Laser projects

[BeeMaster2]

Just received my new Falcon 2 laser engraver/cutter. It is a 22 watt laser.
On Friday we have a retirement party to go to for my wife?s old boss. I just finished a plaque for him.
Jim Altmiller
Here it is.

[Terri Yaki]

You're not wasting any time there. Looks nice.

[Lesgold]

Well done Jim. You are up and racing.

[Ben Framed]

I'm impressed Jim!!!

Phillip

[BeeMaster2]

Thanks all.
Right now I?m working on a retirement plaque for Judy I have it designed in Lightburn. Just waiting for Judy to bee out of the house long enough to engrave it.
She spent 22 years a the Director of Religious Education at our old church and never received anything for it. Not even a thank you from the priest.
I have been wanting to do this for a long time.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

I did some engraving yesterday. Mostly working on getting a bee print that Les?s daughter designed to engrave on canning jar lids.



Then I used the same design to create t and engrave birch plywood. They came out pretty good.

Les, let me know if you want to use the files/settings. I?ll send them to you.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

A good friend from my AT&T days is building an airplane. He has been working on it for about 10 years. It is now just about finished but t before he can get it certified he hast to have labels on every switch, gage and indicator. We decided on brass plates with a shiny black coating. I thought the engraver would expose the brass when engraved. As you can see in the photo it did not. I sanded one of the plates and as you can see, they are not really brass they are aluminum. I did a test run and they came out pretty good.  We are sending the black brass plates back to Amazon and ordered silver plates. Most of the labels will be pretty small so I will be printing three or four labels per plate.

[Ben Framed]

I like what you and Les are doing with your lasers. It appears the possibilities are far and wide!  I hope this topic will continue to proceed and expand with interest.

Phillip

[Lesgold]

The brass lid worked well Jim. It looks as though the finish applied to the lid is different to what I have on mine. You a creating some good stuff. Well done.

[animal]

A sign you're getting old, I guess ... finding things funny that seem normal to others ... I've been noticing many "new ones" over the years.

Just curious, but who else chuckled a little ...

When they saw "Laser Projects" under the category of "Farming and Country Life"?

[The15thMember]

A sign you're getting old, I guess ... finding things funny that seem normal to others ... I've been noticing many "new ones" over the years.

Just curious, but who else chuckled a little ...

When they saw "Laser Projects" under the category of "Farming and Country Life"?

Ha!  That is kind of funny.    It didn't strike me until you mentioned it though.

[Lesgold]

Just another piece of machinery that every farmer should have.

[Ben Framed]

Just another piece of machinery that every farmer should have.

Hi Les,
From your shared post and projects in the Today I Made topic, you have certainly proven their worth in your bee farming operations! I really like the engraved honey jar lids you did! Keep up the good work!

Phillip

[animal]

Just another piece of machinery that every farmer should have.

Considering the advance in technology that has made cnc laser engraving possible on a small scale, your casual statement is a cool as the projects you guys are making.
I still have trouble seeing the tool as "worth it" from the standpoint of a strict cost/benefit analysis with maximizing profit the goal. However, that is irrelevant compared to the idea of getting a super-cool toy, being able to call it a business expense and write it off on taxes (not to mention justifying the purchase to the wife). I did the same thing many years ago with a cad printer in my business years ago. Now you guys have convinced me I "need" a laser engraver for my business.
The man that dies with the most toys wins, after all

[BeeMaster2]

Animal,
Farming and  Country was the closest thing on our list to use. Do you have a better choice. I?ll move it. 😊
Jim Altmiller

[Ben Framed]

Now you guys have convinced me I "need" a laser engraver for my business.
The man that dies with the most toys wins, after all

I had a feeling you were onboard front the start, (or soon would be). 
Animal? Perhaps?  In the form of  the sly fox?   

[BeeMaster2]

Animal if you want to get the Falcon 2 22 watt laser, right now it is on sale for $519 Directly from Creality. Normally around $900. It comes on Amazon for approximately $850. If you order it you will also need the honey comb base that goes under the laser and a ducted cover to exhaust the fumes out a window.
Jim Altmiller

[animal]

Thanks for the tip. I wish I could, but I have one more year of being broke to go... The youngest just finished up her classes, but is required to do a year of internship at a hospital before she'll be making her own money ...

unless I can figure out a way that a laser engraver could help her in her internship ... hmmm   

been putting off having a dro and steppers put on my milling machine for years now too. 

for now, I have to be content seeing yours and Lesgold's projects, and stacking the ideas for later.

[BeeMaster2]

Here is the plaque that made for Judy.

[Terri Yaki]

That sure look good, Jim. Congratulations.

[animal]

Yes, very nice: both workmanship and sentiment.

[Lesgold]

Good stuff Jim. How long was the engraving for this project?

[BeeMaster2]

Thanks Terri and Animal.
Les,
It took about 40 minutes.
Jim Altmiller

[Ben Framed]

I agree, very nice workmanship as well as
the thoughtful, kind words engraved!

[BeeMaster2]

Bill Murray called asking me how well I liked my laser engraver. I told him I really liked it and I told him to look at Creality to see if it was still on sale. He looked it up and there was only a few hours left to the sale. It is a great deal. He ordered it to engrave bee boxes before he put them together. I made up some designs and burned them into a box side.
The one on the right was designed by Michael Bush. He has it branded onto his boxes. The one on the left you may recognize, Les?s daughter designed it for him. Michael?s design takes 30 minutes, Les?s takes about 10 minutes and the middle one takes 3 minutes. They are all burned in pretty deep so it would bee hard to cover up if someone stole them.

[BeeMaster2]

By the way, if anyone is interested in using any of them I don?t mind sharing them. The names and numbers can all bee changed easily in Lightburn. Michael and Les, if you don?t want your designs shared, let me know.
Jim Altmiller

[Ben Framed]

This is good stuff Jim. .

Phillip

[Bill Murray]

So I ordered one today. This is 10 times better,  less time consuming, and cheaper in the long run than branding.
Thanks guys for the posts
And no animal I didnt chuckle I just paid attention till I saw it would work.

[animal]

I tr to chuckle every time I see something that makes me feel old .. makes it easier to take  and deny

[Ben Framed]

 

[Bill Murray]

Embrace it my friend

[Michael Bush]

Wow! Nice, but I don't know how practical it is at 30 minutes...

[BeeMaster2]

Here is my project that I finished today.
It is a Dodecahedron light that I downloaded from the web. It is a free download although I did see it for sale on Etsy for $1.99. It is tedious to put together there are over 150 parts and no instructions that I saw. Getting the last few sides together is tricky, you have to stretch it a bit, trying not to break it. I still don?t have the light that goes in it. Should bee here Wednesday. The first half I used a piece of mahogany plywood that I found in my barn. And then realized that I needed twice as much wood. Today I found a couple of cedar boards that I planed down to 3 mm to finish making it.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

Here is a suede wallet that I engraved. The suede tends to smear a bit so I tried engraving a leather wallet had to bee careful to not burn too deep but hot enough to blacken it. One of the problems is that the top of the wallet doesn?t lay perfectly flat which changes the way the laser burns.

[The15thMember]

Holy cow!  That is INCREDIBLE!

[Ben Framed]

Outstanding!

[Terri Yaki]

Very nice, Jim

[Lesgold]

Well done Jim. Looks like you got the settings just right for leather. It must have been a series of ?fingers crossed? moments when you started the laser. There are no second chances. Did you have a play on scrap leather before you produced these burns? The image came out well. Good stuff.

[BeeMaster2]

Thanks.
Les,
The suede was one time chance. I got lucky. High speed, low power. The leather was the same but needs a lot higher laser burn at almost max speed.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

Here are 2 puzzles that I made. Judy painted the one with color.
I just learned about changing the line spacing and decided to use the lines to show the different shapes by changing the grid using 1 mm fill spacing.  Normally it is like .01 or smaller.

[BeeMaster2]

You can?t really see the grid pattern so here?s a close up. Maybe a little more visible.

[Lesgold]

Good thinking Jim. From a distance it looks as though you had used a variety of timbers.

[BeeMaster2]

Here is a Business Card Coin. You hand them out like a business card.
This is my first attempt, I made about a dozen of them. The board was warped a little and the laser head caught it and and moved it about 80% into the first pass.

[The15thMember]

Oh my gosh, that is creative!

[Ben Framed]

Oh my gosh, that is creative!

I agree!

Jim I haven?t seen any thing like this in years! If fact I had forgotten about wooden advertising coins altogether until your post. Thanks for posting this interesting project as well as jarring my memory! Thumbs Up!

Phillip

[BeeMaster2]

I bought a rotary unit for my laser engraver. In order to use you have to add feet spacers to make room for the added space needed under the laser.  This causes two problems. One is that the camera is now too close to the glass/tumbler that is on the rotary and now to use the laser you have to remove the spacers to do regular engraving. To fix this I made a 2x4 frame to mount the cover to. It has the camera mounted in it. Then I designed and printed a frame to hold the honeycomb bed that raises up the honeycomb about 3 1/2 inches.  This makes changing from regular engraving to rotary engraving to take less than a minute and all of the components remain aligned.
Here are some pictures. If anyone wants the design for the 3D printed honeycomb mount, just pm me and I will email it. The 2 white pieces on the rotary unit are supports that I designed and printed for glasses/tumblers that are longer than the rotary.
The first picture shows the finished product with the 2x4 base added. It is screwed to the bottom board and the frame is screwed to it. The second picture shows the honeycomb mounted to the 3d printed support. The third picture shows the support screwed to the bottom board.

[BeeMaster2]

The next 2 pictures show close ups of the support unit screwed down. It I s made up of 8 separate pieces due to the size of it.
Notice the notches cut into the corners. This is required due to the pop rivets sticking out on the honeycomb frame.

[BeeMaster2]

The first picture shows the rotary unit in place. I marked the bottom board with a black line so that it is easy to align the rotary and to make it possible to put it back in the same place every time. I also put 2 marks on the Y rail and the frame for the same reason. The last picture shows the supports for long objects.