A new STEM teacher is coming on board and has a lot of experience with a laser cutter. I’m considering getting one to complement our CNC.
We currently have a shop-bot 24in desktop CNC.
Have about 10K to spend. A bit more if necessary for venting upgrades in room.
Do we buy a laser cutter?
Pros known:
-our new faculty member knows laser cutter tool well
-introduces our students to another tool that is commonly used in industry
Cons known:
-fume management
-additional tool to maintain
-additional software to learn for students
Questions:
A. what are other pros and cons from FRC perspective for laser cutter?
B. what are other pros and cons from a general middle school/high school STEM curriculum perspective for laser cutter?
C. How much functional overlap is there with the two tools?
Having worked in a lab with a 60W laser, it’s definitely a fantastic tool that can do all sorts of useful things for FRC. It has by far the easiest CAD->part workflow of any CNC tool I’ve used - the lack of cutting forces means you rarely have to pay any attention to work holding, and parts are made quickly and to reasonably good tolerances. Delrin is a versatile material that can replace aluminum in more places than you’d expect on an FRC robot.
You do have issues with kerf angle, which can make designing things for press-fitting slightly annoying and cause smaller holes to not be totally circular on the far side of the part (away from the laser), but you can always undersize your holes and then drill them out to get around this.
There isn’t a tremendous amount that you can do with a laser that you absolutely unequivocally could not do with a small CNC. However, there is a ton of stuff that a laser will do much, much better and faster. A laser does not require any appreciable CAM work, and is unmatched in the speed at which you can go from a CAD drawing to finished parts. The software learning curve is much lower than for any other similar tool. It will not be as general-purpose as your CNC, but if you adapt your robot designs to match the laser’s capabilities, there is an absolute ton that it can do for you. You can make complex structures from thin plywood and delrin sheet using interlocking tab construction and T-slots. It can hold solid enough accuracy to do gearbox plates and other precision components from solid Delrin. You can pattern out a bunch of 1/8" delrin hex spacers, hit “go,” and get a lifetime supply of these infinitely useful parts in an hour. Pretty much everything can be prototyped for test-fit super quickly from plywood. The ability to do nice looking raster engravings and inlays for aesthetic appeal is a nice bonus as well.
If the choice is between spending 10K on a laser, versus 10K on another tool, we would need to know about the other option. If it is between spending 10K on a laser, vs. not spending 10K on a laser, it seems like a no brainer.
Laser cutters are AMAZING for prototyping. Instead of having to cut cardboard with knives and mount janky components to it, you can grab some cheap material and laser it into the shapes you want easily, quickly, and efficiently.
1836 started using a laser cutter this past season and we love it! I don’t know much about the specs of the cutter itself, but it made our manufacturing (we love using wood) of prototypes and competition parts much much faster. It really all depends on your design style, but with a good understanding of when to use something like delrin or wood over aluminum a laser cutter can drastically improve your manufacturing and iteration speeds.
Definetly reccomend getting a lasercutter, and spend some good time in the offseason dialing in material settings. That time and effort in the offseason will be super beneficial come season
What are your current manufacturing capabilities? If you already have something like a Bridgeport mill and or a larger lathe then a laser would be a great addition to your shop. If all you have for machining is the CNC you mentioned then you may want to look into a lathe or knee mill. In addition to having accurate parts the students will be able to see really in depth what goes in to doing each action to a part that they have designed. It’s a huge opportunity to learn the proper way to design stuff within limitations.