Hackit: Laser cutters - with a prize!

Posted Mar 10th 2008 11:44AM by Will O'Brien
Filed under: contests, HackIt

I'm going to have a special guest in my workshop for a while: an Epilog Mini 24 45 watt laser cutter. This is entirely thanks to Epilog Laser down in Golden Colorado. Here's today's hackit: If you had access to your own 45 watt laser cutter - with a 12" x 24" work surface, what would you make with it?

Oh, and there's a prize on this one. Whoever comes up with the best idea will get a free laptop engraving session. (You can always just ship me the display cover.) You can have your own art put on, or we can always tattoo your machine with the Hack-A-Day logo.

(Pictured is Ladyada's laser cutter. Mine's coming tomorrow!)

Reader Comments

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1. Probably not the most creative idea but I know my first order of business would be labeling all my tools! Not only with my name, but also sizes on things like hex wrenches and drill bits.

Hopefully then I could keep everything in order and also prevent disputes when tools walk off.

Posted at 12:35PM on Mar 10th 2008 by stuart

2. I'm not very familiar with laser cutters, but...

I'd probably make either a stack of 1/4" thick aluminum shuriken, a Klingon d'ktagh, or a mek'leth... I've always wanted a set of Klingon bladed weapons.

Posted at 12:35PM on Mar 10th 2008 by Skyler Orlando

3. Probably something boring, like parts for my Radline or Xmods...

Posted at 12:37PM on Mar 10th 2008 by Charlie

4. Rather than just shining lasers in peoples eyes, you can tattoo people from a distance! (with a custom lens)

Or, make peices of toast with either images of religious objects (to sell on ebay) or RSS feeds ( breakfast+news :D )

Posted at 12:40PM on Mar 10th 2008 by atrain

5. I'd hook it up to a web site, and allow people to choose a design/message to put on a hunk of aluminum. Then, set up votes to allow everyone to decide who's post gets to go on the hunk of aluminum. Then, use the votes to determine the surface area that each design/message gets. (some kind of statistical method that eliminates the designs that don't get many votes). Then, burn in all the designs according to the results.

What next? Launch it into space. Or put it in a museum as "Internet Art". Or chuck it into the ocean. Something dramatic.

~Sticky

Posted at 12:51PM on Mar 10th 2008 by StickyWidget

6. Definitely should make some hack-a-day gear with that.

Posted at 12:55PM on Mar 10th 2008 by chance

7. i'd make me a bride

Posted at 1:09PM on Mar 10th 2008 by james

8. You could make some of those business cards with the pop-out lock picking tools, like Kevin Mitnick's one, or you could make your own aluminium business cards in cool shapes with cut out letters, or engraved, or BOTH!

Posted at 1:10PM on Mar 10th 2008 by gary woodhouse

9. If I had that, I'd turn the 3D engraving feature around on some guitar bodies.

Posted at 1:14PM on Mar 10th 2008 by Steve

10. I'd cut out a hole on the shell of my up dv9000 laptop andwith either the apple logo....the up logo, or the ubuntu logo, fill it with frosted plexi and backlight it with LEDs. Maybe even integrate my pulsing blue griffin powermate into the lid.

Posted at 1:15PM on Mar 10th 2008 by sylentmode

11. Idea #1: Ingrave a calander on your fingernail. As the nail grows and gets cut off, so do the weeks and months.

Idea #2 PC Boards! http://forums.parallax.com/forums/default.aspx?f=15&m=246412

Posted at 1:16PM on Mar 10th 2008 by crgwbr

12. that was went with my iPhone. Please excuse the spelling. I meant "HP" logo the iPhone changed that

Posted at 1:19PM on Mar 10th 2008 by sylentmode

13. If I could get hold of a latemodel Firebird hood, I'd find a way of making the 12"x24" workspace compatible with it and engrave a 1 meter bird, 70's style, across. It'd be cool because I'd have to hack the laser's work surface to do it!

In any case, that's really cool of Epilog and I'm going to check out their site a bit.

Posted at 1:21PM on Mar 10th 2008 by Dotan Cohen

14. What thickness can it cut?

Posted at 1:25PM on Mar 10th 2008 by AdamZiegler

15. I'd probably try to find some clever (stupid) way to engrave the laser cutter :)

Posted at 1:28PM on Mar 10th 2008 by phillips321

16. I'd make a sign similar to Mythbusters that said HackBusters.

Posted at 1:38PM on Mar 10th 2008 by matt

17. best idea I've got would be to construct an interlocking box from 1/8" acrylic.
some of you guys are overestimating the abilities of this machine, it can mark metal (with appropriate chemicals) but no metal cutting of any sort.

Posted at 1:47PM on Mar 10th 2008 by ridefst

18. I would go nuts with new accent parts for my charger. Companies charge hundreds of dollars for a little laser engraving and I'd love to be able to make my own pieces just to thumb my nose at "the man".

I'm thinking door sills, custom petals, custom knobs, faceplates, the whole nine yards. Who wants to see the Hackaday Charger?

Posted at 1:49PM on Mar 10th 2008 by andrew

19. 1200dpi is too low to make a reflective diffraction grating. If you could have though, I'd have used a diffraction grating + light source as a nonlinear thermometer. Plant outside next to a light bulb for an easy way to spot your house. Classier than just using cut up CDs.

Posted at 2:00PM on Mar 10th 2008 by M

20. I'd use it to make paper cut art, like:
http://www.petercallesen.com/index/index2.html

Posted at 2:01PM on Mar 10th 2008 by geoff

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