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Grad Student Invents Cheap Laser Cutter
An anonymous reader writes "Peter Jansen, a PhD student and member of the RepRap community, has constructed a working prototype of an inexpensive table-top laser cutter built out of old CD/DVD drives as an offshoot of his efforts to design an under $200 open-source Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) 3D printer. Where traditional laser cutters use powerful, fixed-focus beams, this new technique dynamically adjusts the focal point of the laser using a reciprocating motion similar to a reciprocating saw, allowing a far less powerful and inexpensive laser diode to be used. The technique is currently limited to cutting black materials to a depth of only a few millimeters, but should still be useful and enabling for Makers and other crafters. The end-goal is to create a hybrid inexpensive 3D printer that can be easily reconfigured for 2D laser cutting, providing powerful making tools to the desktop."
How about a button to laser cut up and auto eject those pesky paper jams?
IMHO, this is the kind of inventive tinkering that should be pushed forward in today's schools. It takes a lot of different skills from across several disciplines to be able to crank something like this out, but once you see it, you realize how simple it really is. It takes imagination and perseverance as well, and that's hard to teach.
I don't mean to start a "Public schools are apathizing our youth!" thread, but I wonder how many kids would really enjoy classes geared towards making useful projects out of surplus crap - a combining of wood shop, metal shop, and electronics classes.
If Teak (Tectona) is dark enough, it could be used to make awesome etchings for paperweights and other cool knickknacks.
Home of The Suki Series
And thus I have been informed. This is entirely news to me, and is certainly stuff that matters. My mind is whizzing with awesome ideas as a result.
Applause
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Clearly, you have not watched your Stargate.
Seriously, something like this could cut patterns CHEAPLY on cloth. Think of it as a stamping machine.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Warning: Science content.
Several labs in my Uni's Chemistry Department regularly employ LASER choppers, if not "cutters". Simply stick the disk with the slits you want (to set the pulse duration) in front of the laser and set the motor to the desired RPM. That's how they get he pulse durations and frequencies that they need for their experiments. One could also use liquid crystal to turn the beam on and off rapidly. Come to think of it, I have no idea how a CD or DVD burner controls its laser. Maybe the laser can be turned on and off fast enough.
Well, look what the ability to make hundreds of dies simultaneously on a wafer did for the semiconductor revolution. If one could make hundreds of small plastic custom parts at one time, it could enable small businesses to make things they otherwise couldn't do economically. I look at cheap Chinese products and ask, why make them over there and lug them thousands of miles at a cost of energy, when we could do short runs as needed here, locally and by American businesses. I have lots of things around the house that could have been made by a machine with this technology (layered up). By the way, let's extend the manufacturing principle to not just 2D axes but also rotational, as in what a lathe does but instead of removing material you add it to a rotated base. So for example you could make a cup on demand out of plastic beads fused together - which is just about what a styrofoam cup is.
Well, look what the ability to make hundreds of dies simultaneously on a wafer did for the semiconductor revolution. If one could make hundreds of small plastic custom parts at one time, it could enable small businesses to make things they otherwise couldn't do economically. I look at cheap Chinese products and ask, why make them over there and lug them thousands of miles at a cost of energy, when we could do short runs as needed here, locally and by American businesses. I have lots of things around the house that could have been made by a machine with this technology (layered up). By the way, let's extend the manufacturing principle to not just 2D axes but also rotational, as in what a lathe does but instead of removing material you add it to a rotated base. So for example you could make a cup on demand out of plastic beads fused together - which is just about what a styrofoam cup is.
Eventually perhaps. But right now, injection moulding and other similar techniques are more practical.To use your Styrofoam cup example. The cups take a fraction of a second with a mould. Pop two halves together, pump in the Styrofoam, dry, release. Easy and efficient. Thousands can be made in an hour. 3D object creation is in it's infancy right now. The hardware is expensive and still quite primitive, with a limited number of things it can use as a medium. In time.. Who knows. Making a cup with a 3D printer of any kind would be pretty slow. Fine for one cup, but not for mass production. Eventually it might be practical to have plastic printers/recyclers at home,and if you want a cup, print one in about 5 minutes, then if it breaks, recycle it into a new cup at home. Someone in the rep rap or maker-bot community is currently working on a plastic recycling unit that takes things like plastic milk bottles and shreds and melts them down, then extrudes a plastic filament that can be used in the 3D printer.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
I've met the RepRap team and I can tell you the one thing they are best at (and it appears slashdot are helping them replicate) is hype and self publicity.
The RepRap machine is basically a cheap plastic printer / rapid prototyping machine which is an idea that's been around ... at least 10+ years before they started. The only component they can manufacture are the plastic bits. Have a look at the photo and see if you can spot the plastic bits. I'll give you a hint, they're not the metal frame, or the wooden base, or any of the active / electrical components. And it goes without saying that, ofcourse, you have to assemble the device it's "replicated". I recall someone asking them what percentage of the device they could 'replicate' and after lots of 'vision' and 'this has great potential' we eventually managed to get a figure of 10%.
Rapid prototyping machines you could build at home - kinda cool but not new. Calling it 'self replicating manufacturing' - shameless publicity whoring.
Sure, there are more efficient and practical ways but the point of personal manufacturing systems is to be able to make things yourself in small runs instead of depending on large-scale mass production manufacturers. If I have a home box that can make shoes, I might choose to pay a little more for raw materials but I gain the ability to be independent of a specific finished goods maker. Even it is slower than buying off the shelf and it takes two days to process, I don't care if it runs overnight and takes six different kind of plastic feedstock. Essentially it amounts having tiny elves in my cottage who magically make things at night without my doing it and without my depending on China and Walmart. But I understand your point about mass production and agree that one-offs are not always the perfect solution.
Ok, so when this becomes cheap enough to replace all lasers used to correct vision, instead of thousands of dollars, we would be talking about hundreds...cool