DIY Fiber Laser Cutter V2 | Part 11: First Cuts!

[@thomasswearingen6971]

I had a cnc router that would crop the waste. Meaning that it would cut up the small unusable part of the sheet so that I was left with a large piece. This was great in that I could add it to my next job as a smaller sheet size. I know that with this set up you can use almost every inch of a sheet. I just know that it's simpler to store usable parts and not a lot of flimsy ones.

[@stocky9218]

I've been planning a cnc plasma cutter but I might just save a bit more and build a bigger version of one of these. The quality of laser cutters is much better than plasma. Thanks for bringing us along for the ride 👍

[@hanschristiangiske1530]

Thanks for sharing, watching your work from Norway 👍

[@NileMcMillion]

Clicked the notification so fast! Love this series!

[@experimental_av]

Very cool, so excited to build one.

[@Arek_R.]

Yes tube cutting machine!

[@diyfiberlaser]

Yeah, I’m excited about this one…lots of new challenges to explore!

[@Arek_R.]

@@diyfiberlaser Disappointing tho that your controller can't do tube cutting.

[@indiancnc7401]

A very wonderful creation. I am converting my plasma CNC to Fiber laser machine .

[@Skyfirelaser]

looks smooth and cool

[@LordOfTamarac]

Serious style points for the black panels, I rather like the contrasting fastener colors as well

[@chandradasabulathsinhala6038]

Excellent....and ...Excellent.

[@TAMARbarCNC]

Love it! Very fast

[@moh.jumasadeqi5887]

Thank you for sharing...

[@Miketime969]

Excellent

[@tmnstudio]

I think need metal cover to protect the drag chain on Y-axis from fire spark when cutting process.

[@diyfiberlaser]

I am considering that...I was thinking about cutting a strip of some thin galvanized sheet and running it trough the top of the drag chain to protect the contents.

[@diyfiberlaser]

Done! I just added a strip of 26 ga. galvanized sheet through the top of the drag chain, now the wires and hoses are protected...thanks for reminding me!

[@lilow3378]

Well, I'll be buggered. You are such a weapon with all this stuff. I thought you were going to build a full out there blown table with the sponsorship. But, anyway I just like what you are doing. From a dingo down under. Thank's from Ian and Lilow. I think you need to try the capacitive height control I told you about. But you would have to use another software setup. 😎🤓😎

[@jamesbarret4240]

looks amazing with the new panels! maybe consider anodising the screws black for a more coherent finish

[@Arek_R.]

You can't anodise steel/ss

[@jamesbarret4240]

@@Arek_R. Correction: consider *using a chemical blackening product* on the screws

[@lilow3378]

For the capacitive sense to work properly, you need a good ground. I see you are using a black alligator clamp / lead from maybe the machine / control ground to the material being cut. Make sure this is a substantial connection. Cheers.

[@diyfiberlaser]

The clip is a temporary solution until i cut serrated knives for the bed out of steel. When I calibrate the sensor reports a good signal.

[@graveurgraveur2691]

Super!

[@EastLondonKiwi]

Hi great project. well out of my budget but very interesting to watch. Things I would have done differently. The bed rails: I would have used a plasma table bed design, as the triangled points are less likely to suffer from being cut through in the same way as full bars, in my view. The option to have full sheets of material under the laser cutting area, I don't mean the laser should traverse a full sheet, I simply mean the laser should be able to sit on top of a full sheet. I believe that full sheets of material will be cheaper to buy than the smaller sheets you'll need to fit into your current cutting area (or you'll have to pre-process full sheets into these smaller sheets). you should see a cost-benefit in two ways cheaper purchase and less waste (over X smaller sheets), by being able to process a full sheet straight from a supplier. Just some observations I would be happy to be proven wrong. Take care D

[@diyfiberlaser]

Thanks, the serrated bed rails are on the to-cut list, this was just my off-the-shelf temporary solution. I would love to be able to accommodate full sheets of material, but I don’t have the space to fit such a machine, or any means to store and load the heavy sheets, so this will have to do for now…maybe one day I will get a bigger shop.

[@darkuswrath1350]

Its been 2 weeks since i upgraded my 1.5 kw to 3 kw and BM110 head, to be honest i researched through many companies saying that there is not much speed difference but I've seen what I've seen. On compressed air you may also require dryer and a dessicant heatless dryer to get the best results before you start getting damaged collimation nad focus lenses.. 😅😅

[@diyfiberlaser]

I would also go 3kw if I had adequate power, from what I understand 2kw is the highest source I can get to run on 240V. Thanks, I also have a separate refrigerated air dryer in-line before it gets to my 3-stage dryer/filter.

[@darkuswrath1350]

@@diyfiberlaser yes 3kw is 3 phase load distributed power source nad most stable and preferred source for low level high power cutting.

[@EcoMouseChannel]

I would be interested in building something like this as well. But I don't think I would want anything smaller than a 5x5 cut area, with future expandability in mind for the extra 5 feet. So a shopping list of your laser and motor components would be awesome, based on your successes and lessons learned along the way. Like which things would you do differently, or components would you have bought had you known about them, or what you would have not used.

[@diyfiberlaser]

I wouldn't really do anything different for this build, everything came together nicely with just a few small tweaks...I learned all the lessons during the first machine build. I will be releasing the BOM soon with the final video.

[@ThyialIndustries]

Nicely done. Lets see some thicker material?

[@diyfiberlaser]

I cut 8mm steel in the next video with good results

[@professionaltinkerer]

If you use serrated slats you won’t cut through them. It’s used pretty much as a standard in general industry. I spent the last 17 years working on 5kw+ lasers, both CO2 and fiber. Overall, nice job!

[@diyfiberlaser]

Making some serrated slats is on my to-do list...thanks!

[@P8ntbaLLA56]

Came to say the same thing. Much lower odds of hitting a point vs a line.

[@JustinAlexanderBell]

Have you thought about putting a galvo head on there for material cleanup?

[@diyfiberlaser]

no...when the cut parameters are good, it doesn't need cleanup

[@mrechbreger]

Is there any reason why you used Belts rather than ballscrews for this size of machine? I didn't see that from the videos are you using a linear scale on it? Did you check the accuracy with properly adjusted settings?

[@diyfiberlaser]

Speed. No linear scale. Yes, cut parts were within 0.1mm at 500mm

[@joeyscollinsful]

I'm wondering what something like this costs to put together, roughly?

[@diyfiberlaser]

$10.5k

[@irritantno9]

Will the magnetic latch become a big glob of iron dust?

[@diyfiberlaser]

Possibly, but I bet it will accumulate mostly on the back poles of the magnet closer to the dust, rather than on the door each side...I'll keep an eye on it

[@stefankrimbacher7917]

Which acceleration do you use?

[@diyfiberlaser]

It is set at 6000mm/s2 in this video

[@BikiniDuckCreations]

I'll be in the area for IMTS in a couple weeks. I would be interested in buying your laser source and some parts. I can email if its easier.

[@diyfiberlaser]

Thanks, but I'll probably sell the whole machine, or keep it for parts

[@BikiniDuckCreations]

@@diyfiberlaser I'd be interested in the whole thing as well. Will you be visiting IMTS?

[@diyfiberlaser]

@@BikiniDuckCreations I don't know yet, I haven't looked that far ahead...right now I'm planning a trip to visit Sky Fire in Wuhan in October. Email me if you want to come by my shop while you're in town [e-mail]