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Demystify cheap EBAY laser cutters?

Former Member

I'd really like to make the leap into playing with a laser cutter - and there are a million (ok, maybe not a MILLION) of them on EBAY in the 500-600 range. But reading reviews, doing a bit of light research, watching some youtube videos, there's not a lot of info about how to really get started with these things if you're brandy-new to laser cutting.  Ben's done a couple videos that involve laser cutting, and is constantly using it in his projects, but what I'd REALLY like is a sort of "getting started with a cheap EBAY laser cutter" video, or even a whole series. Maybe something where Ben buys one of those super-common 500-600 range laser cutters, gets it up and running, explains how the software for them works (because they all seem to want to use Corel Draw from what I've read, but using something like Inkscape would probably be a lot more flexible), and how to get the "most" out of them, given their limitations.

 

Other things that would be really interesting:

1. What other kinds of software can be used with these el-cheapo laser cutters? See aforementioned Inkscape (or Illustrator?)

2. What simple upgrades/improvements should be made to them to keep them running reliably or improve their performance

3. How "hackable" are they? I.e., after buying one could it be torn apart and the build size increased?

 

Thanks for a great show! Watch it every week!

Parents

  • Again. I try to answer to your second part of the questions, the software. The laser engravers, as well as the 3D printer, CNC machined etc. are managed by a micro controller board that accept in its firmware a g-code dialect. I mean dialect because in this particular case of CAD tools there are some specific commands typical of the laser control. First of all there is no x axis that is replaced by the laser lens focus. Then there are commands to control the laser continuously or by pulse, depending on the depth and the kind of job you are doing, the material etc. Then there are G-code controls like the laser to very-low-power for positioning, laser fan activation etc.

     

    So there is not a single software you can use and the format, DXF instead of SVG, AI or other vectorial file formats or bitmap images (jpeg, png, bmp) in the case you need to make a variable depth engraving, using greyscale images or pure monochrome - black and white -

     

    What you need is a software able to manage these kind of files, give you a good quality resulting image in g-code format to export it and send to the machine. I suggest software like Artcam if you are doing mostly graphic elements but Inskcape or Gimp (both are open source and work very well on all the platforms) are also a good alternative.

     

    So there are two different software level:

    • The graphic processing of the image
    • The machine control software.

     

    Currently I am using Brenbox for the machine control but it is almost crap and is a temporary solution. The graphic objects are created with the mentioned programs and other (including Rhino 4, Phtoshop CS5 etc.) then the export formats are those mentioned above.

     

    An approach that I consider interesting is a project I am working on where you can control the machine with a Raspberry PI and a java application. It acts as a server that can be accessed by the network directly from your pc from where you export the original image in G-Code format.

     

    To do this I am making a porting / hacking of the universal g-code sender almost oriented to control laser machines.

     

    Enrico

Reply

  • Again. I try to answer to your second part of the questions, the software. The laser engravers, as well as the 3D printer, CNC machined etc. are managed by a micro controller board that accept in its firmware a g-code dialect. I mean dialect because in this particular case of CAD tools there are some specific commands typical of the laser control. First of all there is no x axis that is replaced by the laser lens focus. Then there are commands to control the laser continuously or by pulse, depending on the depth and the kind of job you are doing, the material etc. Then there are G-code controls like the laser to very-low-power for positioning, laser fan activation etc.

     

    So there is not a single software you can use and the format, DXF instead of SVG, AI or other vectorial file formats or bitmap images (jpeg, png, bmp) in the case you need to make a variable depth engraving, using greyscale images or pure monochrome - black and white -

     

    What you need is a software able to manage these kind of files, give you a good quality resulting image in g-code format to export it and send to the machine. I suggest software like Artcam if you are doing mostly graphic elements but Inskcape or Gimp (both are open source and work very well on all the platforms) are also a good alternative.

     

    So there are two different software level:

    • The graphic processing of the image
    • The machine control software.

     

    Currently I am using Brenbox for the machine control but it is almost crap and is a temporary solution. The graphic objects are created with the mentioned programs and other (including Rhino 4, Phtoshop CS5 etc.) then the export formats are those mentioned above.

     

    An approach that I consider interesting is a project I am working on where you can control the machine with a Raspberry PI and a java application. It acts as a server that can be accessed by the network directly from your pc from where you export the original image in G-Code format.

     

    To do this I am making a porting / hacking of the universal g-code sender almost oriented to control laser machines.

     

    Enrico

Children
  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    Wow...now THAT might be exactly what I'm looking for.

     

    In a general way - I wasn't really just thinking of Ebay as a place to look. It just seems like there are a LOT of the same model of laser cutter/engraver running around that is sourced from China. Ebay happens to be the cheapest (from what I can see) source of such things.

     

    That being said, this kit looks AWESOME. Also, it looks very "hackable" in the sense that increasing the dimensions of the cuttable/engraveable area is largely a matter of getting longer rails. I'm guessing that if it was to get TOO big, the steppers would need to be upgraded with larger/stronger motors - which would probably mean increasing the power supply to those steppers. But anyway.

     

    Definitely going to look more at this one...you may have found the winner!