Pocket laser engraver.

Step 9: Final results.

Here are some of the things I made with this little engraver so far. I will let the images tell most of the story. The only limit is your imagination (besides the low power and small work area).

Key chain.
I found some paint stirrer sticks at my local DIY shop. I liked the look of the wood and they were cheap. I saw of a piece and drilled a small hole. After some sanding I engraved the Binford logo from the sitcom "Home improvement".

Plant marker.
A normal Popsicle stick engraved with the plants name.

Personalized matches.
I'm just trying to show off ;)

Memo note holder.
A clothespin engraved and with a small neodymium magnet glued to the back makes a great way to stick a bunch of notes together on the fridge or any other metal surface. I like clothespins they are very versatile.

Stamp.
Cut out of a small foam sheet and glued to a piece of Masonite.

Airplane.
Thanks to scriptster who made the G-code for the model. Check out his model here .

Comments

[b_caroteno]

Do you have the specifications of voltage, current and step for the small carriage (screw) motor. Thanks!

[Groover]

I have no idea what would be the correct current. I tend to go by trial n error and start low, if the motors gets to hot tune it down a little. If they don't deliver the torque you need and gets to hot there is not much to do.

[ryanjilek]

Sweet project. Since I had a box of old drives this was a pretty straight forward build. All I needed were a couple of Easydrive boards and I was in business. Here it is burning a self portrait: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxNgd2hSNWQ

[SubMicro]

I was wondering is it just the watts that determine the cutting power or does the wavelength matter too?

PS Great instructable!

[Groover]

The wavelength is very much a factor. If you try to cut say, yellow foam with the red laser it will have a hard time to even make a mark. If you then do the same thing with a 405nm laser diode it will cut the yellow foam with ease.

[SubMicro]

So what is the best wavelength? Sorry I just want to get the right one the first time around!

[Arano]

find out what wavelengths are absorbed best by the material you want to cut... a first gues should be the complementary color of what you want to cut

[etopsirhc]

would this be able to cut something like 1/8" or 1/16" balsa?
or would i need to get a better lazer to cut it better?

[Groover]

I think it would have a hard time with the original red laser. You could put in a stronger laser and it might work.

[etopsirhc]

alright , onee i get around to making it i'll try out the red , if it fails i'll definatly get a stronger one .... maybe a HeNe laser tube , that should cut it ( and just about anything else i would ever need ) lol

[Shadetree Engineer]

I wouldn't try an HeNe for this, unless you happen to have one that's got some power you'll find that they are usually too low in wattage. Try using an 808nm diode. They're very common and cheap to get in one-watt size (1000 mW)

[budabob07]

That is true, but if you want 1 watt or even more (many people drive them up to 1.5 W) you could get a 445 nm diode from a casio A140 (they sell the diodes individually on ebay). If you do use the high power casio diode, get safety glasses for that wavelength (1.5 W of visible light is VERY bright)

[etopsirhc]

sweet , i'll get 2 =D , 1 for this , and another for a fallout 3 working laser rifle i wanna make ^_^/XD

[Shadetree Engineer]

I've seen those Casio modules. The heat-sink and fan is what makes that a really good choice. But I'm thinking of cutting gaskets for my car projects, which is why I want to build a CO2 laser. The DVD burner diodes are dangerous enough, you still need safety goggles rated for the wavelength those emit.

[tkessels]

Have you ever tried etching into Aluminum or Steel?

I do freeclimbing with a few friends and it's really hard to mark your equipment as your own. Laser Engraving would be the best way, but is very expensive. So if we could do it on our own, that would be great!

[Groover]

The laser is far to weak, it can not make any markings in aluminum. What could be possible would be to put some kind of engraving tool on the X axis. And a way to move it up and down, this is not that hard to do.

[jmagri]

Is it possible to etch PCB's with this project ?

[perfo]

As the other poster stated. Yes you can do PCBs but won’t be able to cut the copper directly I simply spray the copper clad board with black matt paint the laser then atomises the paint and leaves the copper underneath. You then stick the sprayed copper board in to an etchant (Ferric Chloride). Wiggle it about and the areas of paint that got removed by the laser will be attacked by the etchant and dissolved. Once finished, you clean the board up with some abrasive you’ll have a nice neat PCB.

[jcoronel]

You can do a little trick. Instead of etching the PCB, you can fix to the copper some kind of film that could be cut by the laser. Etch this film and remove the parts you don't need. After that etch the PCB using some acid (I prefer Ferric Chloride).
This require some manual process, but it's an alternative.
I usually etch PCB's using the "toner transfer" method.
Groover, Very Good Work!

[jmagri]

OK thanks alot ... I will build it firstly and then I will come back to you ... I wanted to use this for etching pcb so that I also could finish it with holes ... Thanks great project

[jcoronel]

For PCB etching, consider some kind of milling machine, it's better for your purposes. Essentially it's the same concept as this machine, but uses a drill instead of a laser. Good luck!

[Groover]

I'm afraid not.

[thepelton]

Plastic that contains Chlorine will fog lenses, and release toxic gas into the air. Engraving PVC (polyvinyl chloride) on a commercial laser will void the warranty. Avoid any material that you know contains chlorine, and make sure you know the contents of any other material you plan to use.

[hahaman8]

he said pcb not pvc

[jmagri]

Thanks for your correction ... I would like to use this project so that I can print circuits on pcb's

[Groover]

Not to mention corrode most metal surfaces.

[TheREALfatNINJA]

I'm curious. Have you thought about using one of these to cut plasti-card?

I'm interested in using this sort of device to precisely cut bits and pieces to build paper-craft models a little easier. Or more accuratly plastic-craft models, I suppose.

[Groover]

It might be possible with multiple passes depending on the thickness. But I cant say for sure.

[elabz]

Depending on the current provided by the laser diode driver ( I did not see the value in this instructables, probably just missed it) it can also cut 2mm or 3mm craft foam. I'd say 150+mW at 50mm/min should work fine to make complete clean cuts. The small working area of the cutter is somewhat limiting of course but some fun small projects can be cut on it nevertheless. This little DC10 model can probably be cut on it if the shapes are broken into two separate sets of G-Code instructions (see the sources and G-Code here )

[Groover]

I just had to try it out. This is the largest size that I could fit.

The foam is 2 mm thick and the holes in the model are only 1mm after I scaled it down. I cheated and used some glue to hold the parts together.

[elabz]

Awesome! Thanks for posting the picture :) Yes, you're correct, these don't resize well because the slots were designed to be just slightly smaller that the matching foam parts (1.45mm - 1.55mm wide for 2mm foam) so they'd "bite" on the foam and hold the parts together without the glue.

So, what is the actual maximum usable workspace envelope of your cutter? Since it's built out of standard DVD drives, I think I should keep this size in mind designing future models. I think your router is easy enough to build and many people will build their own like yours, with the same size limits.

[HowardBlakeney]

Could you not increase the size of your cutting space by mounting the laser to a desktop CNC.

[elabz]

Well, indeed. But most of the value of this particular project is about building it from throwaway DVD-RW drives because linear slides and leads screws and motors are such a huge chunk of cost in any CNC setup.

[Eric Draven]

Can it cut into metal? Stainless steels or even heat treated steel? I am thinking of making one or paying someone to make me one to engrave my logos onto my knives.
I make custom knives and would literally pay someone for a laser engraver that could grave my logos or any words I want into my heat treated knife blades.
Aldo, what does this operate off of? Does the laser cut using CNC G-code or how do I put my logo in and make it laser it into the knife?

Ideas, thoughts?

[Groover]

There is nowhere near the power needed. You could cut out a template and treat the knives with some kind of acid to etch on the logo.

The Grbl that runs on the Arduino interpret standard G-code. You could use any program to create the G-code, I use Inkscape and an extension as it is open source and I want anyone to be able to do this without having to buy expensive software.

[pmaegerman]

What extension do you use ?

[Groover]

I use a modified version of Gcodetools. I have modify it to work with a laser setup. I use M3 and M5 to turn laser on and off. The modified version can be found here or in the instructable.

[Eric Draven]

Could one be made that would engrave steel? I already use an electro chem etch machine and a regular stamping tool too, but being able to grave whatever I want into my knives would be the heat.
What about a simple CNC setup? Could that be done? I know NOTHING about this side of things so I ask people with more knowledge.

:-)

[Groover]

It could be done with the right laser. But a laser of that power would cost a small fortune. A small CNC setup with a engraving tool would be a lot easier to arrange.

[Eric Draven]

Could you make a small low cost CNC set up like that? Maybe do an Instuctable on it perhaps? I really want to be able to use CNC for my logos or wording at least...and maybe small cutting at the most.
What would you suggest to do for small cutting like engraving words into steel and such? Heck, I would even buy a low cost set up to engrave words for me on my knives. I have a mill and a drill press, but neither are DRO or CNC, all manual.

Anyways, this stuff is all Greek to me so any help you can provide for me, I would be eternally grateful for. If you could make an easy to use low cost CNCset up for doing logos and words in metals, I would even make you a knife as compensation if you're keen on that idea. Let me know, my email is: [e-mail] <-- hit me up and let's figure this out brother. :-)