I acquired a laser cutter for free last October, but it's brain was dead. It's just a cheap and cheerful k40 model, cost about £350 originally from China.
Finally got round to sorting it out, I've replaced all the control wiring (because it was very badly done) and replaced the controller board with a Smoothieboard (www.smoothieware.org). It's pretty cool - has a network interface (with Web interface too) and is very customizable.
So far I've got the board controlling the XY axes, homing correctly, and talking to the controller software on my laptop over the network.
Tonight I'm going to hook up the laser control to it and hopefully get it cutting.
Biggest things to do are to work out the steps-per-mm for each axis, and align the laser tube.
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Cool. What sort of stuff can you cut through with that?
:D A laser cutter for butter.
Non-chlorine plastics (acrylic works excellently) wood and textiles (leather cuts beautifully but smells awful).
Uniform thickness works best, so plywood and mdf etc are very popular choices for stuff. Leaves a nasty looking burnt edge though, so if presentation is important then acrylic is the way to go.
No PVC then. What happens if you cut that plastic with chlorine in it? Toxic fumes?
Yeah, nasty chlorine gas. Not good for health and corrodes metal, fogs mirrors etc.