D3D Laser Cutter

Basics

• Part of the Open Source Digital Fabrication Construction Set
• A laser cutter that uses the D3D frame

Used For

• Cutting of many materials of varying thickness (depends on output power)
• Engraving of flat wood or metal surfaces
• Engraving of the glass subsurface ( See this video )

Industry Standards

3D printer conversions:

• 2.5 W engraves well and cuts paper - and 4 mm plywood with multiple passes. . Uses Inkscape with engraving plugin -, [1]. 2.5W laser needs a 2A power supply. Needs a regulator to modulate power output.
• 2.5 W with RAMPS - [2]. 3 mm balsa at 10 mm/sec works with 3 passes. One model of CEB Press - could be done rapidly. Thus, modeling 1 mm cardboard would be 10 mm/sec one pass - probably. A 5 minute cut gets us 300 seconds of cut - 120" or 10 feet of cut. In one hour - say over lunch - we get up 3600 seconds - 120 feet of cut. Plenty for modeling.

Minimum Viable Product

• Modular
• Uses the Open Source Laser Construction Set
• Scalable output power (from 1 Watt to 10 Kilowatts)
• Collects the debris via suction from an Open Source Vacuum Cleaner for recycling

BOM

• See Small Lasers for diode choices from 3 to 15 Watts. 3.5 watts appears ideal - it can do 3 mm plywood.

See Also

• 3W Laser
• 4W Laser
• Laser Head
• Laser Cutter Benchmarking
• Laser_Diode
• Fiber Laser
• Laser Head
• Direct Diode Laser
• Laser SMEs
• Beam Combining
• Laser Diode
• Laser Scanner
• Open Source Laser Tech Tree of Choices
• Moushira on Risha Laser
• 3D Printed Laser Cutter
• 5 kW Handheld Laser
• Prusa i3 version of laser cutter. Linked from Wikipedia Prusa i3 article. - [3].
• Functional Diagram for CO2 laser cutter - Laser_Cutter/Research_Development#Functional_Diagram
• Open Source software for controlling lasers -LaserWeb

Useful Links

• Wikipedia Page on Laser Cutting