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Mar 27, 2014 18:05:56 GMT
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I recall trying to get small holes in thick-ish acrylic (2mm hole in 6mm acrylic) and the hole was nearly always tapered, and sometimes never even cut properly, as it seemed to just melt back onto the original part Very impressed with the brick etching too btw! Did you use it to cut the moss away too? Or was that a later addition?
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You're like a crazy backyard genius!
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Mar 27, 2014 18:22:36 GMT
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Yeah, the thicker the material, the more it melts back on the underside (literally turns to a resin) which gives a slight taper. This is mainly due to the heat build up as the laser has to run slightly slower for ticker materials and also because the power of the beam (on my type of laser anyway) weakens the further it cuts, which causes the beam to slightly widen/lose focus and further cause melt back. I think the two combined cause this exponentially the greater the thickness. Obviously, the more powerful the laser, the greater the thickness before this starts occurring. Apparently, mine should be able to cut about 12mm without too much problem, but this also comes down to the quality of the acrylic and the speed which you run the machine at. Some experimentation will certainly be needed once I get the machine up and running again.... As for the brick, the moss was etched away by the laser. It was a lot crisper/sharper on the first go, but I decided to up the power/slow the speed and give it a second go to see if it would make much difference (still all in the experimental stage). It didn't really improve the etch, but it burnt the moss back more than the first power/speed setting. This, again, will be played with more at a later date. Talking of which, I just happened to be driving along the road the other day and noticed some demolition going on behind some houses. I pulled over, walked into the building site and asked some questions....and came away with this little lot: That'll keep me busy for a while on the brick side of things...and best of all, it was all free. I'd have taken a lot more if they weren't crushing the rest that afternoon, but I worked out my poor Volvo lugged 720+ kilos of the things back anyway!!!!
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Mar 27, 2014 18:51:40 GMT
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That's a lot of postage.
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Probably a really dull idea, but what about cutting/etching random things for laptop cases? Then the monitor can back light it.
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Frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member
And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death
Posts: 3,875
Club RR Member Number: 15
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The Alan Parsons ProjectFrankenhealey
@frankenhealey
Club Retro Rides Member 15
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Mar 30, 2014 21:13:52 GMT
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Better late than never: Apparently - the gas mixer for the 6Kw laser at work. (Nobody here actually knows wtf it is, but it looks funky) It's either a flux capacitor or an energy binder
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Tales of the Volcano Lair hereFrankenBug - Vulcan Power hereThe Frankenhealey here
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Mar 31, 2014 20:19:18 GMT
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If you (or someone you know) has an iPhone, get yourself the "Autodesk 123D make" app. You basically take a series of photos with the phone, do a smidge of tidying using a pc, and you can then export as a series of 2D STL files to cut Example on instructables, of an R2D2! (annoyingly, he doesn't just upload the 2D files for us to cut straight away) www.instructables.com/id/R2D2-Laser-Cut-Wood-Model/?ALLSTEPS
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Last Edit: Mar 31, 2014 20:19:49 GMT by chairchild
You're like a crazy backyard genius!
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Mar 31, 2014 21:37:16 GMT
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Many thanks for the link and info. I'll watch the video when I'm on a computer then plays sound and doesn't freeze/crash when trying any kind of video. In other news, laser cutter is still broken. I managed to get it fixed and it worked for all of an hour before breaking again. Fingers crossed, after two whole weeks of texts and emails, the company are finally sending me a new power supply for the laser tube. Hopefully this will sort the problems and I can actually start playing with and making stuff again? I'll post up more details tomorrow....
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If you (or someone you know) has an iPhone, get yourself the "Autodesk 123D make" app. You basically take a series of photos with the phone, do a smidge of tidying using a pc, and you can then export as a series of 2D STL files to cut Example on instructables, of an R2D2! (annoyingly, he doesn't just upload the 2D files for us to cut straight away) www.instructables.com/id/R2D2-Laser-Cut-Wood-Model/?ALLSTEPSIf you use Chrome as your browser, you can get it as an add-on, meaning you can use a proper camera.
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Apr 16, 2014 19:51:43 GMT
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*aHEM*
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Apr 17, 2014 17:55:54 GMT
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[still broken] [/still broken]
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Apr 17, 2014 18:35:32 GMT
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laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame.....
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You're like a crazy backyard genius!
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,503
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Jun 21, 2014 23:46:15 GMT
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is this up and running and if so are you taking on jobs? i need 19x 10x10x10" triangles in 3mm acrylic, would this be a possibility?
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is this up and running and if so are you taking on jobs? i need 19x 10x10x10" triangles in 3mm acrylic, would this be a possibility? It's a very, very long story but the laser cutter is running. Sort of. I can't etch/engrave at the moment, but cutting shouldn't be an issue because that side of the machine is working fine. I should certainly be able to produce what you're after.... I'm away until Monday now, but if you PM me your number we can have a chat about what you're after and I'm sure I can sort something out for you. I do need to do a long overdue update on the laser cutter but have been pretty busy recently and also wanted to get it all running and working properly before posting too many updates. Hopefully it'll be fully functioning again soon?
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,503
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Jun 27, 2014 10:58:21 GMT
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nice one! dropped you a message with my number
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Jun 28, 2014 19:24:28 GMT
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I do need to do a long overdue update on the laser cutter Damn straight you do!
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You're like a crazy backyard genius!
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OK, so after a long time without updates, I finally have a working laser cutter again. It's been a long time coming and I've lost countless hours, even days, getting this thing in good working order. Pretty much anything that could have gone wrong, since bringing it home, has. I won't bore with all the details, but the short story is that the original power supply packed up in spectacular style, a new one finally arrived after some negotiation with the supplier and then I lost all ability to engrave. The lenses started playing me up, the gantry was well out of true and I started having massive issues with alignment (even after teaching myself how to realign the gantry) and my computer blew up. Luckily I had a 'spare' PC. Basically it really was a case of one step forwards, two steps back. Finally, a week or so ago, an engineer arrived and, much to his surprise, found the new power supply to be at fault. He promptly fitted a new one and for the first time since I got the thing, I can say that it's working PROPERLY! I am absolutely over the moon now. I'd been using the machine to do some jobs here and there, like some Area 52 keyrings, a small cutting job for awoo and some merchandise for the Nissan Cube club through fr€$h&m1nt¥. I'll let them post up details of their work if they wish to? All of those jobs were using the 50% of the machine that was working, the cutting. Now that it's fully working, I can use it to engrave as last.....and this has opened the floodgates to a whole new load of work. The kind of work I'd been doing before the machine got fixed were things like this letter checker which I made to ensure I got the postage rates correct for various things I was sending out to people (it saved me a good few ££ on its first use alone!) One of the things I was sending out (that prompted me to make the letter checker) were the Area 52 keyrings. These look 'engraved' but the A52 logo is in fact 'cut' onto the surface, just on a very low power at a fairly high speed so that the cut just marks the surface rather than cuts through. They've sold really well to raise money to keep the unit going....and if anyone wants to buy one, they are £5 each including free delivery. (nudge nudge, ) ^apologies for the fuzzy photos!^ Once the machine was up & running properly, the first job I did was to revisit the whole brick engraving idea. Seeing as I'd had a massive pile of them sat in the garden for months, it seemed right to have a go at getting this brick engraving sussed and perfected. What's not so obvious in that photo is the little easter egg I'd engraved in the ridge. The brick was given to jrevillug (AKA VileRug) as a thank you for helping me with the power supply when it first started going very wrong...but no sooner had I posted that photo up on FB than a message arrived requesting a custom brick for a housebuild. Details of that to come. The next job out of the laser was one I'd been planning for AGES! Only a jokey thing, but one that just needed to be done....once I'd got the idea in my head, it was going to happen regardless. Straight after engraving the brick, I did this: The stuff you thought you'd never see coming out of a laser cutter heh? More to come.
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awoo
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,503
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Aug 27, 2014 17:37:18 GMT
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aye thanks Bruce, i'll post up mine soon. I'm in the midst of working on it. hopefully have it finished enough to start posting bits up.
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We have a laser cutter at our local FabLab and I did a lot of fancy things with it, but it's only 400x300 mm. But yours is REALLY huge - you could cut entire door cards from MDF...
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Best... use... EVER!
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You're like a crazy backyard genius!
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