Your own cutter and engraver

Lazer Blade kit aims to be an addition to the tool set of hobbyists, allowing them to work on cutting-edge projects.

The team at Darkly Labs has a mix of people with backgrounds in engineering, electronics, and design. And they are passionate about building things. However, they have usually been stumped when it comes to the right tools.

They needed laser cutting and engraving in many of their earlier projects, but it had always been out of their reach.

As the team worked mostly on hobby projects, they found it difficult to explain the money spent on a carbon dioxide laser setup.

So, they decided to build their own laser system, and almost a year later, Lazer Blade was born.

The Lazer Blade kit comes with a 2W laser diode, a set of step by step assembly instructions with illustrations, a special anodised aluminium focus tool, a pair of safety goggles, 110 to 240 VAC mains/12V, 2ADC power adapter, a USB cable, and a software bundle.

To get the money to build the whole system, the team decided to turn to crowd funding, and launched a campaign on Kickstarter last year. The biggest challenge was keeping costs low while delivering a product with high performance levels. The machine’s resolution was meant to be kept high enough for most hobbyists, and a laser powerful enough to do the required job without taking up too much time.

The Lazer Blade was designed in SolidWorks and has been revised numerous times, by combining off-the-shelf components with a custom designed main board and laser driver. The team has tried to keep the design as simple as possible by using a reduced number of parts to simplify the construction and reliability.

A lot of the device’s parts have been 3D printed as they wanted to maximise its strength and accuracy. The device has a laser unit that houses the laser diode and cooling components. The guard, although simple, solves three very important issues – it helps in directing the airflow for cooling, it protects your eyes from the laser, and it helps in dispersing the fumes away from the lens of the laser.

The device is controlled by an Arduino running G-code interpreter called GRBL that has been modified to fit the specific requirements of the product.

Once you plug in to a USB port on your computer, the cutting files, which can be created in various open- source programs or with the software bundle provided, get streamed into the Lazer Blade for engraving.

The company believes that the biggest impact will come by expanding the tool set of hobbyists by allowing them to work on projects that they could not do before.

They will be able to create cuts and engravings with an accuracy and repeat-ability that was previously possible only with the help of expensive CNC machines.

The team plans to add a number of safety features that will advance the design further and make it as safe as possible for users.

If you want to experiment with lasers and cutting and engraving, buy one at https://darklylabs.com.

This article was first published on The Hindu and is available at http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/lazer-blade-a-cutter-and-engraver/article7346116.ece