Technology is constantly advancing, making things more accessible, smaller, and faster. With new advances in CNC technology and opensource software, in-house production is easier and more accessible than ever.
Branding, signage, business merchandise, and packaging are usually outsourced to other companies to fill the gap for businesses. What if you could save that money, and produce your own designs and products without having to pay out?
The team at Lionsforge Singapore set out on a mission over the past two years to create a CNC laser cutter/engraver system that is light, portable, easy to operate, and safe to use for DIY projects anywhere. They succeeded with the CraftLaser, a system safe and easy enough that kids could use it in schools. Today people are using Lionsforge lasers to build fully functional 3D printers and vacuum formers, effectively using one machine to make two more.
DIY CNC has many applications for small business. Using this simplified CNC machine, one Singapore artist cut their production time for an art piece from 5 hours to 1 hour. Furthermore, it also removed the trial and error by modeling the work on the computer first.
Indeed the Internet is full of useful resources, training materials, and public forums; free software programs, Youtube tutorials, and active social media communities can provide all the training needed to create your own designs and make your crafts. Project archives like Thingiverse and Instructables hold a veritable treasure trove of free project designs readily available for public use.
Lionsforge’s Craftlaser launched on Indiegogo in June 2018, you can visit the campaign at: https://igg.me/at/home-laser-cutter.
Recommended Resources:
Inkscape
Inkscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It’s free and open source.
Thingiverse
Thingiverse is a multiple resource platform. It provides free educational courses for 3D printing as well as a vast library of project files for 3D printing and lasers. It also includes many free resources to building your own CNC machines.
Instructables
“How to make anything” is the theme for this site. It is a fairly accurate statement.
