The problem with laser modules is that they're expensive, fragile, fussy and consume a metric ton of energy.
I saw some 150W+ CO2 tubes drop-shipped directly from the manufacturer on AliExpress available with and without power supplies. These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too.
It's doable, but careful engineering principles have to be applied. Also, Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating. Might be good to have some proven tested safety gargles to protect yer peepers and wear welding gloves/neck/chaps when nearby during operation.
I figure a small budget gantry and system maybe had for $2500 US (with lots of scrimping and repurposing) or a nicer one for $4000-9000. A vacuum table, indexing (calibration/zeroing) system and 60° tilt table for floorspace compactness might help too.
> These are water cooled so you'll need a very clean water cooling setup too.
This can be a $20 immersion pump, a 5 gallon bucket, a filter, and some tubing. This won't let you cut all day long in a warm room without a slope off in performance, but you can run several long jobs a day.
If I wanted to cut more, I think I'd add more water before doing anything fancier like radiators or even chillers.
Slightly harder is the air assist, but again cheap pumps will do it, and then there's the exhaust system-- usually you use a small industrial blower and dryer vent.
> Class 4 lasers in the US require a lock and a very simple, contactor-based, big red emergency stop power kill switch would be a good idea too. Industrial emergency buttons can be found on AliExpress, eBay and AliBaba. Anyone with common sense will slap some biggun "Class 4 laser in operation" lights with some andons at all possible entrances and tie it in to the unit operating.
Usually one just makes it class 1-- put it in a box, with a window opaque to infrared, and an interlock that disables the beam if the box is opened.
E-stop is important because you will eventually have a fire.
> A vacuum table,
The whole nice thing with a laser is you don't need hold down because there's no cutting forces.
> indexing (calibration/zeroing)
Usually what you do is just combine a red diode laser onto where the beam goes. I do have a square fence I added to my laser that I can align work against, but I usually don't use it.
Zero cutting forces, but some veneers and thin plywood warp readily, which takes the workpiece out of the focal plane, leading to various inaccuracies.
Yah. Sometimes you may need hold down of some kind, but overall this has been rare for me.
I replaced the bottom of my laser with a piece of tooling plate (MIC6) with drilled and tapped holes at intervals, and sometimes will screw down to that and sometimes will put a piece of steel I magnet to in there.
But this is like, 1 job out of 500 that I do something for hold down. IMO not even worth the work I put into the plate.
According to the home page (linked down thread edited: linked by you!) it is fully diy. They gave a bill of materials, construction directions, etc, but you source and build it all yourself. They list an estimated cost of 7000 usd/eur depending on location.
You can build it for way lower than that - in their BoM they use quite expensive distributors like Misumi - if you only source your steppers from other places that's already hundreds saved. If you buy the laser tube and power supply from China it's few thousands shaved off (the only problem is the risky shipping of fragile laser tube).
As far as I can tell it's more expensive than getting a cheap one from China in that power range. The China ones vary in quality and usually require some hacking but this one you need to assemble from scratch so probably still less time investment.
Yup. If one had the cash to burn (puns are mandatory to clear out the sigh-ing glands in the sub-cockle nether-regions) in a commercial laser cutter, there's always Trotec.
