I’m working on outfitting a shop in an RV. I’ve been told that the noise from things like a table saw might be enough to get me kicked out of an RV camp so I’m looking at alternative ways to cut wood. Right now I’m looking at cutting up to 3/4 inch plywood and 1" of hardwood.
Would an affordable laser cutter (say under $10,000) be able to cut these types of wood?
I need to be able to cut up to a sheet of 8’ by 4’ plywood or maybe up to 8’ of normal wood.
Is this a doable thing? Is it quiet? Does it have a lot of expendables?
Any help will be appreciated, possibly by a short run of free laser cutting sometime in a possible alternate future. Or my infamous chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
Thanks in advance.
I may need the quiet.
Assuming I cant use a CNC router and I can get a cutting laser, I should be able to make a big enough x-y table.
The issue with size is stability.
There is an open source laser cutter that is being attempted @ 1m x 1m. The main issue is deflection near center travel. Even a bit of mass causes the lens assembly to drop somewhat causing the focus to be changed. I don’t recall if the issue is noticed in both the X and Y axis or just the X. The other issue with the depression is the beam isn’t hitting the center of things any more.
There are a couple of things that might help in cutting the thickness you are after. Pulsing the laser may give you more peak power than the tube is rated for on the “cheaper” Chinese systems. You might(?) consider a different type of laser. I believe I recall YAG lasers being more powerful and more expensive at lower power levels.
Also as cp mentioned clearing fumes is good as well as adding air assist to blow the fumes away from going straight back up to the lens. You also get cleaner cuts.
