How to Make a DIY CNC Laser Engraver at Home

Hi, In this project I will show you how to Make a DIY CNC Laser Engraver, Are you a fan of engraving?

Yes most of us are, How cool is is to have a picture of something on your favorite thing, Here I'm talking about the wooden engraving.

Or I can say how even cooler it would be if you could make it yourself at home! Yes, that an awesome idea.

In this DIY tutorial, I will go through everything about building this project, Circuit diagram and all the instructions to set up and run this machine.

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The best part is this is an Arduino project, and we all know how cool it is to work with Arduino and its components!

So if you are looking to make an interesting gadget for yourself this could be the one.

Now let us directly hop in to the materials required to build this project.

• 250 MW Laser
• DVD Writer ( i recycled from my old DVD)
• Arduino UNO
• CNC Shield
• A4988 Driver X2
• Jumper wires
• 12 Volt SMPS
• 10K 47E Resistance
• IRFZ44N Mosfet
• Hot glue
• Few screws and screw driver
• ACP Sheet
• Arduino Ide and programming cable
• Soldering iron

You may wonder why CD/DVD drives only?

The answer is simple, they have the stepper motor inside which is most widely known for its precise stepwise movement.

This makes it very easy to get the most out of it for our either axis movements.

Anyways using abandoned electronics to create something unique will not hurt anyone!

If you don't have an old DVD you can just buy the DVD drive online, Or in other way all you have to do is visit a computer repair shops, Old CPU has this DVD drive built in to the CPU.

If you have the drive box, unscrew the screws and open the box, inside you can see the cd drive.

Take it out, yours may look different than mine but the working principle behind all is the same.

Trim the wires of stepper motor and solder with your wires, the end of these wires should be soldered with female connector pins.

For the base that holds all the components I will use the ACP sheet.

If you don't have this you can use MDF wood alternatively, At first place the DVD drives on the sheet and mark the points.

Drill the hole and late place the drive and secure it with screws, now to make the laser holder repeat the same steps to fix the vertical stand.

This works similar to a 3d printer but the laser part is fixed but in case of 3d printer the filament feeding part moves.

Now as we fix the base DVD drive, to the top of it we will place another drive, here you should make a note that both the drives should be placed in different axes.

The circuit diagram used in this project is shown here, start by connecting the motor drivers to the CNC shield.

Followed by connecting the enabling pins together, Now connect the stepper motors to the CNC shield, The laser diode has to be connected to the power supply via IRFZ44N Mosfet and a couple of resistors.

Solder the components and secure the ends with heat insulation tube or any other insulation methods.

This CNC shield has to be placed on top of the Arduino Uno board, Finally when this is done add the 12v smps to the power terminals of shield.

Start connecting the components following the circuit diagram given above, I recommend to screw the Arduino Uno to the base.

Top of this we will connect the CNC shield, now connect the components starting from laser, stepper motor wire connections and finally the SMPS supply.

Use how glue to connect smps to the base.

One thing that has to be taken care here is no hanging wires should be around the moving parts of DVD drive.

Here before uploading G Codes to the board, place a piece of wood below the engraving area.

Connect the Arduino Uno to your computer and install the driver. Here you can check for drivers

Click on the default prompts and install the driver, after this is complete Open benbox software

Don't have Benbox application? Get it for free here

Open the software and click on flash icon from menu, now locate the firmware, here is the firmware file, select the hex file and click on ok.

Click on the 3 dots from top right corner and select the port of your Arduino uno board, select the folder where the design that you want to engrave is located, carve mode to be selected to z type and select on the play button.

Engraver will start to make the design and the results will turn out to be amazing, if you are new to building such projects i recommend you to wear safety goggles to be safe from laser even though the laser is safe to work with.

Got bored of reading the tutorial? Then you can simply watch this video!

This video not only has the making tutorial but also many engraving designs

You will truly be amazed by the working of this CNC engraver, make sure you only use wooden base for engraving since this works only on the surface of wood.

The choice of design is yours and rest of the work will be taken care by this machine!