Mysuru: A project titled ‘Design and Fabrication of a low cost, table top gantry type cnc laser cutting machine’ was carried out by the final year students of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering (VVCE). The project was fabricated by S.V. Gunaraman, D. Sandeep, V. Manish Bhandari and B.R. Sanjay under the guidance of Dr. B.C. Ashok.

The project was also presented at ‘Srishti’ State-level engineering students’ project exhibition and competition held at Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bengaluru and has won the following awards: State-level Engineering Final Year Project presentation – 1st place; State-level Engineering Paper presentation – Consolation prize.

About the project: There is a need for laser machining equipment which can produce accurate profiles on different materials at low cost, with user-friendly interface and operation. Such a machine will have maximum effectiveness if it is portable, enabling it to be transported on-site for immediate use.

The design and development of a low-cost, table top, gantry type, computer numerically controlled laser cutting machine is aimed at precision machining of wood, acrylic and other similar materials. The purpose of this machine is to produce laser-cut profiles in two dimensions, from the input sheet of the aforementioned raw material(s).

The machine has a working range of (440×220) mm. The machine can accept programs directly in G- and M-codes and an innovative mechanism to manipulate the “lasing” action of the laser diode using spindle controls has been implemented, using simpler, low cost equipment.

The performance analysis of the machine has also been carried out with a comparison between the input profiles and the profiles produced by the machine. This CNC laser cutting machine can be implemented to produce accurate profiles for research and development (example, airfoils for testing in wind tunnels), hobbyists and modelling enthusiasts. It can also be implemented in rapid prototyping.