Laser Engraver

December 2019

This project covers creating a laser engraver. I bought a laser for fun on AliExpress and had some motor driver laying around. The steppers are from a DVD driver

Hardware assembly

After printing all parts, the engraver can be assembled. The laser is put into a holder and can be focussed using the lens. The X and Y axis are driven using linear actuators from an old DVD drive. Their motors are the stepper kind, so two stepper driver are used. An Arduino nano controls everything.

Controlling the engraver

Once everything is assembled, the engraver can be controlled trough regular Gcode commands. A set of commands is generated from an image turned into black and white pixel locations. Assigning a physical size to a pixel then converts the image into coordinates for the engraver. The software on the Arduino then controls the motors to position a workpiece to the right location. Later both X and Y should be controlled while the workpiece stays still. This would allow placing the engraver onto any piece that needs engraving.