Last year, one of our members purchased a laser cutter of questionable quality off of eBay. We’ve been pleasantly surprised by what the machine is able to do, and over the last year we’ve been constantly improving the machine. Our latest improvement is that of a proper water cooling system for the laser to replace the “snow cooled” system we’d been using all winter.

For more details on this project, head over to our forum.

Over the weekend, a couple of our members put together this Raspberry Pi powered relay whose purpose will be to trigger a buzzer in a shop with highly regimented work times. The Pi will keep time using NTP to stay in sync with the shop’s timeclock.

For more details on this project, head to our forum.

This week, one of our members is using the shop to install a new engine in his daughter’s junior dragster. Very cool! Some interesting facts:

• Chassis: 2009 Martin Components Jr. Dragster
• Engine (2012): Briggs Raptor 3 (13 cu in) with 28mm Mikuni Carb
• Best time (2012): 12.002s @ 52mph (1/8th mile)
• New Engine: Blockzilla 3×3 (21 cu in) with 40mm Mikuni Carb
• Expected time: 9s @ 70mph
• Fuel: Methanol
• Driver: Rachel (age 11)

It’s about time we do a project showcase on some of the things our members have made using our CNC router. Click the link below each image for project details.

Wine Rack
by Paul Chavady

3D Mack Truck Puzzle
by Jeremy Rans

3D Puzzle Dragon
by Albert La

I have been working on an android app that allows you to control Ryan’s CNC router (“Goliath”) directly via touch. After a few iterations, I’ve got an app that I’m quite happy with. It supports circles, rectangles, lines as well as freehand. The app also lets you specify your cut area and cut depth on the fly (check out Tic Tac Toe take 2 for a good example of why defining cut area on the fly is useful). Check out the forum thread that describes the app in more detail.

Here are some demo videos of the app in action:

Smiley face demo (full demo of all features)
Tic Tac Toe, take 1 (first trial)
Tic Tac Toe, take 2 (continuation of first trial)

Thanks to Ryan for designing such an incredible machine and to Albert for filming/editing.

- Jeremy

I have been working on a camera rig that will theoretically pan while moving along a surface. So far this is what I’ve got.

TheSaxMachine made a sweet iPad stand out of acrylic on our CNC router last weekend. Hotness! Check out the forum thread here.