My 5yo son is throwing a space-themed party with his friends this weekend, so I decided it was time for the dormant lowrider v2 to get some action
It’s been over a year and a half since it’s been put on hold, so…
First I cut out a few stars to hang on the trees, out of 10mm MDF and composite wood
It went “ok” I guess… a few hipcups at the start but I managed to produce a small batch of stars…
I had a fair bit of cleaning/sanding to do afterward though…
Then I decided to cut a spaceship contour out of 3.2mm hard board
It didn’t go smoothly >_<
The bit caught on some tough spots (altough I was running 2mm DOC at pretty low speed 10-15mm/s) and it made a mess… multiple times…
And man! Why didn’t I buy this thing earlier???!!!
Clean cuts right out of the bat, no more noise and dust… and no more spindle blocking into the material and ruining the cut …
After I went a bit overboard designing the jetpack (crash-learning onshape in 24h in the process because Fusion cannot export to svg/dxf anymore…) , it was time for batch-production
From the picture, it looks like you purchased the 10W optical, Laser Tree module. How do you like it? What was your cutting speed? How much clearance is there between the shroud and the material?
Fusion cannot export to svg/dxf anymore
In Fusion 360, if you right click on any sketch in the browser hierarchy, you can save that sketch as a DXF. I use it all the time for creating vector graphics for laser cutting.
That’s the one 40W is the consumed power, but in fact it’s 2 x 5w laser diode, combining to 10w optical power
I’ve been using it for the past 3 days and it’s very nice
When cutting through wood, you need to slow down significantly though… around 2-4mm/s depending on the thickness
The clearance between the shroud and material depends on what operation you’re currently doing
For cutting it needs to be somewhere between 3 and 7mm depending on the material thickness, for engraving, it’s 7mm
Three gauge blocks are provided for easy setup, and I purchased the adjustable mount too, all in all it’s a very simple and quick setup
The only difficulty is to get the stock sheet flat… thin stock like the one I used (3.2mm) tend to bow in the center
I was refering to exporting a face as SVG/DXF
I’m a 3D printer guy at core, so I draw my models in 3D, and then export the faces
I was also a bit fed up with the 10 documents limit and lack of functionality for laser manufacturing (eg: you cannot etch an area)
So far I’m pretty impresed with OnShape, for modeling it’s on par with Fusion360 (no analysis or manufacturing functionnalities though)
I was refering to exporting a face as SVG/DXF
I’m a 3D printer guy at core, so I draw my models in 3D, and then export the faces
This is often my workflow as well. For Fusion 360, I start a sketch on the face I want to export, and then project any lines I want in the DXF. This way I get a clean DXF for laser cutting. I keep the sketch lines linked, so if I ever update the model, the sketch for the DXF gets updated as well. I’m not trying to talk you out of OnShape, just to indicate that it can be done in Fusion 360 if you want.
I was also a bit fed up with the 10 documents limit and lack of functionality for laser manufacturing (eg: you cannot etch an area)
This is the only frustration I have with the free version of Fusion 360. I’m always at 9 or 10 documents and have to decide what to make read-only. As for generating g-code for laser cutting, I’ve been extremely happy with Lightburn. It is a paid app, but I find it worth the price.
The only difficulty is to get the stock sheet flat… thin stock like the one I used (3.2mm) tend to bow in the center
I use heavier gauge sheet metal and lead ingots. I place the sheet metal just overlapping the edge of the stock and then weigh the sheet metal down with the ingots. If the bow is severe, I have some salvaged, smaller lead-acid batteries I use as a weights. This method allows me to transfer weight to the material while also allowing the laser module to clear.
I love it. I have no laser experience but the algorithms have caught my interest and am presented with ads constantly. I love the idea of a module on my LR2, but it’s in my basement and it seems smoke would be harder to contain on it than a dedicated laser of smallish size. Thoughts on that?
I dealt with the 10 docs limit by exporting docs as Fusion 360 archive files, and if I ever needed to edit them again, I could open and do so. In the meantime, the internal copy that Fusion 360 was seeing, could be deleted to free up a spot.
Since I teach art and tech to students at our church school, a year or two ago I jumped through some hoops to try to get our church school in their list so I could get educational access. Their system told me at the time it was not doable. However, just a couple of days ago I tried again to sign up for educational license, and our school was present in the list, and I was able to gain access. The very next time I loaded Fusion 360, the interface looked different because the limit was gone. It was a relief to me.
I’m also a very happy paid customer of Lightburn. Really impressive.
You’re not wrong here. People who put lasers anywhere, whether large or small cut area, put them inside enclosures, whether one they built or one they bought. It can fill a room with smoke in a hurry!
