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Old 11-13-2019, 09:24 PM
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Questions regarding Laser Cutters

I've had a bit of a poke around the forums in search of answers, there's a few threads covering various laser cutters that I'm aware of, but I have questions.

Apologies in advance, this might get a bit long winded. I want to make it perfectly clear what I want this thing to do and there's a lot of different factors that need to be addressed.

I am interested in hearing from people who are using laser cutters in card modeling, I know there are a few of you here.

I've always been interested in laser cutters but I know you need to spend a decent amount to get a decent cutter, up till now I've never been able to justify the outlay.

I'm a big fan of laser cut parts and most often will buy an accompanying set of laser parts if available for a kit I purchase. I have recently bought a few kits that have no laser parts available so I made some enquiries with a local laser cutting company about having some former/tyre tread/tank tracks parts scanned and cut. The price quoted was somewhat insane, $88 AUD for 2x A4 pages, and I need about 20 pages cut...

Back to the drawing board.

I recently purchased a 3D printer. Not an expensive one, but it's very good for the price I paid, I'm very impressed with the accuracy it can print at small scales.

I've also recently discovered there are addons available to turn a 3D printer into a laser cutter, you pretty much just buy a laser unit and slap it on the extruder/print head of the 3D printer and with a bit of modification and manipulation of the 3D printing software... voila, you have a 3D printing laser cutter.

My questions are in relation to a number of things.

Firstly, the power of the laser. These addon laser heads start at around 500mW (500 milliwatts) that's about half a watt, meaning it's very weak and not capable of much more than burning a pattern onto wood/paper etc.

The average power of a low end C02 laser cutter is around 40 watts, these printers can set you back around $5-600 for a cheap chinese brand.

I've done some research, and there are people who have had success with cutting 1mm cardboard with a 2.5W laser head, using multiple passes (ie: repeating the cut 3 or 4 times). Based on this, I'm thinking something around 5.5W might be good enough to cut 1mm cardboard, maybe still using multiple passes. I can pick up a 5.5W laser for an affordable price, maybe even something a bit more powerful if neccessary, what I want to also know, is if I'm going to be able to use this thing the way I want to.

I only want this thing to cut formers and various other basic shapes like tyre treads and tank tracks etc. Maybe even some scratch built stuff I will design myself in graphic software.

So, some questions I have relating to telling this laser what I want it to do...

Can I scan a parts sheet, such as formers or tracks etc, then clean it up in graphic software (ie: removing text and lines I don't want cut, adding "tags" to hold the parts in place on the sheet etc) then send them to my cutting software to have them cut at exactly the same size as the scanned parts?

What software do you guys use, or would you use for this kind of thing?

I'm not interested in cutting out whole models, just the simple stuff like frames, formers, treads etc. I'm willing to learn how to use new software and spend time on some pre-production to prepare parts pages for cutting, I'm aware this won't be a simple "point and click and it's done" procedure.

I basically want to know if it's worth investing a bit of cash to do this and save myself a lot of annoying, repetitive cutting of 1mm cardboard. I find it frustrating that some of the people who design these laser cut parts will include a lot of basic shapes in the laser set but neglect to include parts that are an absolute nightmare to cut accurately.

If you're still here, thanks for taking the time to read this, now... Discuss!
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  #2  
Old 11-13-2019, 10:21 PM
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best laser cutter for model makers is right there in your backyard:

https://darklylabs.com/

I have had the emblaser 1 for a few years and never looked back at craft knives!

you may have seen some of my threads already:

Bristol t188

emblaser laser cutter

hope this helps.

amit
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Old 11-14-2019, 05:06 AM
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I'm aware of the Emblaser, I'm also aware of the $3,000+ price tag for the current Emblaser 2. I haven't seen any mention anywhere of anyone even selling the original model but even second-hand it would probably be way out of my price range. Sorry if my original post didn't stress enough that I'm looking at the cheapest option available here, otherwise I'd consider buying a cheap chinese C02 laser or something.

I see the original emblaser was around 3 watt, so I'm assuming a 5.5watt laser addon for my 3D printer will cut 1mm cardboard, I'd just like to hear from someone who's done it.

I also want to know if it's going to be possible to scan and cut basic parts sheets like formers etc. I don't want to cut printed parts, I just want to scan parts, send them as gcode to the printer and have the laser cut them at the same size. I'm hoping to hear from people who have done this, and can explain how they do it.
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Old 11-14-2019, 09:02 PM
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Have taken a close look at what you want to do.
Don't know your upper cost limit for equipment - but looks to me that most if not all of it (and a lot more) could be done on a Silhouete Cameo 4 cutting machine rather than a lazer.
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Let me know your initial reaction to this suggestion before I waffle on any further.
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Old 11-15-2019, 02:15 AM
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Thanks Maurice. I actually already own a Brother Scan n Cut which I've used to cut out some pre-printed kits with limited success. I didn't buy the scan n cut just for models and haven't really played around with it enough to know if it's going to be good enough to cut out formers etc from thicker card like 1mm, initial tests suggest maybe not.

I've found the accuracy and tiny details achievable with my 3D printer quite impressive so I'd like to see how it goes as a laser cutter, it's simply a matter of attaching the laser head to the extruder head of the 3D printer and I can pick one up for around $100. The only other requirements are a bit of wiring and maybe some software which might be free, depending which one I decide to use.
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Old 11-15-2019, 06:22 PM
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Quote:
I've found the accuracy and tiny details achievable with my 3D printer quite impressive so I'd like to see how it goes as a laser cutter, it's simply a matter of attaching the laser head to the extruder head of the 3D printer and I can pick one up for around $100. The only other requirements are a bit of wiring and maybe some software which might be free, depending which one I decide to use.
And whilst I can't be of any use with that I'd welcome hearing how you go with it eventually.

Quote:
I didn't buy the scan n cut just for models and haven't really played around with it enough to know if it's going to be good enough to cut out formers etc from thicker card like 1mm, initial tests suggest maybe not.
You know in my experience formers, and some other things, don't seem to mind being laminated from two (or more) thicknesses of absolutely identically cut pieces.
(but curving things after laminatiom runs into problems)
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Old 01-04-2020, 04:01 AM
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Sorry Jaffro I only saw this now.

No it's not normally possible to directly cut a scanned part (okay it is possible but not normally done). The catch is that one need a vectorised pattern as that is what the cut head follows, and automatic raster-to-vector conversions aren't something to be relied on, as in, you want your circle to come out a circle, and not as a jagged circle-ish thing.

I always trace my own scans, especially formers. If you design your own part from scratch, chances are it'll be in vector format too. There are plenty of free vector software to use for this. So it's not a one-click job, but still much easier than having to cut everything by hand.

As to hardware, I can offer no advice... I've heard bad thing about low power laser, so if I ever had to choose I'd look for a pay-per-use service rather than buying a low-end cutter myself.
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Old 01-04-2020, 10:46 AM
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Thanks for the reply Lex.

So basically what you're saying is, hardware aside, I can scan my parts sheet then trace it to create the vector file needed for the laser to cut the parts? That still sounds reasonable, I would mostly be using it to cut formers or repetitive bulk parts like tank tracks and wheel treads.

I've put the idea on hold for now so I could survive the christmas period, financially that is, kids presents etc but will definitely look into it further early this year.

Thanks again for the reply.
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