9 ms·

Lasersaur – open-source laser cutter

175 points by anonsivalley652 7y ago

laser 7y ago
Nice.
- jimnotgym 7y ago
  I guessed you might like it!
mrfusion 7y ago
The home page might be more informative: http://www.lasersaur.com/ http://www.lasersaur.com/
- MR4D 7y ago
  I’ll second that. The HN title page just says this: “ Lasersaur -- open source laser cutter The Lasersaur website is in the gh-pages branch and mapped to www.lasersaur.com. “
mrfusion 7y ago
Can anyone say what it might cost to build one? Where do you buy the laser?
- misthop 7y ago
  According to the home page (linked down thread edited: linked by you!) it is fully diy. They gave a bill of materials, construction directions, etc, but you source and build it all yourself. They list an estimated cost of 7000 usd/eur depending on location.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    Interesting. I wonder how that compares to buying one for $7000?
    - marcinzm 7y ago
      As far as I can tell it's more expensive than getting a cheap one from China in that power range. The China ones vary in quality and usually require some hacking but this one you need to assemble from scratch so probably still less time investment.
      - anonsivalley652 7y ago
        Yup. If one had the cash to burn (puns are mandatory to clear out the sigh-ing glands in the sub-cockle nether-regions) in a commercial laser cutter, there's always Trotec. https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/laser-machines/laser-cutters-sp/ https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/laser-machines/laser-cutte...
        detritus 7y ago
        Or https://www.epiloglaser.com/ https://www.epiloglaser.com/ (what I run) or https://www.ulsinc.com/ https://www.ulsinc.com/ . But if you're in Europe and want to support a Euro company (ones I linked are American), Trotec's the one to go for.
    - anonsivalley652 7y ago
      You can buy a lot of laser cutter for $7000, but it's closer to $8000. Heck, you can get a greenbullv2/bluechick router/laser etching (not a great cutter) kit for $9000.
      - mrfusion 7y ago
        Your heck statement went higher in price .... typo?
        misthop 7y ago
        Nope, they are saying once you are spending 8000 it's worth it to go up another 1000 for a fairly major upgrade
  - flowless 7y ago
    You can build it for way lower than that - in their BoM they use quite expensive distributors like Misumi - if you only source your steppers from other places that's already hundreds saved. If you buy the laser tube and power supply from China it's few thousands shaved off (the only problem is the risky shipping of fragile laser tube).
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anonsivalley652 7y ago
  The problem with laser modules is that they're expensive, fragile, fussy and consume a metric ton of energy. I saw some 150W+ CO2 tubes drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress available with and without power supplies. These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too. http://www.recilaser.com/en/index.php?m=&c=Index&a=lists&catid=7 http://www.recilaser.com/en/index.php?m=&c=Index&a=lists&cat... It's doable, but careful engineering principles have to be applied. Also, Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Might be good to have some proven tested safety gargles to protect yer peepers and wear welding gloves/neck/chaps when nearby during operation. I figure a small budget gantry and system maybe had for $2500 US (with lots of scrimping and repurposing) or a nicer one for $4000-9000. A vacuum table, indexing (calibration/zeroing) system and 60° tilt table for floorspace compactness might help too.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    > These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too. This can be a $20 immersion pump, a 5 gallon bucket, a filter, and some tubing. This won't let you cut all day long in a warm room without a slope off in performance, but you can run several long jobs a day. If I wanted to cut more, I think I'd add more water before doing anything fancier like radiators or even chillers. Slightly harder is the air assist, but again cheap pumps will do it, and then there's the exhaust system-- usually you use a small industrial blower and dryer vent. > Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Usually one just makes it class 1-- put it in a box, with a window opaque to infrared, and an interlock that disables the beam if the box is opened. E-stop is important because you will eventually have a fire. > A vacuum table, The whole nice thing with a laser is you don't need hold down because there's no cutting forces. > indexing (calibration/zeroing) Usually what you do is just combine a red diode laser onto where the beam goes. I do have a square fence I added to my laser that I can align work against, but I usually don't use it.
- detaro 7y ago
  they have a page with few suppliers listed: https://github.com/nortd/lasersaur/wiki/bom https://github.com/nortd/lasersaur/wiki/bom
misthop 7y ago
The 7000 price point is an interesting middle ground. That is past the hobbyist range and into small industrial cutter range. So trading works out of the box and a warrantee for bed size and wattage
- mondoshawan 7y ago
  For that price you might as well get a proper laser cutter from glowforge or that Colorado corp whose name escapes me which includes an exhaust plan as well as saftey interlocks.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    Not sure about the Colorado corp. But I have a 40W laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser (Las Vegas) which cost me ~$1700. (Their hobby series laser, which got much more expensive afterwards). Now they have their "Muse" which seems pretty nice for ~$2800.
  - kragen 7y ago
    But Glowforge doesn't give you an open source laser cutter; rather the opposite extreme — their product is nonfunctional without its constant surveillance-capitalism umbilical back to the mothership. This is like suggesting buying a motorcycle to someone who's looking for a bulldozer.
cstross 7y ago
"Do not stare into laser beam with remaining eyeball." Seriously, this sort of project is dangerous. While there's a big fat disclaimer and warning on their home page, the wiki info about exhaust filtration is sketchy at best, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of serious attempt at health and safety guidelines. Remember: any laser cutter that can actually cut wood can actually cut skin and muscle, cause serious burns, boil your eye in your skull, and creates toxic particulate exhaust.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  >creates toxic particulate exhaust. And that's if you cut the right material on it, some materials will release much much more toxic compounds when burned.
- anonsivalley652 7y ago
  Not to be operated by fuckwits. - sticker AvE. Go back to your safe space under the covers while other people will use their brains to actually make things and ignore FUD from non-makers reacting out of fear and ignorance that you try to barf uncool Culture of No toxicity into the world. This is why we can't have model rockets, chemistry sets or anything fun because of people like you.
  - dang 7y ago
    Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully. Posting like this destroys the community no matter how right you are, so it's not ok on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ben_w 7y ago
  More worryingly, it’s possible to buy pre-built laser etchers online that don’t come with safety glass: https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Engraver-LaserPecker-Engraving-Portable/dp/B07W5SYWSF/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?keywords=laser+cutter&qid=1581172254&sr=8-14 https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Engraver-LaserPecker-Engravin... And Q-switched pulse lasers for hair removal (i.e. to be aimed at your face) whose included safety goggles are more than a little suspicious: https://youtu.be/-BeTq99LqUo https://youtu.be/-BeTq99LqUo
madc 7y ago
The project seems dead anyway.. last commit was two years ago.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  There seems to have been a store for buying components but from what I can tell the people behind it all are busy with kids nowadays.
  - vongomben 7y ago
    I met once the group (Austrian, if I recall well). It was a thing back in 2013. Never managed to makerbot it
  - hugs 7y ago
    They sent a note about closing down their store to the Lasersaur mailing list in February 2019. The store for custom Lasersaur parts is closed, but the project is still open and open source. "The time has come when we close the Nortd Labs Lasersaur store. For almost nine years we have supplied parts to nearly one thousand builders and owners. It allowed us to have a budget for software development and made the BOM sourcing more convenient. It was a great run but its time for us to move on. " https://groups.google.com/forum/?path=59#!msg/lasersaur/QQTSghen5gk/f38_JE3aAQAJindex.php https://groups.google.com/forum/?path=59#!msg/lasersaur/QQTS...
- ensiferum 7y ago
  Or perhaps it's... you know... ready. gasp
chris_wot 7y ago
My brother designed and built his own plasma cutter. I wonder how useful people would find that?
- pstuart 7y ago
  I'm sure it would at least be interesting to the HN crowd. Any link to info on it?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    I should dig up the data on mine and write it up.
- kragen 7y ago
  A 120-watt laser like the one in the Lasersaur can maybe cut 6-mm MDF at 50 mm/sec. A typical plasma cutter can maybe cut 6-mm mild steel at 50 mm/sec. https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/ASTM-A36-SS400-S275-Structural-Carbon-Steel/Medium-Density-Fiberboard-MDF https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/ASTM-A36-SS400-S275-Struc... suggests that A36 mild steel is 25 times as rigid and 25 times as strong as MDF.† So I think that in some sense a plasma cutter is about 25 times as useful as a low-power laser cutter like this one. Of course, there are a multitude of other properties to consider. Mild steel fails through ductile deformation; MDF fails through brittle fracture. Mild steel rusts when it gets wet; MDF swells and loses most of its strength. Steel weighs 8 g/cc, and MDF weighs 0.75 g/cc. (That means that if you can make the steel thin enough, you can get the same tensile strength as MDF with 60% less weight using steel. You might even be able to cut the steel with a laser cutter, though probably a higher-power one.) Steel is cold to sit on and not breathable like MDF. MDF won't cut your fingers if you don't deburr it. Lasersaur claims precision of 30–100 μm, and even 100 μm is hard to reach with plasma cutting. Steel rings because its elasticity is almost perfect, with a Q over 1000, while MDF thuds because it has a lot of elastic hysteresis, so it eats vibration for breakfast; by the same token, though, it is not suitable for high-precision positioning. Lasersaur can cut some transparent materials, while a plasma cutter can only cut metals. And plasma torches are kind of dangerous but far less treacherous than a 100-watt laser. But, at the crudest, most oversimplified level, you can build things just as fast and 25 times as skookum with a plasma CNC table, or several times as fast and just as skookum, or equally skookum and much lighter. And a lot of the same design principles carry over, although plasma torches have more trouble with sharp corners than laser cutters do, because they can't ramp their power down to zero. † According to that site, A36 has a Young's modulus of 190 GPa and an ultimate tensile strength of 480 MPa, though you probably don't really want to exceed its yield stress of 290 MPa. MDF has a Young's modulus of 4 GPa (no word on whether that's in-plane or transverse) and a tensile strength of 18 MPa.
snarfy 7y ago
The BOM is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eU_76EaB256B_k3UIFOs3czkD7NZIeQG7Arkk8Dl7SY/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eU_76EaB256B_k3UIFOs... I'm surprised the laser tube is $1000. It's not much different than a light bulb. Sure it is different, but not by that many zeros.
- driverdan 7y ago
  It is different by that many zeros. They require much tighter tolerances and higher quality materials. They're also not mass produced. You can get cheaper laser tubes but there is a difference between them.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    That’s debatable. I had a laser cutter for a couple years and used cheap tubes off eBay with zero issues. Cutting power was probably less per watt than with an expensive tube and lifetime was lower, but at 1/4 the price it doesn’t really matter.
- imba404 7y ago
  You'll have to factor economies of scale, shipping costs, mulitstep glass-blowing steps, and importation duties. Finally, it's what the market is willing to pay.
pcdoodle 7y ago
Hate to plug them but their product is pretty good: glowforge. the opposite of open source, it does plug and play for around $2,500 with a smaller work area(12x20) and 40W laser. We prototype enclosure cut outs with ours. Working with wood and acrylic is fun.
- crankylinuxuser 7y ago
  And it requires 100% online operations. If your internet craps out, so does this device. Hard pass.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Wow, that’s gross.
- kragen 7y ago
  Glowforge seems like the opposite extreme from "open source", though; even an iPhone or an XBox works when the internet goes down.
woadwarrior01 7y ago
My local hacker space[1] in Dublin has one, although I haven't had a need to use it, yet. [1]: https://www.tog.ie/ https://www.tog.ie/
jcoffland 7y ago
An LASER cutter is a really productive device to have around. It's very easy to create 2D parts. Another way to go Open-Source for a lot less money (~$1500) is to buy a K40 on EBay and refit it with a Buildbotics controller. The other day I needed a faceplate for an outlet with a circular 240v US dryer plug and a two port 120v US plug. I couldn't find anything at the hardware store that would work but I found drawings for the junction box and plugs online. After an hour or two with LibreCAD and CAMotics, I was ready to LASER cut my faceplate from 1/4" poplar. I was really happy when it fit exactly the first time. Now I keep looking behind the dryer to admire my handiwork. Disclaimer: I'm a creator of CAMotics and Buildbotics.
- momzer 7y ago
  Slightly offtopic: is poplar really the best material for an electrical wall plate? Wouldn't it be flammable? What's the dielectric withstand going to be like for a wooden wall plate in a humid environment like a laundry room?
  - OrgNet 7y ago
    they make boxes for outlets that are made out of metal ... I don't think that conductivity is a factor edit here is another example of a wooden faceplate: https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Brass-W10848-Decorator-Unfinished/dp/B01H3LW0YC https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Brass-W10848-Decorator-Unfin...
  - crtlaltdel 7y ago
    solidwood faceplates are not uncommon. take a stroll down the electrical section of a major chain hardware store and you should be able to find a few. a lot of them seem to be made of bamboo. as for the dielectric properties, even in a “humid environment” its unlikely to be an issue. i mean, does a foggy morning short every outlet without a protective cover? if your voltages were high enough, sure you could draw an arc through the humid air...but it seems like you would have to hit closer to the kV range
- alpineidyll3 7y ago
  Cool products man. Ever done any closed loop with this system?
eebynight 7y ago
Is it just me or can anyone else not find the source for the Driveboard? I’m an electrical engineer and I love looking at boards like this but it seems like the linked github is just a manual at best.
- sgentle 7y ago
  This looks like it: https://github.com/nortd/driveboardapp https://github.com/nortd/driveboardapp
- patrickyeon 7y ago
  It feels like it took me longer to find this than it should have: https://github.com/nortd/driveboard https://github.com/nortd/driveboard
heyguys 7y ago
thats nothing to me
pz16 7y ago
@ps567344
pupdogg 7y ago
Am I the only one still waiting for the first open-source kW fiber laser solution? Open-source laser tinkering has always hovered at subpar wattage levels...barely enough to cut any metals above 0.060” (1.5mm) thickness...all while the Chinese have already surpassed closed-source companies like IPG and developed affordable ($11-15k...compared to $90-150k) closed-source solutions for fiber laser.
- alpineidyll3 7y ago
  Not alone at all. I think it's one of those things where someone just needs to reveal the hidden market.
scottshambaugh 7y ago
I built a lasersaur of my own last year! I put together a project writeup[1], and have been doing a little bit of development on my fork of the firmware in order to significantly speed up raster & fill engraving, and to and put in some quality of life software mods.[2] Unfortunately the original creators have abandoned the project, but fortunately it's completely open source so it's still buildable. Mine cost about $7k for the parts and all the accessories I had to get along with it, but I think that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in someone going through and updating a lot of the more expensive parts in the BOM. I saved about $2k by doing so and put together a spreadsheet linked to from [1], but there's definitely still room to upgrade the steppers to something cheaper and more powerful, etc. There was a good discussion in the mailing list[3] a few weeks ago about whether it still makes sense in 2020 to build a Lasersaur. I'm personally of the opinion that if you want a laser cutter for the purpose of creating stuff with it, the best option is going to be getting a Chinese cutter, doing a few upgrades, and buying Lightburn as your software interface. But if you want the experience of building / intimately knowing the machine and find that rewarding in and of itself, go for it. [1] https://theshamblog.com/a-tour-of-the-lasersaur-laser-cutter/ https://theshamblog.com/a-tour-of-the-lasersaur-laser-cutter... [2] https://github.com/scottshambaugh/driveboardapp https://github.com/scottshambaugh/driveboardapp [3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasersaur/Ieu6aAG_0sc https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasersaur/Ieu6aAG_0s...

laser 7y ago

Nice.

jimnotgym 7y ago
I guessed you might like it!

mrfusion 7y ago

The home page might be more informative: http://www.lasersaur.com/ http://www.lasersaur.com/

MR4D 7y ago
I’ll second that. The HN title page just says this: “ Lasersaur -- open source laser cutter The Lasersaur website is in the gh-pages branch and mapped to www.lasersaur.com. “

mrfusion 7y ago

Can anyone say what it might cost to build one? Where do you buy the laser?

misthop 7y ago
According to the home page (linked down thread edited: linked by you!) it is fully diy. They gave a bill of materials, construction directions, etc, but you source and build it all yourself. They list an estimated cost of 7000 usd/eur depending on location.
- mrfusion 7y ago
  Interesting. I wonder how that compares to buying one for $7000?
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    As far as I can tell it's more expensive than getting a cheap one from China in that power range. The China ones vary in quality and usually require some hacking but this one you need to assemble from scratch so probably still less time investment.
    - anonsivalley652 7y ago
      Yup. If one had the cash to burn (puns are mandatory to clear out the sigh-ing glands in the sub-cockle nether-regions) in a commercial laser cutter, there's always Trotec. https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/laser-machines/laser-cutters-sp/ https://www.troteclaser.com/en-us/laser-machines/laser-cutte...
      - detritus 7y ago
        Or https://www.epiloglaser.com/ https://www.epiloglaser.com/ (what I run) or https://www.ulsinc.com/ https://www.ulsinc.com/ . But if you're in Europe and want to support a Euro company (ones I linked are American), Trotec's the one to go for.
  - anonsivalley652 7y ago
    You can buy a lot of laser cutter for $7000, but it's closer to $8000. Heck, you can get a greenbullv2/bluechick router/laser etching (not a great cutter) kit for $9000.
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      Your heck statement went higher in price .... typo?
      - misthop 7y ago
        Nope, they are saying once you are spending 8000 it's worth it to go up another 1000 for a fairly major upgrade
- flowless 7y ago
  You can build it for way lower than that - in their BoM they use quite expensive distributors like Misumi - if you only source your steppers from other places that's already hundreds saved. If you buy the laser tube and power supply from China it's few thousands shaved off (the only problem is the risky shipping of fragile laser tube).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
anonsivalley652 7y ago
The problem with laser modules is that they're expensive, fragile, fussy and consume a metric ton of energy. I saw some 150W+ CO2 tubes drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress available with and without power supplies. These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too. http://www.recilaser.com/en/index.php?m=&c=Index&a=lists&catid=7 http://www.recilaser.com/en/index.php?m=&c=Index&a=lists&cat... It's doable, but careful engineering principles have to be applied. Also, Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Might be good to have some proven tested safety gargles to protect yer peepers and wear welding gloves/neck/chaps when nearby during operation. I figure a small budget gantry and system maybe had for $2500 US (with lots of scrimping and repurposing) or a nicer one for $4000-9000. A vacuum table, indexing (calibration/zeroing) system and 60° tilt table for floorspace compactness might help too.
- mlyle 7y ago
  > These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too. This can be a $20 immersion pump, a 5 gallon bucket, a filter, and some tubing. This won't let you cut all day long in a warm room without a slope off in performance, but you can run several long jobs a day. If I wanted to cut more, I think I'd add more water before doing anything fancier like radiators or even chillers. Slightly harder is the air assist, but again cheap pumps will do it, and then there's the exhaust system-- usually you use a small industrial blower and dryer vent. > Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Usually one just makes it class 1-- put it in a box, with a window opaque to infrared, and an interlock that disables the beam if the box is opened. E-stop is important because you will eventually have a fire. > A vacuum table, The whole nice thing with a laser is you don't need hold down because there's no cutting forces. > indexing (calibration/zeroing) Usually what you do is just combine a red diode laser onto where the beam goes. I do have a square fence I added to my laser that I can align work against, but I usually don't use it.
detaro 7y ago
they have a page with few suppliers listed: https://github.com/nortd/lasersaur/wiki/bom https://github.com/nortd/lasersaur/wiki/bom

misthop 7y ago

The 7000 price point is an interesting middle ground. That is past the hobbyist range and into small industrial cutter range. So trading works out of the box and a warrantee for bed size and wattage

mondoshawan 7y ago
For that price you might as well get a proper laser cutter from glowforge or that Colorado corp whose name escapes me which includes an exhaust plan as well as saftey interlocks.
- mlyle 7y ago
  Not sure about the Colorado corp. But I have a 40W laser cutter from Full Spectrum Laser (Las Vegas) which cost me ~$1700. (Their hobby series laser, which got much more expensive afterwards). Now they have their "Muse" which seems pretty nice for ~$2800.
- kragen 7y ago
  But Glowforge doesn't give you an open source laser cutter; rather the opposite extreme — their product is nonfunctional without its constant surveillance-capitalism umbilical back to the mothership. This is like suggesting buying a motorcycle to someone who's looking for a bulldozer.

cstross 7y ago

"Do not stare into laser beam with remaining eyeball." Seriously, this sort of project is dangerous. While there's a big fat disclaimer and warning on their home page, the wiki info about exhaust filtration is sketchy at best, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of serious attempt at health and safety guidelines. Remember: any laser cutter that can actually cut wood can actually cut skin and muscle, cause serious burns, boil your eye in your skull, and creates toxic particulate exhaust.

marcinzm 7y ago
>creates toxic particulate exhaust. And that's if you cut the right material on it, some materials will release much much more toxic compounds when burned.
anonsivalley652 7y ago
Not to be operated by fuckwits. - sticker AvE. Go back to your safe space under the covers while other people will use their brains to actually make things and ignore FUD from non-makers reacting out of fear and ignorance that you try to barf uncool Culture of No toxicity into the world. This is why we can't have model rockets, chemistry sets or anything fun because of people like you.
- dang 7y ago
  Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please make your substantive points thoughtfully. Posting like this destroys the community no matter how right you are, so it's not ok on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ben_w 7y ago
More worryingly, it’s possible to buy pre-built laser etchers online that don’t come with safety glass: https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Engraver-LaserPecker-Engraving-Portable/dp/B07W5SYWSF/ref=mp_s_a_1_14?keywords=laser+cutter&qid=1581172254&sr=8-14 https://www.amazon.com/Compact-Engraver-LaserPecker-Engravin... And Q-switched pulse lasers for hair removal (i.e. to be aimed at your face) whose included safety goggles are more than a little suspicious: https://youtu.be/-BeTq99LqUo https://youtu.be/-BeTq99LqUo

madc 7y ago

The project seems dead anyway.. last commit was two years ago.

marcinzm 7y ago
There seems to have been a store for buying components but from what I can tell the people behind it all are busy with kids nowadays.
- vongomben 7y ago
  I met once the group (Austrian, if I recall well). It was a thing back in 2013. Never managed to makerbot it
- hugs 7y ago
  They sent a note about closing down their store to the Lasersaur mailing list in February 2019. The store for custom Lasersaur parts is closed, but the project is still open and open source. "The time has come when we close the Nortd Labs Lasersaur store. For almost nine years we have supplied parts to nearly one thousand builders and owners. It allowed us to have a budget for software development and made the BOM sourcing more convenient. It was a great run but its time for us to move on. " https://groups.google.com/forum/?path=59#!msg/lasersaur/QQTSghen5gk/f38_JE3aAQAJindex.php https://groups.google.com/forum/?path=59#!msg/lasersaur/QQTS...
ensiferum 7y ago
Or perhaps it's... you know... ready. gasp

chris_wot 7y ago

My brother designed and built his own plasma cutter. I wonder how useful people would find that?

pstuart 7y ago
I'm sure it would at least be interesting to the HN crowd. Any link to info on it?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  I should dig up the data on mine and write it up.
kragen 7y ago
A 120-watt laser like the one in the Lasersaur can maybe cut 6-mm MDF at 50 mm/sec. A typical plasma cutter can maybe cut 6-mm mild steel at 50 mm/sec. https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/ASTM-A36-SS400-S275-Structural-Carbon-Steel/Medium-Density-Fiberboard-MDF https://www.makeitfrom.com/compare/ASTM-A36-SS400-S275-Struc... suggests that A36 mild steel is 25 times as rigid and 25 times as strong as MDF.† So I think that in some sense a plasma cutter is about 25 times as useful as a low-power laser cutter like this one. Of course, there are a multitude of other properties to consider. Mild steel fails through ductile deformation; MDF fails through brittle fracture. Mild steel rusts when it gets wet; MDF swells and loses most of its strength. Steel weighs 8 g/cc, and MDF weighs 0.75 g/cc. (That means that if you can make the steel thin enough, you can get the same tensile strength as MDF with 60% less weight using steel. You might even be able to cut the steel with a laser cutter, though probably a higher-power one.) Steel is cold to sit on and not breathable like MDF. MDF won't cut your fingers if you don't deburr it. Lasersaur claims precision of 30–100 μm, and even 100 μm is hard to reach with plasma cutting. Steel rings because its elasticity is almost perfect, with a Q over 1000, while MDF thuds because it has a lot of elastic hysteresis, so it eats vibration for breakfast; by the same token, though, it is not suitable for high-precision positioning. Lasersaur can cut some transparent materials, while a plasma cutter can only cut metals. And plasma torches are kind of dangerous but far less treacherous than a 100-watt laser. But, at the crudest, most oversimplified level, you can build things just as fast and 25 times as skookum with a plasma CNC table, or several times as fast and just as skookum, or equally skookum and much lighter. And a lot of the same design principles carry over, although plasma torches have more trouble with sharp corners than laser cutters do, because they can't ramp their power down to zero. † According to that site, A36 has a Young's modulus of 190 GPa and an ultimate tensile strength of 480 MPa, though you probably don't really want to exceed its yield stress of 290 MPa. MDF has a Young's modulus of 4 GPa (no word on whether that's in-plane or transverse) and a tensile strength of 18 MPa.

snarfy 7y ago

The BOM is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eU_76EaB256B_k3UIFOs3czkD7NZIeQG7Arkk8Dl7SY/edit#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eU_76EaB256B_k3UIFOs... I'm surprised the laser tube is $1000. It's not much different than a light bulb. Sure it is different, but not by that many zeros.

driverdan 7y ago
It is different by that many zeros. They require much tighter tolerances and higher quality materials. They're also not mass produced. You can get cheaper laser tubes but there is a difference between them.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  That’s debatable. I had a laser cutter for a couple years and used cheap tubes off eBay with zero issues. Cutting power was probably less per watt than with an expensive tube and lifetime was lower, but at 1/4 the price it doesn’t really matter.
imba404 7y ago
You'll have to factor economies of scale, shipping costs, mulitstep glass-blowing steps, and importation duties. Finally, it's what the market is willing to pay.

pcdoodle 7y ago

Hate to plug them but their product is pretty good: glowforge. the opposite of open source, it does plug and play for around $2,500 with a smaller work area(12x20) and 40W laser. We prototype enclosure cut outs with ours. Working with wood and acrylic is fun.

crankylinuxuser 7y ago
And it requires 100% online operations. If your internet craps out, so does this device. Hard pass.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Wow, that’s gross.
kragen 7y ago
Glowforge seems like the opposite extreme from "open source", though; even an iPhone or an XBox works when the internet goes down.

woadwarrior01 7y ago

My local hacker space[1] in Dublin has one, although I haven't had a need to use it, yet. [1]: https://www.tog.ie/ https://www.tog.ie/

jcoffland 7y ago

An LASER cutter is a really productive device to have around. It's very easy to create 2D parts. Another way to go Open-Source for a lot less money (~$1500) is to buy a K40 on EBay and refit it with a Buildbotics controller. The other day I needed a faceplate for an outlet with a circular 240v US dryer plug and a two port 120v US plug. I couldn't find anything at the hardware store that would work but I found drawings for the junction box and plugs online. After an hour or two with LibreCAD and CAMotics, I was ready to LASER cut my faceplate from 1/4" poplar. I was really happy when it fit exactly the first time. Now I keep looking behind the dryer to admire my handiwork. Disclaimer: I'm a creator of CAMotics and Buildbotics.

momzer 7y ago
Slightly offtopic: is poplar really the best material for an electrical wall plate? Wouldn't it be flammable? What's the dielectric withstand going to be like for a wooden wall plate in a humid environment like a laundry room?
- OrgNet 7y ago
  they make boxes for outlets that are made out of metal ... I don't think that conductivity is a factor edit here is another example of a wooden faceplate: https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Brass-W10848-Decorator-Unfinished/dp/B01H3LW0YC https://www.amazon.com/Franklin-Brass-W10848-Decorator-Unfin...
- crtlaltdel 7y ago
  solidwood faceplates are not uncommon. take a stroll down the electrical section of a major chain hardware store and you should be able to find a few. a lot of them seem to be made of bamboo. as for the dielectric properties, even in a “humid environment” its unlikely to be an issue. i mean, does a foggy morning short every outlet without a protective cover? if your voltages were high enough, sure you could draw an arc through the humid air...but it seems like you would have to hit closer to the kV range
alpineidyll3 7y ago
Cool products man. Ever done any closed loop with this system?

eebynight 7y ago

Is it just me or can anyone else not find the source for the Driveboard? I’m an electrical engineer and I love looking at boards like this but it seems like the linked github is just a manual at best.

sgentle 7y ago
This looks like it: https://github.com/nortd/driveboardapp https://github.com/nortd/driveboardapp
patrickyeon 7y ago
It feels like it took me longer to find this than it should have: https://github.com/nortd/driveboard https://github.com/nortd/driveboard

heyguys 7y ago

thats nothing to me

pz16 7y ago

@ps567344

pupdogg 7y ago

Am I the only one still waiting for the first open-source kW fiber laser solution? Open-source laser tinkering has always hovered at subpar wattage levels...barely enough to cut any metals above 0.060” (1.5mm) thickness...all while the Chinese have already surpassed closed-source companies like IPG and developed affordable ($11-15k...compared to $90-150k) closed-source solutions for fiber laser.

alpineidyll3 7y ago
Not alone at all. I think it's one of those things where someone just needs to reveal the hidden market.

scottshambaugh 7y ago

I built a lasersaur of my own last year! I put together a project writeup[1], and have been doing a little bit of development on my fork of the firmware in order to significantly speed up raster & fill engraving, and to and put in some quality of life software mods.[2] Unfortunately the original creators have abandoned the project, but fortunately it's completely open source so it's still buildable. Mine cost about $7k for the parts and all the accessories I had to get along with it, but I think that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit in someone going through and updating a lot of the more expensive parts in the BOM. I saved about $2k by doing so and put together a spreadsheet linked to from [1], but there's definitely still room to upgrade the steppers to something cheaper and more powerful, etc. There was a good discussion in the mailing list[3] a few weeks ago about whether it still makes sense in 2020 to build a Lasersaur. I'm personally of the opinion that if you want a laser cutter for the purpose of creating stuff with it, the best option is going to be getting a Chinese cutter, doing a few upgrades, and buying Lightburn as your software interface. But if you want the experience of building / intimately knowing the machine and find that rewarding in and of itself, go for it. [1] https://theshamblog.com/a-tour-of-the-lasersaur-laser-cutter/ https://theshamblog.com/a-tour-of-the-lasersaur-laser-cutter... [2] https://github.com/scottshambaugh/driveboardapp https://github.com/scottshambaugh/driveboardapp [3] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasersaur/Ieu6aAG_0sc https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lasersaur/Ieu6aAG_0s...