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More on the Versalaser
A random reader writes: "In an article at PCMag.com, Bill Machrone describes what has to be the coolest printer ever (or close to it). A company called Versalaser sells a printer which uses a laser and can cut/write on everything from paper to wood to stone. Available in 25-50 Watt models, starting at only US$10,000. Great for the geek who must have it all! Unfortunately, Windows drivers only at this time." We mentioned this wondertool before.
you can see a picture of it here, the link provided above. And a techTV spot of it.
-Seriv
It's actually a lot easier with stone than with wood because you're sandblasting through a rubber stencil. The stencil can be designed from CAD, allowing a great degree of percision.
Agreed, the fancy "printer" is probably a lot easier to work with....but the sandblasting rig is a lot more versatile. Hard to clean off the side of a granite-faced building with a printer.
I bought something from one of these in Plano, Texas. (My mom just graduated from law school, and I bought her the scales of justice inside a crystal block.) Very, very cool to watch it done. From the way the guy running it explained it, it works by using two lasers. When the two lasers intersect, it gets hot enough to create a small fracture in the crystal at the exact point of intersection. From there it's pretty easy to see how it gets done, although the fractures do have to be done in a certain order, otherwise the previous fractures will difract the lasers.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
I've actually operated one of these before.....I'm not sure it's by the same company, but there's a little fabrication shop about a 5 minute walk from my office that we frequently service their computers for. They use corel draw, and this laser. It's a nifty process to watch, maybe the next time I get over there, I'll set up a video camera and record it....I've seen it make everything..
These laser cutters are fairly common in the fashion industry, they've used them for quite a few years. They use them to cut fabric for later assembly. I used to live in a loft right across from a fabric cutter shop, I could watch out my window and into their shop floor and see them at work. They have long tables where they lay out bolts of cloth, about a hundred layers folded over each other, then an arm holding the laser moves over it by computer control and cuts through all the layers. It sort of looks like an old-style pen plotter when it's in motion.
So there is probably a much bigger market for these devices than you'd suspect.
Here is a guide to getting +5 funny on slashdot stories. The humour of the slashdot crowd is pretty sophisticated but with this guide you should just be able to stay in touch.
1. The phrase 'I want sharks with fricken [insert story related term] on their heads', will never become unfunny no matter how many times it is used. Although the original reference involves lasers, the quote can be adapted for other stories with no loss of humour value. See 'I want sharks with fickin DVD drives on their head'. Absolutely hilarious.
2. Make references to slashdotters porn collections. Pretty much any article involving mass storage can be enlivened with the phrase 'but that still won't hold my pr0n collection!'. Always use the word pr0n or it won't be funny.
3. If the story is about cars then you can write something along the lines of 'its a good job they don't run windows or they would crash a lot'. Although this might seem quite unfunny at first, it works because you are using the word crash in two different contexts. You can expand the theme to stories about medicine with 'I hope that's not made by microsoft or the patients will catch lots of viruses!'.
4.On stories about the RIAA and file sharing there are often a lot of funny posts which seem to be misclasified and get modded up as 'insightful' or 'informative'. Stuff like 'I've downloaded a lot of music off kazaa but then I just had to rush out and buy the CD's!' or 'The reason I download music is not because I like getting stuff for free but because I'm taking a moral stance against the tyranny of the RIAA!'. This must be a bug in the slashcode.
Here you can see some sample products made by it.
Think I'll order my up one and start working on filling up the Trophy case.
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
The VersaLaser is manufactured by Univeral Laser Systems in Scottsdale, AZ (http://www.ulsinc.com/) and comes in several versions. The VL-200 has a 25 watt laser and a 12" x 16" working area. The VL-300 can be had in 30, 40, or 50 watt versions with a 12" x 24" working area.
The $10K (US) price tag is for the VL-200 without any of the extras you'll need to make it work (exhaust ventilation, colinear air/NO2) and only in the engraving version. The honeycomb table for cutting table will set you back $240. And the VL-300 and accessories are even more expensive. Figure $15-$20K to make it really useable, and >$25K if you want in at 50 watts.
We've been using a 30W VL-300 for a couple of months now in our research lab. We were told to expect 6-8 weeks to get the machine, but in fact it took over twice that. The machine is nicely designed, but in places the fit and finish are pretty bad (at least on the early one we got). The current driver won't work on anything older than Win2K (we bought a cheap XP box for it since we're a Mac only group) and comes preconfigured with a set of materials and thicknesses (for cutting} which can't be changed. When I first tried to cut 1/4" basswood (a material I'd previously cut with a 10 Watt CO2 laser) I was told that a 30W VersaLaser couldn't do that job. No workaround since you don't have access to power levels or cutting speeds.
Also, Epilog Lasers in Golden, CO makes a similar machine, the Legend 24TT.
Is it a cool toy? You bet. But be aware that Universal has a fixed notion of the niche for these things and they're pretty reluctant to modify that notion. So if you've got the next, great market for their product don't be surprised if they're not interested.