Laser or CNC?

[Palamedes]

Howdy Gang!

Okay so I'm new to the forum, but have been doing a lot of scrollsaw work lately and even dabbled at a couple clocks. 

I want to do more work in the clock arena and making "tickers" to use your term, but cutting everything with my scroll saw all the time can be counter productive as I sometimes make mistakes and I have limited time to do this.  (Plus as a programmer, I like rapid prototyping..heh)

Since my wife and I are moving to a new home that actually has lots of room for a shop (YAY! No more sawdust on the cars..) I am pondering getting either a CNC router or laser cutter.

I'm torn.

I can see a lot of uses for both.  I haven't got any experience with either.  My primary use case would be making clocks or tickers so the cnc seems logical, but I also see a lot of use for laser engraving and cutting of smaller finer parts.

Thoughts?


Here is the really old thread about the MLT-13 clock I was working on that still doesn't tick more than 30 seconds.. heh
http://randomstringofwords.com/scroll-s ... lock/ 

I will get it finished one of these days!  Lots of very find sanding at this point.. It's really close but until the move it will be tough because I have no place to work on it.

[Steve Fox]

CNC machines and lasers are two completely different animals.  I looked at both several years ago and decided that a laser would be much more versatile for what I wanted to do.

Lasers will do some things that CNC machines will do, but CNC machines do mostly things that lasers won't even think about doing.  I started cutting balsa for model airplanes and it is absolutely wonderful for that.  I also made parts for model boats.  My wife always has something she wants made.  It started with desk nameplates that were engraved with 1/8" thick letters set in the engraving, so the letters are raised.  They look really neat and make great Christmas presents.

I also make signs and anything else that requires engraving.  It will cut anything from paper up to 1/4" pine and 3/16" Baltic Birch plywood.  I have etched granite and ceramic tile.

I can't give an educated opinion of CNC, since I don't have one.  If I were you, I would make a list of things you plan on doing or may want to do and figure out which machine will do it.  Total everything up and that should give you an idea which to get.

There's nothing that says you can't get both.

Steve Fox

[Palamedes]

Great reply Steve thanks.

If I may ask, which Laser did you purchase?  Would something like this: http://fslaser.com/40wbasic  be over kill or is that exactly the kind (and price range) I'd belooking in?

[BobL]

Jason;

I agree with Steve on this, make a list of things you plan to cut and go from there, however, I vote to have both if possible..lol

Cheers
Bob
:D

[Steve Fox]

I bought a 40 watt Epilog Legend 36EXT.  I read about every different brand I could find and none offered the quality, customer service and useability of this one.  I could've gotten by with a 24" x 18" model, but this one is 36" x 24" and I use the 36" width quite often.  Once I determined what brand I wanted, there wasn't a huge difference in price for the different sizes.  It cost more than I planned on spending, but you know what they say, you get what you pay for.  I've had it for 2-1/2 years and I haven't had any problems.

One of the big differences between the Epilog and other brands is the laser has an aluminum casing instead of glass, which means it lasts a lot longer.  It costs a lot more, too.

I haven't followed the current technology since I bought mine, so It's possible there are better, cheaper ones out there, now.

[Palamedes]

I'm all for buying both!  But that will be a tough one to get by "she who makes decisions"..  ;D

I like doing a lot of the cut work I do on my Dewalt scrollsaw.. works great.. very relaxing too.. but when it comes to the really fine meticulous work, (escapement, pallets..etc) I think doing that on a laser would be the wiser course.  Saves me from having one pesky clock on the wall that I can't get ticking for the life of me..

It's a really small escapement though..  being have to laser cut the escape wheel on that one would have been nice..

I'd love to get an epilog but they seem somewhat pricey as you pointed out..

[John T]

I've followed much the same route that you have - starting with scroll saw and moving on to CNC.

My site here (below) indicates the kind of work that I have done.  So there are 34 clocks on this web site (as well as a large photo file) and only the first 10 or so were scroll sawn and like you I had a lot of difficulty keeping them going.  Difficult but not impossible.  The biggest challenge was always the problem solving of "what's making it stop" and the answer was rarely obvious.

I've also done a lot of bass relief carvings that have turned out really well. (my opinion) 

Anyway my CNC is a 24 inch by 24 inch by 5 inch machine made by WidgetMaster and my spindle is a Wolfgang.  The spindle is really small but for fine escapements and material up to 1/2" works really well.  The Router bit that I use most is a 0.0625" size at roughly 50 ips.  I'm not in a big rush and the finished parts only need the "hairs" brushed off the baltic birch parts.  I also use a lot of MDF for fun parts.

http://jtwoodenclocks.com

I heartily agree with the others in saying - What is it that you want to do? How big? How fast? What material?

John

[ArtF]

Man, Id be hard pressed to choose. Im fixing my laser now as I left water in in this winter and the tube shattered.
Of course I have had cnc a long time since I used a home built one to write Mach3 with. I have a cnc lather as well
as a router... the router is much more usefull..

I love my laser too..but  as folks have said each is usefull in a different way. Laser is great at quick small parts , specially
in acrylic.. or fancy engraving. 

I think Id go cnc, then a laser later... just my 2 cents..
Art

[Palamedes]

I was leaning towards the laser first myself, but the more I look at it the cnc seems a more logical choice.

But lets go at it from a different direction.. Cost.

if I wanted a CNC machine that could cut a maximum 20" diameter gear (which is a silly large gear but you get my point, up to that large) how much am I looking at spending?

[ArtF]

Well.... 16" square is probably more typical for a small cnc ( mine only does 16" x 16" but Ive been
pretty happy with it.
  These days an ebay search for cnc router will show many units from 500 bucks to a couple thousand.
Quality is usually equal to price in such things, but you have to consider what you intend to cut, how patient
you are and how much you like to tinker. If you like to tinker you can start with a lower end unit and build it up
from there.
  A laser that cheap wont cut much very well, a fairly decent laser will run a few thousand, youll get much better
quality I think in the cnc realm. ( And then of course maybe you can add a laser head or 3d printing head to
the cnc you get at some point in the future... (thus killing more than one bird with one stone..)

Art

[Mooselake]

Consider building one yourself - google shapeoko, visit openbuilds.com, or poke around in the cnczone.com forums for some examples.  It might take longer than ready-made but you'll gain some experience and save some money along the way.

Kirk

[John S]

Just a word of warning about lasers.

NONE of the cheaper A4 [ letter sized ] machines are any good, they have cheapened the desigh to get the prices down  and generally stuffed things up.
You need to move up to an A3 sized machine before you get value for money but again there is some crap in this range as well.

The crap ones uses pressed steel rials with ceramic rollers and type 17 motors.

The better quality ones use proper NSK type square linear rails and 23 type motors.

But to answer your question, I can't as I have both and both do different jobs. for instance the laser can engrave on phenolic's but can't cut it. The router can engrave on brass but the laser can't unless you use a third party spray.

All I can suggest is you make a list as someone mentioned and buy the machine that ticks the most boxes and then later buy the other machine.

[ArtF]

Seconded..very good suggestions and very true commentary.

Art

[Palamedes]

Great stuff guys!

Thank you all very much for your input.

[Palamedes]

Okay wow.. this thing looks like it rocks.. http://www.shapeoko.com/