Show HN: Lasergist.com – Your custom design in pure, laser-cut Stainless Steel

by jimant • 11 years ago

211 141 11 years ago

jimant55• 11 years ago

After several months of fine-tuning our process, we are launching today as Lasergist. Lasergist is easy laser cutting for designers, engineers and anyone who can use Adobe Illustrator or Autocad. And we managed to make it cheap. AND provide free worldwide shipping. And it's 100% made in europe by Japan-made lasers (Mazak) and German/Swedish Stainless Steel.

We are launching with a special 30% discount for HN! Just use the coupon HNSPECIAL

LeeUmm• 11 years ago

Looks great. A heads up though. On your discover page under the 'process' section, the design guideline link goes nowhere.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thanks!! Let's fix this right now.

swah• 11 years ago

Great execution. You could just provide a bunch of samples that people can order right away! The designs in your photos, common names/signs...

jimant55• 11 years ago

That's a great idea! We can sure do this quickly.

patrickfl2• 11 years ago

Maybe for people just looking to do plain text / fonts that can't do design in illustrator / CAD make a text box?

matmann2001• 11 years ago

You don't see too many Mazaks in Europe. Where are you guys based?

nona• 11 years ago

Just a thought, but maybe it'd be nice to allow people to (optionally of course) mark their uploads as "OK for public use" – using a CC license or something. This way other visitors can see and maybe choose from a gallery of earlier designs. Even nicer would be if people could get a small discount in return…

knicholes• 11 years ago

This is what cookiecaster.com does, and it's awesome.

mgkimsal• 11 years ago

"DYI fanatics"?

jimant55• 11 years ago

too cheesy right? let's change that!

raisedbyninjas• 11 years ago

Maybe use DIY.

cellularmitosis• 11 years ago

Imagine a world where, after prototyping something locally on your glowforge, you are then presented with a "order this from lasergist" single-click ordering button :)

thoughtpalette• 11 years ago

Good luck! I dig this emerging 3D printing/laser cutting model (Metal/Plastics).

https://www.heroforge.com/ is one I dig as well.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thanks! Interesting link too!

TheOtherHobbes• 11 years ago

Looks great!

Will you be offering sheet plastic and/or card too?

jrowley2• 11 years ago

Ponoko does laser cutting for all types of materials and 3D printing as well.

https://www.ponoko.com/

zokier3• 11 years ago

Shipping kills Ponoko for international audiences.

zokier3• 11 years ago

I'd be personally interested in aluminium (or other more lightweight material), but iirc cutting it is not so simple as steel.

jimant55• 11 years ago

totally another field.... and honestly we are not experienced or equipped properly to do aluminium cutting.

jonnycowboy5• 11 years ago

Laser cutting aluminium is quite a bit harder, the cost is higher as the laser needs to work more to cut (due to heat absorption).

chromaton6• 11 years ago

Consider trying waterjet cutting for aluminum instead.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thanks! Unfortunately no, at least for the moment.

nsaje• 11 years ago

This looks really interesting, I'll try it out when I build my next Ergodox keyboard for a stainless steel case instead of acryllic!

russnewcomer3• 11 years ago

This is a great idea and I wish you guys success, I really do.

I just hope your margins are high enough, or you're doing this on the side your company's main business, because your prices seem extremely low to me. (Also, Mazak over Trumpf?)

I worked for a while (albeit approximately ten years ago now, but still) for a custom fab shop that did a lot of custom business with lasers (for industry, not consumer, generally), and I have a fair idea of the cost of lasers, the stainless you're using, and probable cost of development for the software toolchain you put together for this. And I hope you're using something like SigmaNEST or ProNest and not just chunking down rectangles for your parts, because that would help your costs considerably. It sounds like, from your description, that you are, and that you're using cutouts from other parts to do it, which will hopefully help your costs.

And I would be worried about high-rework costs or low customer satisfaction due to heat issues from people who don't understand laser, or hole locations, etc, etc, etc?

But you probably have already thought of all this, and don't need a random internet commenter to bring it all up. I had wanted to do something like this when I worked at the custom fab shop, but I didn't have the time to develop the toolchain necessary to do it all in 2005-7, so I guess I'm a little jealous.

Good luck!

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thank you russnewcomer! Trumpf are great, based on our experience (~10 years owning and operating several lasers) Mazak have proven to be really reliable and really low-cost in operating kW + maintenance. That's why we kept the Mazaks. Of course we are using a nesting program that's been leaving something close to 200-300 grams. per stainless steel sheet - and this is the core of our low cost.

We tried to explain it as much as possible and give a couple of rules that would save a lot of people from the high heat stuff. It looks that you know a lot regarding lasers and you are more than welcome to stay in touch!

Jim

russnewcomer3• 11 years ago

Since you're European, I just wanted to tweak you on Mazak v Trumpf. :)

Again, not telling you how to run your business, but I think you may face a large number of unhappy customers because of poor understanding of how laser cutting actually works. I hope someone is manually reviewing parts before you make them, because it would be bad overall if a LaserGist customer's one-off bad part path caused issues on your other parts, presumably for more regular, high volume clients.

Really, good luck! I just may order something in the near future. Ships by Christmas?

fudged71• 11 years ago

Which nesting tool is that?

johansch• 11 years ago

Where is the pricing?

Edit: After a bunch of clicking around, I realized I have to initiate an order to figure that out. And I need to provide material, thickness, X*Y dimensions, path length, and a couple of extras to get to hopefully get an estimate.

My feedback: please give me some pricing examples early on. Make it prominent on the start page. Like photos of 2-3 objects, what they cost to make, and what their respective parameters are.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Hi Johansch,

Your comments and experience are very appreciated. As another user pointed this out too, we'll prepare a small example list to be easier to understand pricing.

We are practically focusing on quality but we are doing our best to keep costs low for everyone.

kevin_thibedeau2• 11 years ago

The path length estimate is a bit onerous. You should just compute it server side after the file is uploaded and let the user know what it is and how it affects the final price.

Animats• 11 years ago

Yes, where's the pricing? And where's the list of available materials and thicknesses? These no-information sites that want you to sign up before finding out anything are seriously annoying.

eMachineShop has offered a similar service for years.[1] But they offer a much wider range of services, and their one-off prices tend to be higher. This new service seems to be aimed more at non-functional decorative stuff.

[1] http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/Laser-Cutting-Servi...

jimant55• 11 years ago

hmmm.. What? Are you sure you visited the right website? We specifically avoid needing to subscribe/register etc....

davefp• 11 years ago

It seems unnecessary to ask for the dimensions and path length, could those not be extracted from the template uploaded in the second step?

anoother2• 11 years ago

I disagree a little; sometimes you just want a quick ball-park quote and having to upload a file (which you may not have drawn yet) is an instant turn-off.

jimant55• 11 years ago

That's one, and most importantly, developing this kind of feature "auto-quoting" would raise our costs, and in turn the price. Hopefully, with more orders coming in, we will develop this too. Appreciate the feedback though!

napsterbr• 11 years ago

Would love to see some more examples/photos

jimant55• 11 years ago

We'll probably make some on our own as we don't feel comfortably sharing clients' designs without approval.

For those however that do want to share their parts' photos we provide discount for their next order.

jrowley2• 11 years ago

I could have used something like this last year. Looks awesome!

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thanks! Hope you'll need it again soon!

vibrolax• 11 years ago

From: http://lasergist.com/design-guidelines/ Depending on your design, the engraving position will have a tolerance of +- 3mm.

Is this engraving position registration tolerance correct, or a typo? If +/- 3 mm is correct, then it would certainly rule it out for my application (control panels)

anoother2• 11 years ago

Just ask for a sheet 6mm wider & taller than you want, and draw a 3mm rectangle around your actual design, centred within it...

zokier3• 11 years ago

That might work for really simple stuff, but at that point what's the point of using laser cutting with 0.01mm precision?

pyrocat2• 11 years ago

Can you ship in time for the holidays?

jimant55• 11 years ago

Absolutely yes. Where are you located so I can confirm this?

pyrocat2• 11 years ago

Seattle, WA

chromaton6• 11 years ago

Good luck on this. The design looks slick, though I wasn't able to get past the quoting page.

If you want other materials and thicknesses, try us out at http://www.bigbluesaw.com/ . For prices see http://www.bigbluesaw.com/examples .

Zanta2• 11 years ago

I've used BigBlueSaw as well as some local makerspaces for my waterjet and lasercut needs in the past, and I've been happy with their services. Where does your business fit within that marketplace? Is your advantage pure cost (which I'm impressed with by the way, a $12 shipped part is ridiculous)

Caprinicus• 11 years ago

Seems like they have much smaller limits on part size compared to big blue saw. Seems like they are mostly targetting hobbyist/art stuff. 300mmx300mm is too large a limitation for bulk work.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Bulk work still goes through more traditional channels - like inquiring/quoting etc. The actual limitations are 1500mm x 3000mm ;)

chromaton6• 11 years ago

Thanks for the referral. What kind of projects did you do?

tomkinstinch3• 11 years ago

This is great, and the site is beautiful! I'll probably use it in the future for crafty/technical projects. A few questions:

1. I understand the cost is probably based on many factors, like bounding box size, laser time, and material, but it would be helpful to see a table of example items on the home page and their final costs (just to have a ballpark idea of what it would cost to make something of a given size/complexity). For the estimator/order form, why do I need to specify the bounding box size and path length myself? Shouldn't that be inferred from the drawings I upload? All that said, the prices are amazing!

2. Do you ship to the US? If so, does that cost extra?

3. Can you cut steel thinner than 1mm? It would be VERY useful to be able to make steel foil templates for reflow soldering. Such templates act as masks to control the application of solder, and they vary in thickness depending on the application but are most commonly 0.1mm to 0.2mm in thickness. Made by specialty firms, such templates can cost hundreds of dollars. A DIY option would be wonderful.

4. Can you make parts <50mm^2?

5. Your cut edges probably look great. It would be nice to see macro photos of some cut edges to know what sort of quality to expect.

6. What are the tolerances of cut parts?

7. Have you considered merging some of the pages, like the home page and the Discover page? Possibly the design guidelines page? I had to click around quite a bit to answer some other questions I had.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thanks Tom!

1) This is what another user commented too - having some examples - we'll definitely create a few asap. And regarding the auto-estimation, developing an automated cost-estimating thing would really raise our costs. Let's hope lasergist becomes better and larger soon, and this is number one feature to be developed!

2. Yes we do at no extra cost. And it usually takes no more than a week to arrive to east coast.

3. This sounds like a great idea to try out. With our cutting lasers no, we cannot do this because of heat. But the engraving lasers might be able to do this easily. I'll get back to you about this.

4. Yes - but we wouldn't be very happy to say it nicely. The reason is that too small parts will fall from the honeycomb flatbed and will require some digging below...

tomkinstinch3• 11 years ago

Thanks for the quick answers. It sounds like you're on track to do well. I wish you success.

1. Feel free to get in touch if you need help with an auto cost-estimator.

2. Amazing!

TheSpiceIsLife• 11 years ago

4. The laser cutter I operate for my day job (4kW fibre laser) solves this problem with a feature called 'micro tabs' which leaves a small uncut section in the laser path. Parameters are tab length plus minimum and maximum spaces between tabs.

Of course, you then have to break the part free and clean up the micro tab with a file - so more labour intensive, but 99.9% of our customers are industrial so we typically leave that to them.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Just noticed there is a 5, a 6 and a 7!! 5. The micro drone on discover page is just 2" x 2" you probably see it 2x on your screen! But this is a nice tip from a marketing point of view.

6. 0.01mm is the laser spec!

7. You must be the largest fan of one-page designs! Lasergist.com has just 3 pages - but i can understand what you mean!

HeyLaughingBoy• 11 years ago

OSH Stencils makes beautiful, low-cost mylar solder stencils to go along with your PC boards from OSH Park.

No affiliation, just a happy customer.

tomkinstinch3• 11 years ago

This is great, thank you! I've had many boards made by OSH Park, but I didn't know about a comparable stencil shop!

michaelbuddy• 11 years ago

How about where it says path length maybe provide the help hint actually show how you can get it from illustrator or inkscape or wherever else you think customers are working from. I've been using vector software for 15 years and I don't think I've ever looked at path length in properties. I'm in the info palette right now with a couple small paths selected, is a plugin required for that information?

jimant55• 11 years ago

No plugins at all.

Just open DOCUMENT INFO palette, select object from the drop down and select your paths. The path length will be shown on that palette.

exabrial• 11 years ago

Is there an option for "unpure" stainless steel? Haha... just kinda funny headline

jimant55• 11 years ago

Hmmm... With the suppliers currently in the world? You bet there is!!

nikkwong• 11 years ago

I'm sorry--but what do people really plan on doing with these if you can't get them any thicker than 3mm?

jimant55• 11 years ago

Allow me to say that 3mm thick stainless steel is a great thickness for tons of really heavy duty applications. Thicker is an option, and we regularly do cut up to 6mm but we do this only for custom orders as this would really make handling, shipping and packaging become more expensive. If you need thicker or larger parts, just ask!

patrickfl2• 11 years ago

Also interested in sample pricing, would also like to see some sample designs. This would be really cool to do logos for doors etc at engineering and design firms.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Do you mean having some ready samples that you can order or just plain pics? This is already on its way to be done quickly. Thanks for your comment.

Pranz• 11 years ago

On a non-retina screen, the font weight of 100 looks not so great. I'd recommend to use a media query to check the DPI.

When I saw "Discover" I expected some examples. Your product is intriguing, but I don't think there are that many people that will go "Oh, now I can finally make <insert object>". HAving some examples would be a great way to show what can be done and inspire your customers.

jimant55• 11 years ago

In fact, there is a media query checking for this and changing the font weight to 300. Actually it makes it 100 for retina screens. It's tested and works in several devices - let's check if there is any error in loading the 300 font weight from google fonts though - thanks for the tip.

Your comment on examples is very correct and we've been advised at least 3 more times here; we are definitely doing this soon! Thank you again for your comments.

dysfunction• 11 years ago

I have no idea what I'd make with this, but knowing I could have something made this way is awesome :)

Minor grammatical error: "How it works?" is not valid English. Instead this could be "How it works:", "How it works" (with the colon implied) or "How does it work?"

jimant55• 11 years ago

haha! Definitely feel you! Thanks for the heads up - changed :)

orbifold• 11 years ago

So here is something I want to happen in the future: You create a CAD design in some open source language making use of parametrised component libraries. You then dispatch the manufacture, assembly and delivery to providers that specify their capabilities via an API, the final product is delivered to your doorstep.

This service is one step towards this, but ideally eventually almost everything would be automated away.

jimant55• 11 years ago

We are totally in! Totally irrelevant maybe but SVG is a great file format for this. Food for thought i guess..

jonnycowboy5• 11 years ago

Great work, I've hoped for a website like yours to come out! Like others I've used Big Blue Saw but it's fairly expensive. I recently got parts cut locally (laser cut steel, 16ga) and it's around 20-25$/part (30$/part shipped locally). From what I can gather from your site for others to reference: - free shipping anywhere - 300x300 max size

- 1.5mm: 18.09$ per sheet + 6.96$/1000mm of path length

- 2mm: 22.95$ per sheet + 7.87$/1000mm of path length

- 3mm: 32.97$ per sheet + 9.90$/1000mm of path length

By the way, those prices, per sheet are less than mcmaster sells!!

Only things I would add: 1- add a stainless steel PCB Stencil service (very thin - 0.125mm, but may be not accurate enough?) 2- change max dimensions to 500x300mm (increase of 200mm on one dimension) or 432x300mm (so it would fit in 11x17" envelope).

jonnycowboy5• 11 years ago

I mention this because I think I see a revolution coming (laser cut steel sheet) for robotics, 3d printer designs, etc as the manufacturing costs will be so low it does not make sense to buy the raw materials and mill/drill yourself.

jimant55• 11 years ago

In case you are looking for a job, you're hired! haha.. Remarkable comment....

PCB stencil service is something we'll have to try out with the engraving machines - the laser cutters are too powerful for such thin sheets. The max. standard dimensions might be soon changed. (we can already provide larger parts in custom applications)

jimant55• 11 years ago

additionally, I personally believe that what you say is absolutely correct. From a manufacturer's point of view, costs can be low. It's demand + optimisation that keeps them low.

kragen2• 11 years ago

What are the tolerances and surface quality? More importantly, what do they depend on? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10691293 asked this already and you didn't answer, but this is the #1 most important issue for whether this is a useful service for other than decorative purposes.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Yeap - i noticed that I didn't reply like 10 min ago.

The tolerances based on the laser specs are 0.01mm. It is in essence extremely precise. Regarding the surface quality I think that a few photos would be the greatest way to showcase it. What is important to understand is that we are providing industrial level parts + quality, but we do this through a process that is easy for designers, engineers and people unfamiliar with laser cutting. Definitely not just "decorative"..

rm445• 11 years ago

You should put up some tech specs. Positional tolerance, profile tolerance, edge breaks, plate flatness, surface roughness specs (polished and unpolished). It doesn't need to be marketing speak: as you say it's a precise process and I think the average person would be blown away by what's routinely achieved. While people looking for non-decorative items may well really need the information.

P.S. Ideas for future features you may wish to offer:

- Laser etching (different machine, but ties in with the general business idea).

- Bending! Even at a simple level it would let people make accurate cases, brackets and sculptures from the pieces.

kragen2• 11 years ago

Is that 10μm repeatability or precision? Does it take into account the surface roughness (i.e. the surface roughness plus positioning error is less than 10μm) or is it just the positioning error? How much does your kerf width vary?

vlehto• 11 years ago

I'd really appreciate Ra values. And some info about heat affected zone aka HAZ.

welder• 11 years ago

Could one make the missing lockpicks from https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schuyler/lockpicks-by-o... with this?

jimant55• 11 years ago

I'm not really sure (have 0 knowledge on lock picks) but if those are flat 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 3 mm thick, then why not?!

tlrobinson• 11 years ago

Neat. I'd definitely use this, except I need a little longer than 300 mm in one direction (for a panel to fit in a Pelican 1450 case)

jimant55• 11 years ago

Just drop us a line at hello@lasergist.com or http://lasergist.com/contact

Ruphin• 11 years ago

From the Discover page: "Every year our lasers travel about 2 million kilometers."

That calculates to 228 km/h, which seems impossible, unless you are reporting the total distance travelled by all your lasers added together. However, the wording you chose implies that each laser travels that distance individually. Compare: "Every day the cells in your body travel about 2 billion kilometers". This statement sounds very strange, but is technically correct (more or less) if you add up the distances travelled by each cell.

Still a cool factoid though :)

jimant55• 11 years ago

Of course we are talking about all of our lasers combined!!

compumike2• 11 years ago

How wide is the kerf (laser beam width)? Does your CAM software offset for the kerf on your end? Or should the user add offsets to the design file?

jimant55• 11 years ago

too technical detail I think but anyway, yes it is compensated on our side!

compumike2• 11 years ago

Thanks. For artistic uses, yes it's too technical. But for mechanical design, it seems like an important piece of information. If it is compensated on your side, you're right, I don't necessarily need to know the exact width -- but please put the fact that it is compensated on your website. Would also be helpful to know for the internal corner radius of a nominally square internal corner.

chromaton6• 11 years ago

It's important when you're making thin slots or need to know the roundness of inside corners.

richardkeller• 11 years ago

This is really great. I wonder if something like this exists for perspex or acrylic? I've been trying to find somewhere I can get custom coloured acrylic cut to specific shapes.

What really appeals to me about Lasergist is the worldwide shipping. Now if only I could find someplace that does the same for acrylic.

pjc502• 11 years ago

e.g. RazorLab: http://www.razorlab.co.uk/ - also do card and felt.

They have a particularly nice page of reference photos of all the available materials, so you can see what it might look like: http://www.razorlab.co.uk/materials/info/?id=181

dbcooper• 11 years ago

I assume that this has cost advantages over machining. The feature sizes are quite unimpressive:

Minimum hole sizes depending on stock thickness
Try to avoid designing too small holes as it might be impossible for the laser to cut through. Keep a note of the following: 1.0mm minimum hole diameter: 3.5mm 1.5mm minimum hole diameter: 4.0mm 2.0mm minimum hole diameter: 5.0mm 3.0mm minimum hole diameter: 6.5mm

RyJones• 11 years ago

this is a shortcoming of laser cutters. On material under 6.5 mm thick, there isn't enough thermal mass to soak up the heat you need to put a small hole all the way through. With birch, it catches on fire. With steel, it melts and looks bad.

The advantages are primarily no tooling, no jigs, no setup. No clamps, even, if you want to play fast and loose.

Where it loses to traditional methods is production - on quantity a handful, laser cutters are great. When you need Q144 or Q1000 you need to look at stamping or die cutting.

jimant55• 11 years ago

100% agree with you. It's exactly like that.

ridgeguy• 11 years ago

What is the stainless steel alloy #? (304, 316, etc.)

jimant55• 11 years ago

It's 304 in shiny and 316 in brushed - see here: http://lasergist.com/discover

Buetol• 11 years ago

I think shapeways nailed it by having also a gallery so people who don't know how to design can buy cool stuff. That's something I haven't really found for now in laser cutting/engraving, a good gallery.

chromaton6• 11 years ago

With the size and capabilities of your laser, I'd strongly advise looking into the jewelry making market. There's a lot we can't do at Big Blue Saw because we're using waterjet or low-powered laser. I'm not sure what materials you can cut, but look into copper, brass, silver, etc.

jimant55• 11 years ago

Thank you very much for this recommendation. At the moment we're only doing stainless steel, as this is the main material we focus on, have developed finishing techniques and in general, this is the material we are most experienced in. I can easily see jewellery being made of Stainless Steel though. Just drop as a line at hello@lasergist.com - maybe we can discuss on the jewellery market!

zilian• 11 years ago

I would like to order one of these two open-source designs as Christmas gifts (doesn't matter if they're a bit late) :

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:359145

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:389075

Could you help me out ? How to fill the informations before uploading the files, if they are compatible ? I'm quite a beginner with these software and I only use linux distro... However I'm eager to learn.

Also, how will I/you make sure the tree is not too fragile ?

Thanks !

jimant55• 11 years ago

Great news everybody! You asked for a quick-to-order sample; we just made a cool christmas-special sample available for immediate dispatch! check it out: http://lasergist.com/ and click on "get a sample"!

Show HN: Lasergist.com – Your custom design in pure, laser-cut Stainless Steel

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