DIY Laser

In November 2012, Nottinghack members ran a pledge drive to fund the building of a new, larger, laser cutter. With a goal of £1000, we raised £2000 in 48 hours! Now the plan to to build and even bigger, more powerful, more awesome laser cutter!

These pages will chart the design, build, setup and use of this laser.

In the Beginning

The pledge was started on 13th November 2012, but the monies won't be called in until we have finalised a design for the cutter and have a build plan in place.

The first design meeting was on Wednesday 21st November 2012 at 8pm in the Blue Room and was well attended.

The Design

We can split the design into two major sections - essentials and addons.

• Essentials are those features or design elements that will be built as we put the laser together for the first time. They may or may not be actually essential to the running of the device, but as a group we consider them essential to our laser
• Addons are all the nice to have features that we will document and look to build after we have a functioning laser cutter.

The main design restriction is the size of the cutting area - this will be 800x450mm

Essentials

• Frame (including free standing element)
• Skin (including doors and lids)
• Laser and Optics
• XY Gantry
• Z Axis and Bed
• Parallel Control System (using CNC software)
• Extraction
• Air Assist
• Cooling and Cool Bot
• RFID access system (tied into Holly)
• Wiring and Hose Looms

Addons

• Vacuum Bed
• Rotational Axis
• USB Control
• Open Source control software

Notes

If you need to make random notes for inclusion later on, use the Notepad.

Full Subpage List

• DIY Laser/Air Assist
• DIY Laser/Electronics
• DIY Laser/Extraction
• DIY Laser/Frame
• DIY Laser/Laser
• DIY Laser/Old Plan
• DIY Laser/Parallel
• DIY Laser/Pledge
• DIY Laser/Rotational Axis
• DIY Laser/XY Gantry