60 bucks, and the rest of the parts don’t look too terribly expensive.

We could only find one video of the setup in the variac section of the site, and it was just a test the amp meter in the controller (no lasing anything at all). [ThunderSqueak] does make a note on the to do list about doing a good laser-y demonstration video, which we are looking forward to.

If you want more DIY CO2 laser action check out this other one or some plans for one.

Laser Cutting In 3D

June 7, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 11 Comments

Everyone in the world suffers from some degree of functional fixedness, a proclivity to use tools only how they were meant to be use. A laser cutter, for example, is usually used to make flat, two-dimensional parts. [Seeker] broke out of this cognitive lock when he decided to create an illuminated 3D object with a laser cutter and a dozen acrylic sheets.

[Seeker]’s project is inspired by acrylic edge-lit LED signs. In these signs, a pattern is engraved on an acrylic sheet and a LED illuminates the panel from the side. When the light from the LED hits the engraving, it’s refracted and produces a wonderful colorful pattern.

To make a 3D version of an edge lit display, [Seeker] subtracted a 3D model of a virus from a cube in Sketchup. This resulted in a hollow cavity that would refract light. After slicing up the model of the 3D cube, [Seeker] sent the files over to the laser cutter to produce a few dozen custom panels. [Seeker] glued them together, put the entire assemblage in front of a LED light, and admired the beauty of his new laser cut 3D virus.

Visualizing Sound Without A Computer

June 1, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 22 Comments

[Emre] sent in a cool art piece he’s been working on that visualizes your voice without the use of a microcontroller.

The project is called Visible Voice only consists of a laser, mirror, audio speaker and a phosphorescent disk. The laser shines onto a mirror mounted on the speaker and is reflected onto the disk. When an audio signal is played through the speaker, the light bounces off the mirror and produces a waveform on the disk. Think of it as the lowest tech way of building a model of a CRT; the laser is the electron gun and the speaker is a deflection coil.

Right now, [Emre]’s project displays a waveform along a circular path on the slowly rotating phosphorescent disk. Anyone wanting to copy this project could use a moving belt of the same material giving a much more linear (and straighter) waveform trace.

After the break you can see [Emre]’s friend [Ivan] testing out the glowing laser waveform visualizer.

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Tornado Lamp Made With Lasers

May 25, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

[Styropyro] did a great job of taking common parts and making an interesting item. He calls this his Tornado lamp, and it’s made with stuff you probably have around the house — well you might have to substitute more common glassware for that Erlenmeyer flask.

The bulk of the hack is in the base. You’ll find a laser diode pointed at a small scrap of mirror. That mirror is mounted on the center of a small case fan, giving the tornadic effect when spinning. To make everything fit just right, the laser is pointed horizontally, with the fan/mirror at a 45 degree angle. The beam points up through a hole in the project box and illuminates the liquid in the flask. That liquid is water doped with a substance that fluoresces. In this shot it’s some fluorescein, but we did mention you can do this with stuff from around the house. [Styropyro] demonstrates the use of liqud from some highlighting markers as a substitute.

If you’re decoration a mad scientist’s lab this is a perfect companion for a Jacob’s ladder.

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Laser So Easy To Build Anyone Can Burn Their Eyes Out

April 27, 2012 by Mike Szczys 62 Comments

The boys over at North Street Labs built a handheld burning laser and made it look super simple. Well it’s not. We don’t think it’s hard either, but the only reason it looks so easy is because they really know what they’re doing.

The first step was to source the best parts for the application. They’re using a handheld flashlight body which is small but still leaves plenty of room for the components. Next they ordered a quality lens made for the wavelength of the diode, as well as a prefab driver board.

Now the real build starts. They hit the metal lathe and machined a housing for the diode out of some aluminum stock. To marry the parts together they applied some thermal paste, and used a wrench socket to protect the diode from the pressure the vice jaws exert. It slid into place and the whole thing fits perfectly in the flashlight housing. The project wouldn’t be complete without video proof of it burning stuff. You’ll find that after the break.

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CoolBot Keeps Your Laser Cutter From Overheating

April 24, 2012 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

[Charles] wrote in to share the project he just built for the London Hackerspace. He calls it CoolBot, and as the name indicates it’s responsible for keeping the laser cutter from overheating.

At its heart the system is a water pump. It uses a plastic storage container as a reservoir, with an outfeed from the laser tube coming in the top of the lid. [Charles] mounted a temperature sensor using a 3D printed part to anchor it in the center of the return stream. An Arduino clone uses this sensor, as well as ambient room temperature and laser tube temperature sensors to decide when to switch on the cooling pump. As with any hackerspace add-on, this wouldn’t be complete without Internet connectivity so he included an Ethernet shield in the project box. Speaking of, that box uses panel-mount connectors to keep dust and water away from the electronics. But the lid of the controller box also includes a character LCD for quick reference.

Don’t miss [Charles’] explanation of the system in the video after the break.

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