Cheap Chinese Laser Cutter

[Martyn K]

I gave manged to cut through 1/32 birch ply. 10 passes at 250mm/min at 100%. Not a very neat cut though, with quite a wide burn mark.

As suggested by FF, I use mine to mark out on thicker ply and cut it the old fashioned way.

I have cut various thickness and hardness of balsa, it's very hit of miss, even 1/32 medium balsa rakes two passes. Much more reliable now I am using laser mode though although it's very slow.

Definitely a useful tool although I am now dreaming of a CO2 laser

Martyn

[Stephen Smith 14]

Just don't understand these diode lasers when they take 10 passes to cut 1/32 ply and are only really usfull for drawing out onto wood to cut with a knife or saw, my k40 cuts 1/8th ply without issue and with £100 back of the seller because of two minor issues it cost me under £200.

[Andy J]

Has anyone had any success in cutting out lettering from Solartrim. If so, what speed is advised.

[FlyinFlynn]

Try the bottom of page 6 of this thread.

Edited By FlyinFlynn on 22/06/2020 10:56:07

[Andy J]

Started to try some letter test cuts of a graphic using inkscape. Whilst very low powers of S80 with laser speeds of 1000 cut out letters in HK shrink film very well, got stuck on a hawk graphic imported into Inkscape. Is there any way of converting this graphic to an outline line drawing or have I got to trace around the object?

[perttime]

Posted by Andy Joyce on 28/08/2020 16:52:17:

Started to try some letter test cuts of a graphic using inkscape. Whilst very low powers of S80 with laser speeds of 1000 cut out letters in HK shrink film very well, got stuck on a hawk graphic imported into Inkscape. Is there any way of converting this graphic to an outline line drawing or have I got to trace around the object?

If it is already a vector image, you just make the "Fill" with no color, and make the outline the color and width you want.

With a solid colored raster object, one thing you can do is use the paint bucket tool to fill the solid area, and then make the Fill of the resulting "Object" have no color. You might need to play with the sensitivity etc. settings of the paintbucket tool.

 

Edit: The outline looked pretty good to me with these settings for paintbucket:

Visible colors, Threshold 21, Grow/Shrink 0 px, Close gaps None

Just in case, I made the raster image black and white (just by turning contrast all the way up)

 

Edited By perttime on 28/08/2020 17:41:26

Edited By perttime on 28/08/2020 17:43:13

[Andy J]

Well managed to get Inkscape to generate an outline which I converted using the J Tech plug in to gcode, but odd little sections of the outline are missing as the laser does not cut.

To add further issues cant repeat getting inkscape to generate the outline at a larger scale so should l be using some other command before generating the path and setting the offset.

Edited By Andy Joyce on 28/08/2020 17:56:31

[Andy J]

File graphic is a jpeg, so do you suggest I do the edits in Inkscape or some other Windows 10 app?

[Tim C]

Andy,

Use the Path, Trace bitmap commands in Inkscape, you may have the play with various options to select the best one for the graphic you are using. I use it all the time to produce vector outlines.

[perttime]

Anything special about the sections that were not cut? Like, there's some pretty sharp corners between the wing tip feathers and around the claws.

[chris larkins]

Cut this wall sign out of 1/8 birch ply for our clubhouse a few weeks ago, the engraving was done in one pass and the cuts were multiple passes (can't remember how many but probably around a dozen or so)

[Andy J]

Got fed up of trying to get a decent cut of the original graphic as parts refused to cut with the laser visibly turning off in parts. So decided to generate a copy by tracing over the graphic. Whilst the path looks ok and is closed, again the laser is turning off at times in similar sections of the cut. Does anybody have any ideas why this may occur?

Edited By Andy Joyce on 29/08/2020 16:35:19

[chris larkins]

Andy if you PM me with the original image that you are trying to cut I will see what I can do with the file & try it on my machine.

Which laser software are you using?

[Lima Hotel Foxtrot]

This has been a fascinating thread to read.

Has anybody tried cutting foamboard? Also, how hard would it be to put together a cutter with an A1 (841mm x 594mm) size cutting area?

[Martyn K]

I tried and failed. The white fiamboard simply scatters the light. You will get a mark where you tried to cut but its a wide line rather than a fine cut

Martyn

[Rob Ashley]

Probably best to use a cnc router to cut the foamboard. Either an end mill (0.6-0.8mm dia) or engraving bit (0.1-0.3mm dia).

Rob

[adrian garnham]

Hi

I have managed to cut 5mm foamboard successfully with my diode laser cutter. It took 2 passes to cut black foamboard and 3 passes for white. As long as the focus is correct and you have a good air assist you will get a good cut. I use a 0.15mm kerf width and cutting speed of 600mm/min

My home built cnc laser cutter is loosely based on the FlyinFlynn design but I have added a support roller at the unsupported end of the y axis. The bed size is 1000mm x 610mm

My laser cutter is a 5W unit from Banggood.

[Jason Channing]

Have you managed to cut Epp ? rather than foam board?

[adrian garnham]

I haven't tried cutting EPP.

I cut through soft 3.2mm balsa in 1 pass and hard 3.2 balsa in 2 passes at 450mm/min

3.2 plywood in 3 passes (150mm/min) although I usually use a cnc router for plywood.

I've just purchased a NEJE 30W laser module (7.5 W output) from Banggood ... just printing off some parts to give that a try.

[FlyinFlynn]

Adrain, I can see the attraction for a 1 meter long axis for cutting balsa sheet but do you ever use it? also the 610 mm, do you ever use all of it to its capacity?

Do you ever cut out a whole balsa sheet in one go? Do you find it advantageous to cut out more than one piece at a time?

I'm genuinely interested.  I guess if you can cut foam with the laser then perhaps having a larger cutting area will allow the cutting of wing planforms....

Edited By FlyinFlynn on 30/12/2020 10:42:14

[Jason Channing]

I use 600 mm of travel on mine for templates, and as much as I can get for balsa sheets as it allow maximum use of the sheet with out having to reposition it after every cut or so. Cutting out one part at a time if you have lots to do is very time consuming especially if you dont have a home position. currently running 20 watt diode on mine and works very well, the only mod I have done is air assist from a 50 litre compressor.

[Rich Griff]

Hi Rob, interesting read...how does it do with foam, white and blue type ?

[adrian garnham]

Hi FlyinFlynn

The cutting area can never be too big as you never know what you might want to cut. All joking aside, the bench where I keep it is 610mm deep.

I tend to nest the parts in CAD first as you don't need to keep repositioning either the sheet or the laser head. It also makes best use of the sheet.

The max size I have cut so far is one wing skin which was 3 100mm x 900mm sheets side by side (taped together ready for gluing) which contained cut-outs for the retracts and aileron servo access.

[FlyinFlynn]

Jason/Adrian - I understand the nesting approach but I always found the 'outline' function before committing to a cut sufficient to obtain good use of the plank stock, My main doubts about cutting a whole sheet in one go was if something goes wrong with the cut then you potentially waste the whole sheet whereas if you are only cutting one item you should waste less, also the larger you make your axis's the worse the effects of belt stretch, vibrations and bending/drooping become, of course, if you want to cut a wing planform it has to be big enough to fit the shape in...... Horses for courses I guess.

[Andy J]

Well after a long lay off of not using my laser cutter coupled with a PC rebuild have lost the installed software for driving the cutter.

 

Can someone give me a list of suitable free driver software.  Did not use lightburn of at least I don't think I did. Have two versions loaded on my PC but darned if I can recall their names.

 

Using Inkscape as the design tool with J Tech Gcode which all works fine but that as far as I can progress to get some parts cut.