Lasersaur: The Open Source Laser Cutter | Hacker News Reader

Lasersaur: The Open Source Laser Cutter

kickstarter.com

53 pointssown8 comments

Maybe it's a non-issue, but I wonder what the legal/regulatory implications for this kind of thing are?

A member at our hackerspace (makehackvoid.com) has a cheapie CNC laser engraver that he's modified for GCODE and used to cut out some stuff. We looked at what it would take to put in our space, and at least for Australia the amount of regulatory/approval overhead is prohibitively huge, both for getting approval for the initial design and then for legally running it. No idea what it's like in other countries, though.

Also, I'm aware that the regulations exist for a reason. Big powerful lasers can do a lot of damage to unsuspecting humans.

In the US, you can do pretty much anything you want in your house, as long as nobody finds out. ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.") Want to burn your eyes out with a laser? Have fun.

If you are putting it into industrial use, you probably have to have things like mechanical interlocks to prevent it from laser-ing off your employees' fingers, and you need to wear anti-laser goggles when using it. Things like that. Being open source or not from a big company shouldn't cause any problems, though.

As for a hacker space... well, how often do you get inspected? Never? Yeah. (I will point my friend at this comment, though, as he actually runs a hacker space. Having been there, I can't imagine there is a ton of regulatory oversight, however.)

As far as I know if you're selling things in kit form you're excused from any/all regulations and liability.

The kit airplane industry in the US was a reaction to strict liability laws that made private aircraft manufacture and ownership prohibitively expensive. (My old man has built and sold a few.)

I would guess if you can sell / operate an experimental aircraft without restriction you could do the same with cutting tools.

how often do you get inspected? — I get a once per year walk through from the fire department, more or less unannounced. They might schedule others, but I'm next door to the station and I think they go just hit me on their way back from other inspections. They wouldn't care about a laser cutter, but show an interest in my battery banks, egress paths, and flammable material storage. Oh, and they really hate my staircase, but I have a note from the city that says it's ok.

Want to burn your eyes out with a laser? Have fun.

"Warning: Do not look at laser with remaining eye."

We have one at our hackerspace and I can't imagine how you could hurt yourself without trying very hard. It's a lot safer than most power tools or kitchen appliances. They are on the verge of being household appliances themselves, so any place that does have heavy regulations will probably have to lighten up soon.

This reminds me of the work the Open Source Ecology project is doing with a plasma torch table: http://openfarmtech.org/weblog/?p=1424 http://www.openfarmtech.org/index.php/Category:Torch_Table

Other people are doing this too, but it's still cool!

I know Neil Gershenfeld's students over at MIT are working on something like this as part of Fab Lab 2.0...

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