Laser cutters are becoming more prevalent in the design and prototyping industries for their ability to quickly cut two dimensional shapes from various materials. However, current standalone systems are not affordable solutions for achieving these goals. CNC mills and laser cutting systems share common sub-systems. Our goal is to save space and reduce costs and further CNC machine functionality by designing and retrofitting a laser system into existing milling machines. Ultimately this should solve the cost issue for end users by providing a comparable system at lower costs.
By combining the two systems, we hope to achieve the functional goal of cutting thin woods and plastics. Our methods will be published as open source to allow for the development of this field. This method of joining the two systems should be available for implementation across many types of CNC mills and will work in connection with open source laser development. By cutting the current limitations on laser cutters and their scarcity we hope to lend support to the advancement of laser cutting prevalence.