Thunder Laser

Thunder Laser

Thunder laser - Nova 35 from ThunderLaserUSA.com

Bed size: 900mm x 600mm x 230mm (35.4” x 23.6”x 9.1”)

100 Watts of Power

Cuts up to 1/2 inch material.

Materials which can be cut include:

• Plywood
• Acrylic
• Paper, card stock, and poster board
• Vegetable tanned leather
• Craft foam

All of those can also be etched, meaning an image is burned into the surface. Other materials can be etched, but not cut, like glass, ceramics, or painted metal.

Materials which can not be cut include:

• Vinyl (including fake leather, Naugahyde, "Moleskin" notebooks, etc.) Watch this to see how to test for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqIU8yAobkc

• Poly-carbonate (it cuts but then melts back together)

• Metal (It can burn off the protective paint or anodized color, but the metal will not be affected.)

• Latex

• Styrene, styrofoam, foamcore (They tend to catch fire, and they also produce lots of sooty residue)

Also, some other materials produce excessive soot, smoke, or fine threads of molten plastic that can clog the exhaust system. The fan is very hard (and dangerous) to clean. Please be aware of what your cut is producing!

Chart of Speeds and Power (Starting point settings. Materials vary, and the laser may be weaker than when it was new.)

Access and Training

To coordinate users who want to use the Thunderlaser, we have a sign-up sheet online. Reserve your time there. If nobody is signed up and you come to use it, it is first-come, first served, but often members will let you do a quick cut. If you go to the sheet and the dates are wrong, simply change the stat date at the top and all the other dates will update. Use Monday as the first day so the chart runs until next Sunday. But be sure to delete old reservations from the previous week.

Access to the Laser Cutter requires training from a qualified member.

• Read the HackRVA Laser Cutter Basics
• Watch the Training Video Playlist.
• Watch the vinyl test video.
• Schedule a certification with a trainer by asking on the Thunderlaser channel on Slack. Anyone who has been certified to use the laser can train other members.
• Laser Certification Doc HackRVA Laser Training Certification.

Helpful Links

Thunder Laser video tutorials:
http://www.thunderlaser.com/video

More Thunder Laser information:
Thunder Laser Support For reference, our exhaust fan is model CZ-TD550, and uses 5A at 110VAC. It is brushless. Lightburn documentation:
https://github.com/LightBurnSoftware/Documentation/blob/master/README.md
Lightburn basics:
Walkthrough
Lightburn video tutorials:
https://lightburnsoftware.com/pages/tutorials
A 30 day trial is available at
lightburnsoftware.com
You can buy Lightburn for your own laptop for $30 with a discount code. Ask on Slack. The price is for 1 year. After that, it still works, but it will not update as new versions are released. To set up your copy there is a folder on the desktop of the laser computer with screenshots of the device settings.

Advanced Techniques (ie comparing changing one variable, like Interval or Focus link):
www.thunderlaser.com/video/advanced-tutorial.html

Vector Graphics: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics
Image Formats: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_file_formats

Boxes - folding paper or cardboard: www.templatemaker.nl/
Gears:

• www.woodgears.ca
  
• www.gearotic.com

Box finger joints: www.MakerCase.com

Boxes.py - wonderful box designs and more. Website and plugin www.festi.info/boxes.py

www.SVGNest.com - nests shapes for efficient cutting (Lightburn makes this efficient with use of "Arrange -> Nest Selected" feature, very neat!)

A source of free files for laser cutting: Ameede

These are supplied at a site of a competitor to the ThunderLaser company that makes our system: Epiloglaser.com “Sample Club”. Lots of practice projects.
www.epiloglaser.com/resources/sample-club.htm

HackRVA Laser Cutter Basics