Lasersaur on kickstarter.com wants $10k to develop an open source laser cutter
Bryan Bishop
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/405545346/lasersaur-open-source-laser-cutter-0
"""
The idea is simple: Design a laser cutter and make the building
process repeatable for others.
Here's the thing. Laser cutters are traditionally expensive ($30,000
to as much as you can spend) and there are a lot of artist, hackers,
architects, designers, DIYers who could do great things with them- if
they could afford one, or even get regular access to one. Pretty much
anybody who is a maker could benefit from a laser cutter.
Unfortunately, turnkey systems are expensive, and there isn't really a
clear and simple way to build one. We can change this: with roughly
six month of R&D time we can develop a laser cutter which anyone can
build, use, and maintain. Most importantly this system will be open
source which means anyone can improve and modify the design.
Everyone should be able to have a laser cutter! Our goal is to design
a 100W machine which is capable of cutting 1/2" (12.5mm) acrylic,
wood, multiple layers of fabric or thin sheet metal.
Why
Laser cutters are a key technology for making things.
Remember when people couldn't make their own videos, CDs or print out
photos? Me neither (at least we try to forget). In many areas of
media, the last century was quite the read-only culture where a few
gatekeepers would sit on the means to produce everything. Not the best
situation for creativity or for people with lots of cool ideas but no
cash.
When you look at robotics and fabrication this is still the case. In
2010, a reasonable laser cutter is still well over 30k and therefore
outside the budget of most of us. However, we are at a point where
this can change. We believe we are able to design a laser cutter that
can be built for under 5k (a 100W version) and a budget version (25W)
for under 3k. It would be completely open source and repeatable.
How this will go down
First of all, we need your support! Your pledge is what makes this
project possible. Once our funding goal is reached, the first
prototype will be formulated. With material testing and debugging
underway we can make a solid alpha system in about 6 months. At this
point, start checking your snail mail box for the alpha kit (see
pledges on how to get one).
Once our alpha testers have had a chance to geek out for a few months,
we will launch into beta with the beta testers. Then collaborators.
Our goal is to launch publicly within a few months thereafter,
releasing the project, documentation and schematics to the greater
good.
We will offer the Lasersaur open source system as kits available to
the public as well as offer documentation online for anyone wishing to
build their system from scratch.
Who we are
We (addie and stefan) are alumi from NYU's ITP and more recently
fellows at Eyebeam in New York City. Both are institutions dedicated
to open source culture and experimentation with cutting edge
technology.
As individuals, and as collaborators, we have been designing open
source software since 2002, hardware since 2006, and like sharing our
ideas with the bigger community. Our first open source hardware system
was launched in 2007 (CUBIT: the multitouch system, as well as the
later Touchkit, 2008). These systems were covered internationally and
nationally by media such as MIT Technology Review, The Economist, Der
Standard and even CNN. Over the last half a decade, our open source
hardware has been built and used by hundreds of people, labs and
research universities or institutions. We believe that people should
think globally and act locally and the open source movement has been
instrumental for this.
"""
I was kicking around the same idea with a fellow in Austin, TX a while
back but we had a sub-$1000 price target. I wonder if these eyebeam
fellows will be wise enough to use EMC2? I hope so.
Bryan Bishop
From: john arclight <arcl...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, May 31, 2010 at 8:55 PM
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Lasersaur on kickstarter.com wants $10k to
develop an open source laser cutter
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List <dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org>
This sound interesting. Most importantly, I think we need a good,
sturdy 3-axis gantry that can be used to move around a router, Dremel
tool, LASER head, stencil cutting knife, etc.
All of the systems I have seen so far (Reprap, Makerbot, etc) are too
light to move something like a LASER system or a high-speed router for
cutting out circuit boards/etc.
And all of the heavy-duty movements I've seen have involved one-off
salvaged components, like steppers+ball screws from a wrecked CNC
machine tool or a large industrial line printer.
So I would encourage the team to think about not making the platform
100% specific to LASER cutting, but an open design that could have
multiple components bolted on.
A repeatable design for a nice, rigid 3-axis movement would be an
excellent "Stage 1" design goal, even if the LASER portion proves to
be harder to master.
Arclight
http://shop.23b.org
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Bryan Bishop
From: Jaap Vermaas <ja...@tuxic.nl>
Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 8:38 AM
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Lasersaur on kickstarter.com wants $10k
to develop an open source laser cutter
Hi People,
We (Mobile Fab Lab NL & Spullenmannen) recently bought a China-made
laser cutter, 60W 30x50 cm for about 3000 euro.
The first thing we did was open it and make an inventory of the hardware
used in it. Our conclusion was that we could have build all parts
ourselves from off-the-shelve parts, except for the laser tube.
Since we plan to use it "mobile" (in a truck) being able to repair it
ourselves is essential. And there's no warranty on it anyway!
Building DIY Laser tubes is too complicated for most of us, i guess, so
we bought a spare, just to be sure. You can buy 60 Watt lasers in NL for
about 400-600 euros.
More interesting, all the electronics (stepper motor boards and main
board) look very standard and could be easily replaced by (for example)
the board from a Makerbot.
Our conclusion is that the biggest gap between laser cutting and open
source design (AOI, QCad, Inkscape) is the electronics and the driver.
It would be great to either hack the current mainboard so we can make a
Linux driver for it, or just replace the mainboard with something that
speaks Maker-bot/RepRap compatible GCODE allready. It doesn't look too
hard, but "time" is the limiting factor here.
So: yes, an open source laser cutter, please! And please focus on
electronics replacements and drivers!
Jaap
On 06/01/2010 03:08 PM, john arclight wrote:
> We will definitely check this out! For detailed information on making
> a dead-flat and straight set of ways from, well not straight
> components, I highly recommend studying the Gingery homemade lathe
> book, available here:
>
> http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/index.html
>
> Arclight
>
> On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 9:39 PM, John Griessen <jo...@industromatic.com> wrote:
>> john arclight wrote:
>>>
>>> This sound interesting. Most importantly, I think we need a good,
>>> sturdy 3-axis gantry [...]all of the heavy-duty movements I've seen have
>>> involved one-off
>>> salvaged components[...]So I would encourage [...]an open design that
>>> could have
>>> multiple components bolted on.
>>
>> At the enDesign makerspace in Austin TX, we have a gantry that is a pseudo
>> copy
>> of a mechmate that uses V shaped ways and wheels. One source is:
>> http://www.linearvguides.com/linearvguides/vguidewheels.htm
>> Not sure of prices, but these wheels and guides have been around for twenty
>> years at least
>> and are likely cheap. The smallest wheel is good for 280 lbs down, 65 lbs
>> force sideways.
>>
>> The ways are mounted on a steel frame and can be trued up with washers.
>> Getting
>> a steel frame built by welding, yet flat and square is a skill and design
>> problem. Ours is undergoing mods to straighten weld warp by making opposing
>> welds.
>> That may be good and can be designed in also. We still need a few pieces
>> for the Z axis
>> and they may get documented as pythonOCC 3D model code that can be shared.
>>
>> John
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Bob Keyes
I would be very interested in a low-cost laser cutter. But I am wary of 'unknown' manufacturers. Who did the Chinese copy? Design and build quality, along with after-sale support, are important issues that are much harder to quantify than price. I'd therefore suggest that the first step towards an open-source laser cutter should be the design of interface and driver standards. Manufacturers, users, and home-builders can all contribute towards such an effort. Users have differing needs in regards to duty cycle, precision, and accuracy of such a cutter, along with power and features. For instance, some users may already have a 'table' that is balanced and level with shock and vibration dampening. Others may not. Some may have access to highly stable power sources, others may not and may not need them. It's important to identify the user and manufacturer communities being targeted and to get buy-in from them, without having one entity control the effort
for its benefit at the cost of others.
DIYbio is one community of users. I perceive the needs of this group to be low-cost, small volume, small duty cycle, low weight, moderately high accuracy cutters which are easily reconfigurable. They must be easy to use and not require a large number of accessories or special power sources (Would a requirement for three-phase power be acceptable? Many of these things do not relate directly to the interface specification, but instead may lead to some rough design proposals, from which interface requirements may be defined. These interface requirements (and some of the design proposals) may serve other communities as well, but other users (the large-volume, high-power laser users I suspect) will probably have differing requirements for interface and driver specifications.
So, I think the first thing for DIYbio would be to gather up possible uses and to see what commonality of cutter types there are.
My current interests which may benefit from a laser cutter are small to medium sized wind turbines (not DIYbio!) and microbial fuel cells (need electrodes with a large surface area in relation to volume, along with good electrical conductivity and resistance to moderate acidity and microbial activity. Indicates a laser cutter of moderate precision, but also moderate duty cycle). Yes, I'd be willing to share. Currently in Malden Mass (Boston area), may have interests in Albany NY or Leipzig Germany.