and burn your eyes out… why !!!
Very unsafe. Many of these videos are posted by people trying to sell laser modules without any of the minimum safety features required to do it safely or legally.
I don’t understand this… so many stupid videos of coverting 3d printer into someting stupid. Even Tom made video of converting printer in to cnc mill.
Not all of these conversations are stupid: https://www.prusaprinters.org/new-upgrade-for-original-prusa-i3-mk3-is-here/
https://www.prusaprinters.org/new-upgrade-for-original-prusa-i3-mk3-is-here/
All mentioned in your posts are indeed super stupid. Kitchen robot … common … and agree not all of them are stupid clay extrusion or something that really bring value behind the idea of addition/depositionning are good but Prusa is not made and most printers are not made to sustain foces and if you using the to produce something relly on their rigidity is stupid. For lasers the safety, focusing and laser beam controll is essential and printer don’t meet them.
I have attachments to my printer for plotting and scratching pcbs . But routers and lasers are completely stupid .
I don’t know why a group of maker’s is so negative about inexpensive mods that allow other maker’s to learn and create things that would otherwise be out of their price range. You can just as easily burn your house down with a 3d printer as you can put an eye out with a laser. As a maker you should always research safety requirements. Whether it’s a cnc machine, 3d printer, laser engraver, or even a Dremel. Instead of being negative, maybe you should share some inexpensive safety requirements so that people won’t hurt themselves. Talking about adding key lock outs, safety glasses and fume extractor will go much farther!!!
Sorry for the rant, but I began my cnc journey with a laser diode, safety glasses, an Instructable and a dream. Over the last 3 years my machine built from MDF and drawer sliders has made many beautiful things which has helped to fund my printers and CNC machine’s. I guess what I’m saying is that we should try to sound more like maker’s than the mom from “A Christmas Story”… missing/deleted image from Google+
P.S. I still have both of my eyes…
@Joe_Walters The problem is, a lot of people showing laser mods are showing equipment setups that do not meet minimum safety requirements for responsible laser use, and serve as bad examples to newbies. Lasers are a LOT more dangerous than the heaters in FFF printers. Blue diode lasers can cause skin melanomas, instant blindness, start fires, and can do all that from across a room. These are regulated devices in the US and EU, and when folks from less-safe countries like China and Russia sell these laser modules online, they’re usually not providing the minimum safety kit (enclosure interlocks, keyswitch, proper laser goggles, whatever) required for regulatory compliance or good user safety. It’s not enforced well, but it’s literally illegal to sell these bolt-on laser modules for the advertised usage in a lot of cases.
All that’s fine if people know how to install them in a fully-enclosed, ventilated, non-flammable, and safety-interlocked machine, but that’s not what’s happening here. When you make laser hacks look like a simple plug-and-play printer mod anybody can do without understanding laser safety, you’re encouraging uninformed people to do unsafe things before they understand the danger.
Maybe YOU’RE comfortable with all the unshielded laser flare and flammable parts visible in that photo you posted, but please don’t be a bad actor and encourage other people to do the same.
@Ryan_Carlyle you are making my point for me, and by the way starting the discussion that should be happening here. When a maker who has decided to build a laser engraver looks for information they go to videos like the one above. When they are done they will read comments for more information. When you only make posts like the one’s above the reader will move on and look for information elsewhere. I researched for almost a year before starting my build. I went over many posts, video’s and instructables like the one above. Reading the comments provided me with many safety suggestions. Some of which I chose to use and some I did not. However if i had never had productive safety comments I would not have learned things like using a laser on vinyl creates chlorine gas.
As for my decisions on safety, the picture does not quite say everything. For starters this device is in a detached structure from my home in a locked room which only I and my wife have access to. Whenever there is power to this machine there are warning lights on at every door to the room it is located in. I have thoroughly tested my 3.4 watt laser and can tell you that the material my machine is made of will burn through but not flare up when subjected to 12 hours of my laser running at full power and properly focused on the surface of my work bed. Also laser light can not start fires across the room unless the beam is focused ( a common piece of misinformation).The laser is only used when nobody is in the room (excepting check in’s with proper goggles). It is video monitored 24/7 and I use Octoprint to monitor the print progress remotely. There is a built in power kill switch so I can shut it down remotely from anywhere in world. The one area I could still use work on is fume extraction with charcoal filtering.
Okay this post become real fun. If you use propper safety glasses than you have no way to do it for less than 40$. Aslo googles are special for every type of laser. Blue lasers are not common in machining world so you need to bay specially for this case. Next is your mount is too far from ther work surface wich not only give plenty of room for reflection and reduce power dramatically. So if you want not to be hated like here you should first see what industry do. For example make laser close to work surface like few mm only depend of your lences. Crate shade with a fan. This will limit the reflection to minimum if you make the shade wide and close to work surffice. Fan in the shade will ceate pressure which will force smoke to go out of the beam path.