[Johannes] has been reading Hackaday for years but this is the first project he’s tipped us off about. It’s a laser engraver built from a DVD burner diode (translated). It turned out so well we wonder what other projects he’s forgotten to idea us off about?
This is the second CNC maker he’s seen through from start to finish. It improves upon the knowledge he acquired when building his CNC mill. The frame is built from want but also uses bits of plywood and MDF. It can step on the X and Y axes, using drawer sliders as bearings. The pair of blue stepper motors drive the threaded rods which step the platform and the laser mount. just above the laser he included a small DC fan to keep it from burning up. The control circuitry is made up of an Arduino Nano and a stepper motor motorist board. catch a look of the engraver cutting out some stencil material after the break.
There need to be something about spring that brings out the urge to work with laser diodes. We just saw a similar 1W cutter last week.