Laser Bed

[Neil Palmer]

I built the Further Laser 1200 project and am very happy with it and the additional changes I made to it, but the one thing that I was unhappy with was the bed. Yes it worked but it was a little less than ideal.
Having looked at all the options, tried a few and not liking them someone suggested using self tappers on a perforated sheet. I had done similar on a 300x200 bed but had used "punk spikes". That option was really expensive so the self tappers sounded good.

I started off with a 600 x 1000 x 1mm perforated sheet with 3mm holes of Mild Steel which was lightly sanded with a very coarse paper to rough up the surface. I then screwed in loads of 25mm x 3mm self tappers and the results were just what I wanted. I then bought a second sheet of the same stuff by 600 x 1200 (The bed size) populated that with self tappers at about 40 - 50mm intervals and reclaimed the original as a flat plate for the machine.

The picture below shows the 600 x 1000 being used.

bed of nails.jpg

[Gene Uselman]

I did something similar with perforated steel sheet- I mounted to 80/20 aluminum extrusion after tapping in [1/8" I think] roll pins. I made two 12x12" panels altho I have to admit that I have not used them in years.

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Pin bed.jpg