A quick item I managed to squeeze in amongst a busy week. This foam piece is destined to become a belt buckle for some superman cosplay, possibly to do with the new supergirl series starting soon.
Here is the video of my two laser cutters cutting the same tile side by side. It prompted a few people to ask 'how come the 30W tube is much faster than the 100W tube?' I picked the new laser cutter based upon speed. It had a few specification stats that suggested it was fast and the photos showed a fairly lightweight head etc. Now that I have the laser in my possession I can see all the design decisions that make it fast. In the case of these Carcassonne tiles I only need the full power of the laser when I'm cutting the tiles out. The low power engraving lines are done with minimal power, only 8% of the 30W tube. The metal RF tube gives me much more control over the low end power, the head can fly around at 100mm/s, twice the speed of the larger machine. The engraving can be done at 1000mm/s, again nearly twice the speed and empirical evidence suggests that it is actually moving at that speed. The 30W laser can easily handle the 3mm poplar ply wood at a sensible 3...
The first step towards upgrading a leetro based machine is to acquire a replacement controller. I opted for the Ruida 6442G to make it the same as my other machine. I bought my controller through ali express from Cloudray , it's currently $266 USD for delivery to the UK it took 3 weeks to arrive and cost around £250 GBP once customs and duty had been paid on it. I would probably recommend buying it through cloudray ebay instead, it's £260 but it'll arrive within a few days. Cloudray is my current part supplier, they've been pretty good so far. A delay suited me nicely with the Christmas rush on fractal puzzles and other products. The kit of parts as it arrived was very complete. The controller and the screen were protected with bubble wrap and anti-static bags. Other parts include two USB cables to go from the controller to the edge of the laser, one for USB sticks, one for the laptop connection. An Ethernet extension to go the the edge of the laser and al...
Northants Board Game convention is right around the corner and I'm exhibiting this year so I decided I needed a better business card holder to dish out my little business tchotchke. I found a file for a mimic box that I liked and modified it to come up with this little cutie. He's a very happy chappy, just be careful of your fingers when you're taking a card.