CrashBangLabs in Regina recently got their hands on a laser cutter. The full Spectrum cutter was donated by a local company, who were upgrading to a larger machine.

With no laser cutting experience, [Brett] chose that his first project would be laser engraving his iphone 5. This is a bit of an ambitious first project, because the power and speed would have to be set correctly to get a good contrast level, and you only have one try to get it right. Also, using too much power might have turn the phone into a laser etched brick.

[Brett] used an older aluminium iPod for testing. once the laser speed and power was dialed in, he loaded up the artwork for the real thing. The cutter did a pretty good job at etching the art, but as the etching started it became clear that an alignment error had occurred. thankfully [Brett] chose to not interrupt the cutter, and ended up with a good looking phone, with a small alignment issue.

After the break, check out a time lapse of the laser cutter doing its thing.