Turn DVD Drives Into a CNC Laser Engraver

Since you’re reading this blog, you know that laser engravers are really cool. As Constantine (aka “How To Do”) shares in his YouTube video below, building a laser engraver out of optical drives is not the easiest, and probably not even the cheapest, way to get one. On the other hand, creating one should be an interesting undertaking.

Constantine’s write-up goes over how the engraver’s frame was constructed, but the heart of the build is that both axes move via carriages recycled from a pair of DVD drives. The laser can also be recycled, though he used one he built in another video here.

Processing power for the device is provided by an Arduino Nano running Grbl, and he spends the latter half of the video going over how to set everything up. He notes he tried a few options, and is using LASERGRBL to control (send GCODE to) the router. It looks like a great option to check out, as it can work with prepared GCODE or normal image files.