My laser cutter has a very special place in both the shop and my heart. I took all the CNC (Computer Numerical Control) skills that I had gained from the Etch-A-Sketch and decided to apply them to something with perhaps a tad more practicality. I wanted a small desktop laser cutter I could haul out to make parts that would have been inconvenient or impossible to 3-D print, and I was dissatisfied with my online options. I found the small-scale laser cutters available for purchase to be either too cheap to get the job done reliably, or more of a novelty toy for crafts (I also didn't want to drop three grand on a Glowforge).
My laser cutter's frame was designed to be built from aluminum extrusions and held together with a few well-reinforced 3-D prints and fasteners. I wanted to design and manufacture as much of the laser cutter as I could myself so that I would have deeper control and understanding of the machine. This even applied to the bearings, which I spent several frustrating weeks trying to master, before I just recycled some from an old 3-D printer. I then spent a few weeks battling the free software I was using and finally got the laser cutter up and running.