{"id":6979,"date":"2016-08-17T07:45:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T21:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/?p=6979"},"modified":"2016-08-17T07:45:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T21:45:27","slug":"laser-cutting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/?p=6979","title":{"rendered":"Laser Cutting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Clouds<\/a><\/p>\n

In response to a pretty consistent question, I’m going to share with you my laser cutters. I know, it’s either a very brave or completely overdue move…<\/p>\n

OBLIGATORY CAVEAT: both of these companies will only deal with you if you have a drawing capable of being machine-read. Which means, you need to have a drawing in vector format (Autocad .dxf or .dwg is most common, [if in, say, Rhino, I’d imagine that’s a ‘save as’ option] or perhaps an Illustrator file saved to .eps – I have had some cutters deal very well with Corel Draw [and if you remember playing\/working with that program, you’re older than you look!]) before they will look at the file to quote you a price. Real talk: if you need help with that, I’m not your person. I dream in AutoCad (*not actually true, but admit it, I almost had you?!) so I’ve never had to outsource that part of the process.<\/p>\n

The drawing part is essential as the quote that either of these companies will want to give you is based on the machining time – which is a calculation on how long it will take the laser to trace the lines you have drawn. Part of that calculation is an allowance made for the thickness\/hardness the material. For instance, working in wood is normally faster, ergo cheaper, while working in 1.5mm\/0.59″ stainless steel is going to challenge some lasers, and therefore be more expensive.<\/p>\n

These two cutters are best for very low tolerance work; they are precise, as I like to be able to put a .5mm hole in the middle of a 1.5mm channel (see above). If you’re looking for less precision, take a look at other options, as it’s likely that there are cheaper local people who can do your thang. TBH, that might even be a challenge for one of these people to do neatly, but I know their machine is more or less capable.<\/p>\n

\"One<\/a>\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, no more pfaffing:<\/p>\n

Starting at the top – and I mean in terms of price, and from the image at top: expensive, great quality, medium turn time, will source and cut low carbon steel (for enameling)and titanium along with their regular lineup of metals: Laser Services USA<\/a><\/p>\n

My preference for wood and mass production:
\nCheap, medium quality (some deburring required with metal, depending on the cut), stainless steel and a huge array of default non-metal materials and with the option of very, very fast: Pololu<\/a><\/p>\n

Please be nice to them, y’all, I want to be able to show my face at either of their establishments (or rather, web portals) well into the future \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Laser cutters. I know you want them, well here they are. Be kind to them, they are pretty great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,86,114,96,89,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-cad","category-drawing","category-housekeeping","category-lasers","category-supplies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6979"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6987,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6979\/revisions\/6987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissacameron.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}