[Swansea Hackspace] Proposal: Laser Cutter

[Alan Cox]

> This is a chinese import, the max object size is 300x200mm (more or less
> A4), its a 50W CO2 laser which can cut several mm thickness of wood,
> plastic, card, leather etc, and etch onto plenty of other materials. It
> will not cut metal, that's a whole other league of device.

Check which plastics it does - a lot of them won't do styrene containing
products as the fumes frost the lenses somewhat irreversibly, vinyls
(gives off highly toxic fumes so needs special venting) or PVC (ditto)

Plenty of good laser cuttable plastics anyway like rowmark which also
doesn't give you blobby melty edges.

> It will require some adjustments before it will be really useful, at the
> minimum we need to add a water tank and air ducting, nothing
> complicated. We would also want to replace the electronics with
> something more open and standard, which is pretty cheap and
> straightforward.


> The device itself sells for £529 including shipping, there are cheaper
> versions, but they have either a lower powered laser (slower, less
> thickness of cut) or don't have the air-assist cutting head (blows away
> smoke and debris from cutting point). We might get hit for some VAT /
> Import Duty, but the customs declarations aren't usually the full value.
> So total cost, with contingency for taxes, the venting and electronics
> is upto around £700

And a fire protection system, so there should be a CO2 extinguisher with
it and included in the budget.

Sounds a pretty good price. Does it have CE approval with interlocks, is
it fully enclosed and with safety cut outs sufficient to allow it to be
used in an open space (or does it need to be in a room of its own with the
operator wearing protective glasses). Good excuse for a flashing amber
light on the door 8)

Other big big question - is the laser tube a standard design, can you
source replacements, how much, how long ? The tubes are basically
consumables and quite pricy at the best of times.

The operating cost of a laser cutting is supposed to be £5/hr.

Alan