# building a laser engraver / cutter



## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

bored, snowing outside, expect 12 inches this weekend ..
so i figured it would be neet to be able to engrave [or cut] thin [up to 1/8 inch] wood for structures, and rolling stock ... still havent found a good source for 28 foot truss rod boxcars for a reasonable price...
started rooting around in the spare projects pile, should be able to find most, if not all needed to do a small table, maybe 18 inches square., see what i can get accomplished tonight... 
the only bad part about home made is no instructions lol..


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## alcoman (Nov 4, 2009)

3D printers can be built using many parts from inkjet printers. (Or so I have read.) This got me thinking about a laser cutter. Stepper motors, fans, the solid frame support and such are no problem. The cutting laser and the control circuit are where my questions arise. Sources for the parts and how to make them talk to each other? Hmmmm.

If you get something to work then tell us how you did it.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

spent a couple of hours last night, gutted a broken plotter, added couple of driver boards, and chopped up and old cable for interface wiring .... so far have around 16 by 10 inch movement, currently 250 ipm with no tuning yet ...maybe tonight will try to figure out some kind of low voltage adjustable current supply, and gut a dvd writer for a test laser, low power but should be able to test etch ...


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

<<< TJ gets popcorn, sits back in his chair ...>>>

Wow ... this is gonna be interesting!

TJ


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

progress report
did some fine tuning on the motors, up to 400 inches per minute, should be enough ... no idea of what the drivers put out, maybe 2 amps / phase, leftovers... running around 40v to them, should be 'good enough' ... final working area might be around 16 by 12 inches ..still need a base plate and sacrificial board ... cover is gone, too badly damaged .. still need some wiring to replace jumpers, but emergency stop and limit switches are good .. on the bench out of photo i am trying a dvd writer laser head, etches okay, about 80 inches / minute, but too low power to burn single pass at reasonable speeds ... so right now its just an etch table, but will etch nice cutting guide lines, very square .. with spare parts 3v 200ma supply .. have to check ebay for something one watt or better under a hundred bucks delivered... total cost so far, zero, spare parts..lol


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

How about a couple of circles and arrows to point out a major component or two to us novices? I assume the laser gets mounted to the little grey box "floating" in the middle?

<<< Jeez ... I gotta run to the bathroom ... I hope I don't miss any of the good scenes! >>>


TJ


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

the plotter parts used, besides the main frame, guide rods, and wires from the steppers to the carriage.. were the steppers and power supply... I had this handy, and didn't function as a plotter anymore.. so all factory internal boards were stripped out .. the steppers are around two inch diameter, maybe three inches long.. the stepper driver boards were hobby projects from years ago.. but were from kitsrus.com , part K158, then maybe twenty dollars or so...other parts were a bridge rectifier and a filter cap, and a couple of micros witches for limits, and a momentary push button for emergency top..
Yes, the grey part is where i hot glued a dvd laser diode to try some etching ... there is a plate that covers internal components and is the 'work surface'..at this point it is good for etching only ....


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

it's minus 34 outside, played a bit today on the engraver, got a 150mw 660nm [red] lase head with a decent heat sink... runs on 5vdc.. had to add an extra collimating mirror to get focal point down under an inch, not ideal because of limited focal depth, but should be okay for my purpose ... then couldnt find a solid state relay in my parts bins, so made a crude old fashioned mechanical relay to fire the laser, clicks away okay, but gives a small delay , works out to maybe 30 thou dead space.. did some trial cuts on 1/16 foam, and trial burns on 1/16 balsa wood, ....
if anyone is interested, i use kcam4 for the table motion driver, and algolab raster to vector software to convert line art images to vector format, and an old version of autocad to edit the vector files


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

WV,

I only understand about every other third word in your posts, but I am still amazed by this project. Looking forward to some etchings!

TJ


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

all but the chinee laser head are spare parts ... with no other use for them, basically obsolete now.. a small, appx 2x2 inch can be built out of a couple of cd drive mechanisms, easy to drive . i just used what i had ..I still have a decent workbench, used to do process control stuff, plc's, and rifle /handgun conversions, still do some farm instrumentation repair, gps field mapping and guidance stuff, and fix old cat dozers for fun...


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## JamesBC (Jan 15, 2014)

Nice work, would love to see your "parts bin".

Cold here in BC to, almost down to 5C today......

jim


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