Quote:
Originally posted by pippin88
How does Acrylic differ from plexy? Seems to refer to the same thing her down under.
I hadn't planned to buy the air exchanger system, but rather just have a decent ducted system with some largish fans. How much air needs to be moved? I presume the issue is the heat of the laser tube?
The justification for this would involve a lot of unpaid work at first repaying the cost of the machine. There is quite a market for fan grills etc.
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I thought about selling fan grills but I am finding stainless steel one's cheaper than I can make them on the laser in plastic. :shrug: I see them for $5-$6 and they are real metal cut in all kinds of shapes and designs. i made a proCooling grill out of brushed alumium lookling plastic and it looks pretty good. You need to add some spacers to the mounts though otherwise a strong fan can suck the plastic into the blade. But I just cut those spacers out of acrylic. Little acrylic washers is all they are.
Acrylic is an advanced version of plexi. It is stronger and more scratch resistant for one which is why it is harder to cut. You can probably google for a better answer.
As for the the airflow it is to remove the fumes of what is being cut. Remember you are "burning" material. It is just like a fire but worst because what you cut is full of chemicals. Also if those particles are not quickly exited the system they will build up on the lenses and and rollers and all the mechanical parts in there and kill it. It is a must to have a good strong exaust. Ours is also used to stick a 3" vacume hose onto and vacume the shop floor. it needs a good stong suction. All you really need is a strong blower. You should be able to put something together for $200 or so.
The laser tube is chilled by a chiller on ours. The one on our machine was about $8,000. I don't know what that little one there uses if any at all. It might be small enough to not need a chiller and just be air cooled. If that is the case plan on adding an air conditioner to the room it is in.
First you should figure out what you want to do with it and then do some reserch locally and see how much other companies with do it for. Sometimes it is cheaper to have another company better equipped to do the work for you. I sub-out a lot of work here and make a good profit from it. You might be able to get those grills cut into metal in bulk cheaper than you can make them yourself. Check here for an example of how cheap they are:
http://www.pcmods.com/list.asp?CtgID=77
$6.99 and $9.99 for metal grills? I could probably talk the owner into selling the plastic ones for $10 but I don't see the demand to try it.
We use our laser mostly for rubber stamps and plastic engraved tags. We also engrave into wood with them and cut out wood shapes. We have one customer that gives us a dark peice of wood and a thicker lighter colored peice of wood. I them engrave the thickness of the darker wood into the lighter wood into a shape, and then I cut that shape out of the darker wood and he inlays it into the lighter wood. Looks pretty cool. That shape is usually a horse.
You can also mark onto metal with metal marking spray. Seems to work the best with stainless.
Anyway if you get into this let me know and I can try and help you out with any questions/problems. If your in the USA I got a decent list of suppliers for laserable materials.