Laser Cutter Evaluation
1 Scope
Our goal is to find a machine that can cut 2-3mm wood, acrylic glass, leather, rubber and engrave anodized aluminum in a budget of around 5000€ which is rather the low end of professional laser cutter devices. For this purpose we figured we need at least a 40W laser tube. A build area of 300x400mm is considered the minimum, the larger the better in general. A lift-able bed (z-axis) for focusing is a nice-to-have - if the laser head itself can be adjusted for the distance to the material that is fine as well. A built in ventilation system and external air-filter is required. We would prefer a device that has Linux drivers or software available on Linux - since we did not find a single solution so far that works under Linux we figured there is no way around a Windows Machine connected to the Laser cutter so we at least want a software that is not limiting the laser cutters capabilities and has an open interface to allow a Linux controlled system to be built in the future. Cutting EPS, SVG or HPGL files should be supported.
2 The big companies
Unfortunately their entry model prices all already exceed our budget significantly:
- Trotec http://www.troteclaser.com/en-US/Pages/Laser_systems.aspx
- Epilog Laser https://www.epiloglaser.com/
- GCC http://www.gccworld.com/