Just finish my drawings and ready to move on. I really want to cut come cardboard targets. I have seen some of the drag knives and have NO real idea what would work and what does not.
I was hoping to find some one that could save me a lot of time and suggest or share their experience and best way to make the magic happen.
I want to cut recycled cardboard of various thickness.
Thanks in advance.
You’d need this, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2327242
And this, https://www.thingiverse.com/make:284319
The universal mount is a little too floppy for my tastes, so I’m glad to see someone made a standard tool mount adapter. You’ll need to play around with it once you get it built, depending on the thickness of your target cardboard, you’ll need to adjust the corner curves so it cuts correctly.
Awesome! Thank you. I was checking that out thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Or you could use a laser 
I like friggin laser beams. Any suggestions never done it but I like adventures
There is a bit of guess and hope and check with the cheap laser diodes, but it should make quick work of cardboard.
Any suggestions on a decent setup? Equipment etc
redacted… Jeff’s link is better
So what laser set up would be recommended? The link to the recommended laser is broken. In the link you posted
This one??
Or this one?
I have no idea so a place to start would be helpful. Thanks
I don’t actually have a jtech laser. So I am not sure.
What set up do you use or recommend?
I’d get the second link.
I personally bought one of the really cheap laser kits from banggood. I got it because I wanted something to try out and it was ~$160 for the laser and the engraving machine itself.
I’ve been looking at upgrading the laser on mine with something more powerful. Mine is only 3kw but it’s “chinese” 3kw… I don’t think it’s nearly that powerful.
Thank you for the input. Looking for all the advice I can get. I am looking to cut different materials cardboard, wood and a couple others. Sounds like the laser will fit the bill. I really appreciate the first hand info.
Thanks
I have laser-cut corrugated cardboard successfully with Banggood lasers… albeit only up to about 3mm thickness. Here are a couple of photos of one of my laser setups using Pawpawpaw85’s air-assist shroud on a Banggood 3.5 watt laser. This V1 logo is being cut from 3mm pizza cardboard (does this count as “recycled”?) and the resultant cuts are very clean, with little/no burning/charring. The engraving feedrate was 800 mm/min (13.3 mm/s) and the through-cuts were a single pass at 200 mm/min (3.33 mm/s)
Note the use of Ryan’s laser focus script allows getting ABSOLUTE BEST FOCUS on the surface of the material… the key to getting the fastest, cleanest cuts for your given laser. With these low-powered lasers it’s not particularly fast (some air-assist helps)… but it can be done.
— David
That’s a really nice looking air assist fan. I’ve been looking at rigging up my air compressor to my small laser, but that looks better.
I actually like Danowar’s Laser Air Assist Shroud for my Eleksmaker 2.5 watt lasers, but the one I linked above comes in both 40x40mm and 33x33mm versions for the 3.5 watt and 2.5 watt Banggood lasers, respectively.
The following is an earlier shroud design and a crude air-assist for my Banggood 3.5 watt laser but the job setup and procedure are the same… Ryan’s focus script, then a cut-through script (at best focus) to find fastest cut-through feedrate, and then run the job.
Again, patience is required… but clean cuts can be had in thinnish (3mm?) cardboard, in a single pass, if care is taken to find best focus and employ at least a modest air assist.
– David
I’ve actually been playing – just this morning – with my FoamRipper machine… which also mounts an Eleksmaker 2.5 watt laser, with Danowar’s air assist shroud. I’ve also become a real fan of Lightburn and recently found a nicer cut-through script. I used a modified version of it (it was originally set up for CO2 power and feedrates) with cereal-box chipboard last evening… and, just a few moments ago, I found some of the same 3mm pizza cardboard as previous.
The card is feedrate in mm/min down left side and %power across the top. I used the same setup procedure as before… and again, BEST FOCUS is crucial.
Also note that this is with a 2.5 watt laser… which I have found cuts as well, or better, than the 3.5 watt lasers I have. I’m pretty sure it’s the smaller spot-size that’s responsible… i.e. lower power concentrated in smaller area can be more effective than greater power spread over larger area.
– David
Wow!! Thank you for sharing all this. Great info. Looks like you have been working on this for a while
Amazing stuff!!
