Laser CNC advise.

[stevenjbaker]

Hi all. I'm looking for a piece of equipment, I'm assuming cnc or laser for a project I'm looking to start. I will need to engrave and cut the following, Acrylic upto 3mm thick, wood/bamboo upto 3mm thick, stainless steel, copper, brass, aluminium and carbon fibre upto 1.5mm thick. I could get away with a machine that would take a sheet 300mm by 220mm but would look at anything bigger. So I guess what I'm asking is what kind of machine would suit what I need to do best, thanks in advance.

Regards
Steve

 

[flh801978]

You are going to need a serious piece of kit to cut SS up to 1.5mm

 

[ac427]

A Wazer water jet cutter might be the way forward but they are a good few grand.

 

[Sachakins]

Cnc stainless Steel not really in realm of hobby cnc models.
You could outsource just the ss bits, and do the rest maybe.
But here's a small cnc that could be capable, High-Z S-720/T CNC router with ball screw 720x420x110mm

 

[Grumpygn0me]

Unfortunately you would need more than one machine to process that range of materials, especially if you want to cut and engrave, Co2 would cut all the above, but for 1.5mm stainless you need 350/500W power, and in co2 tube glass format you are looking at a minimum of 6 foot long tube, with an RF laser the tube legnth would be reduced but still close to 4 foot, so you are looking at a machine around 8foot x 5 foot, just to cut a small area. Plus you would also need Bottled gas supplies like Oxy and Nitrogen as they require 90+psi gas feed, before you even look at the cooling side. FIber lasers are better for metal, but high power co2 and fiber are not as good for engraving, You can get compact fiber cutters, we can make one to order for your required size, 1kw source would be compact, check this link Enclosed Fiber Engraver £5,995 this enclosure can also be used for a fiber cutter, but costs would be around £18k, I have cut 2mm stainless with a fiber engraver, its much lower power so you have to repeat multiple passes, for an example a 1kw cutter would cut out a 40mm coin shape from 2mm stainless in less than 10 seconds, the fiber engrave would take several thousand passes and up to 4 hours for a 30W

 

[julianf]

If you drop the metals off your request list, you can probably achieve it for about £500, at a push.

If you leave the metals on there, you could probably multiply the spend by 50 ish? Could you do it for the slim side of £20k? Certainly not off the shelf from a firm anywhere close, and probably not at all.


I do CNC work here. The ferrous stuff I outsource and it's cut on a machine that costs more than the house I live in.

 

[TimV]

You could consider a plasma cutter for the metal, though I'm not sure how economic the CNC ones are (if you're dead set on CNC).

 

[echt nice (echtnice)]

Good evening, there is a german Brand its called SABKO Laser, serious guys. The made it work to cut thin metal with a CO2, maybe check it on youtube, there are some videos. I think they work with a gas. Usually you need two Laser machines for your needs. There is also a brand called Laserpecker, their newest model include two lasers, so you can switch them with a button, but only for small stuff.

It also depends what you want to do in Quantitiy, I used a GCC X 252 with 80 Watt, in 3mm acrylic was quite fast, I cut up to 20mm Acryl with it. It was really fast, but cost me 4000Euro (9 year old machine). Thunder Laser is nice, Flux Beambox, I had the Gweike Cloud Laser and really didnt like it.

In the end I sold my big machine and bought a Sculpfun S30 Diode Laser, for me playing around and do little things completely Ok.

Made some inserts for my clifton plane tonight with PE Foam (Inside a Systainer).

With regards

Sascha

 

[Torx]

A small cheap CNC router like Ooznest (£2K ish?) would cut all the materials* if you're patient enough, other than the stainless which it could still engrave.

*you'll still need to find the right grades of alu & brass for good results, and copper will be horrible