Laser for CNC to cut foam?

Hi guys,

I've been looking around the forums and various help topics, and so far a lot of the information does sink in... but not enough for me to truly understand everything just yet. I would like to build my own laser to mount on my CNC to cut foam such as Depron and EPP for RC planes (3-6mm in depth).

Any advices? I'm kind of lost to tell you the truth. Not sure where to start. As far as budget goes, I am hoping to keep it as low as possible... but, I do not know how low it can be for what I require it to do. I know a lot of people use CO2 laser cutters to cut through wood, plastic, metal and such, but those things are beyond my budget limits. I understand that lots of lasers here can burn through things nicely and they're fairly cheap to build. Will they, however, be fast and precise enough to be used with a CNC.... that's the dilemma.

Let me know what you guys think and maybe you can point me in the right direction.


-BK

You could accomplish this with a higher wattage IR diode but your cost is NOT going to be cheap. Upwards of $200. You could get a fiber coupled one but that would increase your cost. It would however make it very easy to do.

Well, around $200-250 is not too bad. As long as it can cut depron with precision and good speed that would pay for itself really. Someone told me that it would have difficulties cutting white foam because of the reflection, so I should stick with grey. True?

So, how would I go about constructing this laser that would cut my (grey) foam with precision and speed?