Ampico 206781 Fond of You - Laser cut roll

Here is a quick video of a laser-cut copy of Ampico Roll 206781 - Fond of You (see the earlier video on this channel of the original roll). I just used the phone microphone, so not the best sound.
Anthony Robinson (Salisbury, UK) has been making precision scans of piano rolls for many years, and converting his scans (and scans made by others) into top-quality punch master midi files. These files are designed to control traditional mechanical perforators, and will produce one-to-one copies of the original rolls. Anthony has kindly offered me files from his huge library
of Ampico punch masters. I selected this one, since I have an original roll to compare the laser cut roll to. Spencer Chase’s MIDI-to-Gcode software converts punch master midi files to the gcode instructions used by the laser cutter.
I could not ask for better results from the laser perforator. At the end of the video are some shots of the the perforator cutting this roll, the PC running LaserGRBL showing the cut pattern and gcode commands, and some photos of the cutter without the exhaust hood. And at the end is a side-by-side photo of a section of the original roll (with lyrics) and the new roll (brown paper).
This latest iteration of the Spencer Chase-designed perforator features powered feed and take-up spools (as suggested by Spencer) controlled by microswitch/paint stick (thanks to Lowes) paper position sensors, and a fully-supported paper path through the perforator. All of this is to minimize the drag on the paper as the Y-axis motor moves the paper back and forth while cutting.

[@PiotrBarcz]

Awesome work as always! Your edge trims are so clean, I still haven't gotten mine looking that clean but my perforator was banged up in shipping so a whole lot of stuff is out of whack xD

[@That_One_Player_Piano]

You had someone build it for you? I want one because I'm having some special rolls cut, and I don't have much faith in the companies that do it publicly. Plus I have plenty of rolls I would like recut if I get a scanner.

[@PiotrBarcz]

@@That_One_Player_Piano Spencer Chase who designed the machine built me mine and gave it to me (awfully generous of him considering how he had months of work into it). I can do the cutting for you if you'd like, I got the machine specifically to do custom cutting. I can actually make new scales for the perforator too, as long as they're not wider than 12 inches. As far as scanning the rolls themselves, I would mail them to Mike Swanson who does punch master reconstruction for cloning rolls down to the punch row.

[@That_One_Player_Piano]

Are you cleaning the rolls before you play them? Ash is not what you want in your player stack.

[@PiotrBarcz]

There's no ash, just a few chads that don't drop off the roll sometimes, they come off easy (in fact, you can blow on the paper and usually they'll go flying off). There's very little smoke too with the process (though my basement is getting me lightheaded when I go downthere and my machine is running XD)

[@That_One_Player_Piano]

@@PiotrBarcz i just said this on another comment, but just to keep all these messages in one place I have some questions. 1: did you have someone build it for you? 2: how much did it cost?

[@PiotrBarcz]

@@That_One_Player_Piano Spencer Chase built the machine and then gave it to me which I was really surprised about. To build the drop in version for an existing engraver it would probably be pretty cheap (since Spencer's suggested machine is 300 bucks).

[@303wal]

Yes, Piotr’s right, there isn’t any ash. The air assist on the laser blows against the cut as the laser runs, which helps push the chads away from the paper. They fall into a tray with water in it. But other than the chads, the water stays clear. If there was any ash produced, it would be obvious here.

[@303wal]

The laser engraver for my machine was about $280. I’m up to about $300 in other parts & supplies since I added the paper take-up spool. The powered supply and take-up spools are simple- $12 synchronous motors, micro switches, wire, and scrap lumber. But I found that they keep the paper up and away from the cutter so there is less drag on the motor-drive wheel, so I get more accurate cuts.