adrian
Flying Squad
and milled in the correct orientation I hope!
Pencarrow
Western Thunderer
Suffolk Dave
Western Thunderer
I've just come over from Mike G's thread so as not to hijack it further!
You've got some mightily impressive architectural work going on here. This has now got me all rather curious about laser cutters. A quick google reveals they come in all sizes and more significantly, prices.
Have you any advice or recommendations as to choosing a laser cutter? One say, that doesn't require a second mortgage or it's own purpose built workshop. Or am I barking up the wrong signal post?
You've got some mightily impressive architectural work going on here. This has now got me all rather curious about laser cutters. A quick google reveals they come in all sizes and more significantly, prices.
Have you any advice or recommendations as to choosing a laser cutter? One say, that doesn't require a second mortgage or it's own purpose built workshop. Or am I barking up the wrong signal post?
simond
Western Thunderer
Thanks Dave.
I bought my laser second hand from the wife of the Godson of a mate…. It’s a Chinese-made 40W CO2 device, and had been “Europeanised” a bit. It depended on a truly awful software interface which I think was called NewlyDraw, and whilst it worked, it was clunky and awful. Probably ok for doing pictures on drinks coasters, but not much use for modelling.
It was one of these LS3020 Desktop CO2 Laser Cutting Machine by HPC | HPC Laser. I paid £300. I rather think HPC do a better job than whoever sold mine originally. You can probably buy the same unit on eBay if you search. Eg
(it’s the same machine!)
It had no limit switches, so I fitted them, along with an interlock on the lid, and a flow sensor on the cooling water and replaced the control board with a Smoothieboard, and purchased a Lightburn licence, it’s now reasonably reliable and accurate.
Cooling water? Yep, CO2 lasers need a tank of water, and an aquarium pump to keep the discharge tube cool.
Ventilation is another requirement, i tried a bathroom extractor, but it was predictably useless, however, a mate turned up one day with something that’s far too large, (I think it came off an SRN6) but which works brilliantly, and I use that.
There is a thread on RMWeb - CO2 laser - the learning curve
I would not repeat the experience, having learned a bit along the way!
I’d certainly go with a diode laser (and will probably fit a diode rather than fork out for a new tube when the current one dies) and if I were replacing the controller, I’d use a GRBL as they’re cheaper and more generally available than the Smoothieboard.
if I were starting from scratch, I think I’d probably look at Emblasers, and similar flat table designs, but my intention is eventually to have a high quality XYZ table and simply change the head to allow milling, engraving, laser, rivetter, whatever I wanted to do. Haven’t got there yet. In any case, whatever you do will need an enclosure, both for your safety, and to allow the extract system to vent the smoke.
A number of WTers have lasers, I think @Giles and @adrian and I’m sure there are others. And Phil @BrushType4 has a business laser cutting stuff, so you might want to ask a few more opinions.
Obviously, you’ll need to generate the CAD files - lots of options there, I use TurboCAD because I've had it for years.
HTH
Simon
I bought my laser second hand from the wife of the Godson of a mate…. It’s a Chinese-made 40W CO2 device, and had been “Europeanised” a bit. It depended on a truly awful software interface which I think was called NewlyDraw, and whilst it worked, it was clunky and awful. Probably ok for doing pictures on drinks coasters, but not much use for modelling.
It was one of these LS3020 Desktop CO2 Laser Cutting Machine by HPC | HPC Laser. I paid £300. I rather think HPC do a better job than whoever sold mine originally. You can probably buy the same unit on eBay if you search. Eg
(it’s the same machine!)
It had no limit switches, so I fitted them, along with an interlock on the lid, and a flow sensor on the cooling water and replaced the control board with a Smoothieboard, and purchased a Lightburn licence, it’s now reasonably reliable and accurate.
Cooling water? Yep, CO2 lasers need a tank of water, and an aquarium pump to keep the discharge tube cool.
Ventilation is another requirement, i tried a bathroom extractor, but it was predictably useless, however, a mate turned up one day with something that’s far too large, (I think it came off an SRN6) but which works brilliantly, and I use that.
There is a thread on RMWeb - CO2 laser - the learning curve
I would not repeat the experience, having learned a bit along the way!
I’d certainly go with a diode laser (and will probably fit a diode rather than fork out for a new tube when the current one dies) and if I were replacing the controller, I’d use a GRBL as they’re cheaper and more generally available than the Smoothieboard.
if I were starting from scratch, I think I’d probably look at Emblasers, and similar flat table designs, but my intention is eventually to have a high quality XYZ table and simply change the head to allow milling, engraving, laser, rivetter, whatever I wanted to do. Haven’t got there yet. In any case, whatever you do will need an enclosure, both for your safety, and to allow the extract system to vent the smoke.
A number of WTers have lasers, I think @Giles and @adrian and I’m sure there are others. And Phil @BrushType4 has a business laser cutting stuff, so you might want to ask a few more opinions.
Obviously, you’ll need to generate the CAD files - lots of options there, I use TurboCAD because I've had it for years.
HTH
Simon
JimG
Western Thunderer
I started off with an Emblaser 1 diode laser about eight years ago (one of the earliest, less expensive, diode laser cutters) and it did me well on mainly making buildings in S scale and N scale. It had a 4W diode and it managed to handle up to 2.5mm MDF, requiring quite a few passes (about eight if I remember) to cut through that thickness. The machine stopped working at the end of last year when cutting sleepers for an N scale layout and I couldn't source the parts to repair it. So I looked around for another diode laser and after watching a lot of reviews on Youtube, went for a Sculpfun S30 with a 10W head. I got this from AliExpress for about £380, it came as a kit of parts which is fairly normal, built up quite easily and it seems to be working fine so far. It has really only done some testing and cutting more N scale sleepers so far and I've yet to get into more complex work like buildings with etched brickwork and interlocked corners.
There are quite a few similar diode laser machines around in the mid-hundreds of pounds cost bracket and they provide powers ranging from 5W to 30W power and I think I just saw a 40W diode model recently. They all seem to use the same GRBL operating system and I suspect they have the same electronics in them as well. It's worth doing what I did, and dig around on reviews and demonstrations on the Internet and YouTube to see what's around and make your choice. Air assist seems to be all the rage and my Sculpfun came complete with and air assist fitted complete with a small compressor. I have used air assist on the work I've done so far and can attest to the improvement that it gives to a diode laser's operation.
One major point with the cheaper diode lasers is that are not enclosed, and do require some form of enclosure with an exhaust to trap the fumes and get rid of them outside of the room. My Emblaser fitted in a large Really Useful box which proved very successful, but the Sculpfun S30 was too large for this box and I had to build a new enclosure for it. I showed this build of the enclosure in a recent thread :-
Housing the New Laser Cutter
I got the Sculpfun S30 at the end of December but it has had to wait until this week before it got its enclosure built, mainly because my temporary building board was being used to build track for the N scale layout up till last weekend. An enclosure with some form of fume extraction is...
www.westernthunder.co.uk
This was built from ply and stripwood from B&Q and the exhaust fan, exhaust tube and screws came from Screwfix. I think the total cost was about £50. You can also buy ready made enclosures but usually for a bit more money.
The popular software for diode lasers seems to be Lightburn and I got a copy to use with the Sculpfun. The software recognised the machine and set up its parameters automatically and that would be a great help for anyone starting. My Emblaser came bundled with a laser version of Vectric Cut2D and I would prefer to use this since I use the same Cut2D with my CNC mill. But Vectric seemed to lose interest in their original laser offering, but are now offering a laser add-on to their CNC products. I would prefer to use the Vectric product but their trial software is so restricted that it's next to useless to do any serious testing with the laser cutter. They also only seem to provide setups for the more expensive professional laser cutters and only provide a basic GRBL setup which will probably need some messing around with to suit the Sculfun. I might well just take the plunge and purchase the full Vectric product and see what I can achieve. The main reason I am not too keen on Lightburn is that I'm not sure whether you can absolutely predict where a kerf offset will be and this can be quite important when doing complex cutting with buildings for good fits. With Cut2D I can stipulate where the offset lies and can get an on-screen display of that.
Jim.
Pencarrow
Western Thunderer
It lives!
NHY 581
Western Thunderer
adrian
Flying Squad
I followed more or less the same path - however my youTube research I ended up with the Comgrow Z1 Pro, The WeCreate one listed by Phil is very nice - but for a price - a lot of money for a beginner to explore what is possible. My decision was from the following review, and part way through he shows how to make a little laser crosshair zeroing system and define the offset in Lightburn - absolutely invaluable. It means I can laser etch both sides of a panel, eg wagon side interior and exterior without using any setup jigs. All together the laser cutter with air assist, lightburn, his recommended fireproof enclosure and LED lamp came in a shade under £500
simond
Western Thunderer
We’ll convert him yet…
Pencarrow
Western Thunderer
Go on then, make it work in S7...
Suffolk Dave
Western Thunderer
Oh wow! Ask a question about laser cutters and with all that jargon and all the physics I now feel like I've stepped into a parallel universe!
Thanks for all the responses and videos guys, they were appreciated. The WeCreat in Phil's video looks like they type of machine I was expecting but then costs about three times as much as the improvised set up of the Comgrow in vid shared by Adrian.
If I'm to take this further I need to get some serious research done.
Thanks for all the responses and videos guys, they were appreciated. The WeCreat in Phil's video looks like they type of machine I was expecting but then costs about three times as much as the improvised set up of the Comgrow in vid shared by Adrian.
If I'm to take this further I need to get some serious research done.
adrian
Flying Squad
Best suggestion I could make is find a local modeller with a laser cutter. I’m sure they’ll let you try a few pieces out on it so you can get a feel for what matters to you and your modelling requirements.
martin_wynne
Western Thunderer
.
Here's a review from modeller James Walters whose Bexhill West channel has a big following:
Martin.
Here's a review from modeller James Walters whose Bexhill West channel has a big following:
Martin.
JimG
Western Thunderer
I've found it better to take the plunge and get a machine, then start asking questions afterwards.
You then know the questions to ask. I've done this over the past fourteen years, starting with a CNC milling machine, then an Emblaser laser cutter, then a Phrozen 3D printer. In my case I found the main problem in using the machines was in learning how to use the various softwares required to work with the machines - the machines themselves all performing as they were supposed to once they were fed the correct files.And I have just obtained the latest version of Vectric Cut2D to use with my Sculpfun laser cutter. It came with warnings from Vectric that the laser add-on might not work with my equipment.
But it's now working well and I have learned how to hack a post-processor file to get the air assist compressor controlled by the main board in the Sculpfun. That required a morning on Google and Youtube and some experimentation with files, but it now works well and I'll be a lot happier using Cut2D rather than Lightburn.Jim.
simond
Western Thunderer
Hi Jim
Why? I find Lightburn excellent, though must say I’ve not done a lot with the laser of late.
Interested in your observations
Cheers
Simon
Suffolk Dave
Western Thunderer
Again, thanks for the advice and videos - it's all helping.
I'm wondering if my first venture into this new world might be to learn some CAD skills, after all I'm going to need them.
So, at the risk of opening a can of nematodes on Simon's thread, what CAD systems would folk recommend? But please, not one that's going to cost two grand a year!
I'm wondering if my first venture into this new world might be to learn some CAD skills, after all I'm going to need them.
So, at the risk of opening a can of nematodes on Simon's thread, what CAD systems would folk recommend? But please, not one that's going to cost two grand a year!
JimG
Western Thunderer
Basically so that I could use the same CAM software for the CNC mill and the laser cutter, as I've been doing for several years. I got Cut2D bundled with my CNC mill from Arc Euro fourteen years ago and the early laser version of Cut2D was bundled with my Emblaser 1. But I think Vectric lost interest in the non-professional laser cutter market at the time and little development was done to this early laser version. Basically it worked quite well, but there were a few annoying features which you had to work round, and it didn't handle image etching. I think Emblaser maybe got a bit cheesed off as well and I think that Lightburn may have started as an alternative CAM for the Emblaser and other laser cutters.
My main niggling worry with Lightburn is that I had picked up on digging through Internet that placing kerf offsets might not be straightforward and that Lightburn tends to place them as it saw fit, which is not what I wanted. Also you couldn't see beforehand on which side of a line the offset was. With Cut2D I can place a kerf offset for any part of a drawing and can also see and check where the cut is placed before I send the file to the laser cutter. I'll maybe now do some checking with Lightburn to see how their offset placing works.
The other smaller consideration is that Cut2D imports DWG files whereas Lightburn only imports DXF files, and when it imports these files, it places them in the centre of the working area and not with reference to the original placement in the CAD file. I do all my 2D designing in AutoCAD 2D or one of its clones, so direct import of DWG files is a plus point.
I'll probably dig around a bit more with Lightburn to see how it performs and have a look in more detail on how it deals with kerf offsets. I do like some of its features, like the Material Test application which is really handy for assessing cuts or etches for new materials.
So I've got both pieces of software on the HP laptop which works with the laser cutter and both will probably get used.
Jim