[hackerspaces] Choosing a laser cutter

Wed Sep 9 04:41:37 CEST 2015

>From Luke

"I lead the build of a Lasersaur at the Dallas Makerspace earlier this
year. It was a significant undertaking in every sense of the word. It was
expensive, time consuming, complex, and is still growing as a project. It's
in it's adolescence which is better than infancy but it's not a finished
design.

https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Lasersaur_Laser_Cutter

The good stuff. We learned a lot in the process about lasers and automation
design, the design is constantly improving and Lasersaur machines in the
wild can upgrade and follow along, we can customize the design easier than
other laser cutters (handy if we build another), the community is active
and helpful, it's not the most expensive laser cutter out there.

The bad stuff. There are some interference issues with the motherboard
which causes the motherboard to reset sometimes (not a show stopper but not
good either), it's not the cheapest laser cutter out there, it doesn't do
raster cutting (yet).

I would consider building one if there are a lot of very motivated members
with expertise because one person will likely either get burned out or get
stuck with a problem they can't figure out on their own. If it's a small
group of people who may or may not have time to help then I'd buy something
already assembled and ready to go.

The other laser cutters I have experience with is Full Spectrum Laser. They
are in a weird place. They are significantly more expensive than the
imported lasers but they are very similar in almost every other way. As far
as I can tell the only thing Full Spectrum Laser does is swap the control
board and panel, provide their own software, and paint it a different
color. So it has many of the same problems as the cheap import lasers like
crappy power supplies, flimsy mirror mounts, random cheap crap components
throughout (weak door hinges, threads that strip, locks that break, lots of
that kind of stuff). I don't see them as being a good value but they are
probably better than imported lasers from Alibaba since there's someone you
can call for support.

If you're seriously considering a Lasersaur build and have questions I'd be
happy to do a phone conference or something to answer any questions.
Cheers!"

On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 5:16 PM, Luke Olson <luke.s.olson at gmail.com> wrote:

> I lead the build of a Lasersaur at the Dallas Makerspace earlier this
> year. It was a significant undertaking in every sense of the word. It was
> expensive, time consuming, complex, and is still growing as a project. It's
> in it's adolescence which is better than infancy but it's not a finished
> design.
>
> https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Lasersaur_Laser_Cutter
>
> The good stuff. We learned a lot in the process about lasers and
> automation design, the design is constantly improving and Lasersaur
> machines in the wild can upgrade and follow along, we can customize the
> design easier than other laser cutters (handy if we build another), the
> community is active and helpful, it's not the most expensive laser cutter
> out there.
>
> The bad stuff. There are some interference issues with the motherboard
> which causes the motherboard to reset sometimes (not a show stopper but not
> good either), it's not the cheapest laser cutter out there, it doesn't do
> raster cutting (yet).
>
> I would consider building one if there are a lot of very motivated members
> with expertise because one person will likely either get burned out or get
> stuck with a problem they can't figure out on their own. If it's a small
> group of people who may or may not have time to help then I'd buy something
> already assembled and ready to go.
>
> The other laser cutters I have experience with is Full Spectrum Laser.
> They are in a weird place. They are significantly more expensive than the
> imported lasers but they are very similar in almost every other way. As far
> as I can tell the only thing Full Spectrum Laser does is swap the control
> board and panel, provide their own software, and paint it a different
> color. So it has many of the same problems as the cheap import lasers like
> crappy power supplies, flimsy mirror mounts, random cheap crap components
> throughout (weak door hinges, threads that strip, locks that break, lots of
> that kind of stuff). I don't see them as being a good value but they are
> probably better than imported lasers from Alibaba since there's someone you
> can call for support.
>
> If you're seriously considering a Lasersaur build and have questions I'd
> be happy to do a phone conference or something to answer any questions.
> Cheers!
>
> Luke
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 4:46 PM, Robert Davidson <
> robert at dallasmakerspace.org> wrote:
>
>> This might be helpful for those on the Lasersaur.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrlaIzfpaQM
>>
>> We also have a Lasersaur at Dallas Makerspace.
>>
>> I have CC'd Luke who could probably answer any questions more than I
>> could.
>>
>> Robert Davidson
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 12:19 PM, Brett Dikeman <brett.dikeman at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> From speaking with people who worked on a Lasersaur in our area - the
>>> web UI was pretty terrible, they tried to contribute patches to fix various
>>> problems, and the author refused to integrate them. That may be outdated
>>> information. Have things improved?
>>>
>>> -B
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 2:02 PM, justin corwin <outlawpoet at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have some bad experience with generic machines from alibaba amongst
>>>> my friends. The most problematic thing is that they tend to advertise their
>>>> power as what they can measure directly at the laser tube, whereas more
>>>> reputable companies like Epilog measure power delivered at the tool head,
>>>> so the cheapness of high power machines has to be balanced with the fact
>>>> that they may not actually be that capable.
>>>>
>>>> I like the Lasersaur design, and some places have had good results,
>>>> just make sure you either buy better parts/kits or have someone who knows
>>>> about this kind of thing in charge of building it. A crappy power supply or
>>>> misaligned x-y table can cause endless heartache later.
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 10:56 AM, Joshua Pritt <ramgarden at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> We've been using the Full Spectrum laser at Makers Local 256 and
>>>>> Melbourne Makerspace with lots of success (with bouts of downtime while
>>>>> replacing the tube or power supply) but it works great for the most part.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Aug 28, 2015 at 1:53 PM, opit <opit at technariumas.lt> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello all,
>>>>>> here at Technarium we're considering buying a laser cutter (water jet
>>>>>> would be even better, but probably is outside of our financial
>>>>>> abilities). Maybe any of you have a piece of advice of what to look
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> and what to avoid? What do you use at your space and what didn't work
>>>>>> out? What's your experience with Lasersaur or with generic machines
>>>>>> from
>>>>>> Alibaba?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Last week there a similar request was posted here, but what we're
>>>>>> looking for is a larger machine that could also be used by freelancers
>>>>>> at the space and for custom manufacturing orders. We plan to have up
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> 7500 Euros for it.
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> #o
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> http://technariumas.lt
>>>>>> http://blog.technariumas.lt
>>>>>> http://wemakethings.net
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Justin Corwin
>>>> outlawpoet at gmail.com
>>>> http://programmaticconquest.tumblr.com
>>>> http://outlawpoet.tumblr.com
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>
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