Pledge: New Laser Cutter

From London Hackspace Wiki

London Hackspace's current laser cutter has served us very well over the last four years. It's consistently one of the most popular and most useful tools in the space and it's gained us a lot of members.

However, it's not without faults: the tube (and the power supply) still lasts for a significantly shorter time than it should, it's often a complete pain to maintain, and in some respects it's showing its age. The quality of imported laser cutters has improved substantially over the last few years. Not to mention that these days we can probably find space for something a little bit more substantial.

We'd like to buy a new Silvertail A0 laser cutter from Just Add Sharks.

Silvertail A0 Laser Cutter

Just Add Sharks is a fairly new company formed by two guys from the UK Hackspace scene who wanted to import good-quality laser cutters into the UK. They're no strangers to using laser cutters in a Hackspace environment, and they've already put some of their machines in a number of other UK spaces. We've seen their machines in person and they are much nicer laser cutters than what we currently have.

The spec of the Silvertail is:

  • 1200x900mm cutting area (our current machine is 560x300mm)
  • 80 Watt laser tube (our current machine is 40W)

In addition, this machine has the following major improvements in quality over our current laser cutter:

  • A Reci laser tube and power supply - the closest you can get to a high quality name brand while still being a Chinese import.
  • Through-bed fume extraction, which results in cleaner cuts.
  • Well-made, counter-sprung mirror mounts, which make re-aligning the laser a lot easier.
  • Gas struts on the lid so it doesn't hit you on the head every so often.
  • Many other minor improvements.

The controller and software on the Silvertail is the same MPC6515/LaserCut 5.3 combination as we have on our current laser cutter. Seemingly this is the only thing which hasn't changed in the last four years, but at least we know it works and existing users are familiar with it.

Cost

The cost of this machine is £6150. We are happy to match 50% of this amount from the London Hackspace budget, so we need to raise £3075 through pledges.

Pledges

If you are willing to pledge, please edit this page and enter the amount and your name below.

Running total: £2880


Approximate target: £3075

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