By Steve Krumanaker
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I can remember like it was yesterday. I was spending the night at my best friend's house, Ken and I did that just about every weekend, camping out or hunting, or whatever. For several years we did just about everything together. This particular evening we were in his bedroom, he was showing me the Ham Radio receiver he'd just made from a radio shack kit. I was looking at his Edmund Scientific catalog and he said something about a new invention called a laser. It had to be 1963 or four or maybe a couple years before?
Anyway, all we knew was, it used mirrors to make the light brighter and was right out of our science fiction books, the future was here! Ken, who was always smarter than me said no one had any idea everything they could be used for, weapons of course but who knew what else? Who indeed? Never did I imagine that one day a wood worker could purchase an affordable laser that was more powerful than anything anyone had imagined back then. Nor could anyone imagine it would be controlled by a computer to do intricate patterns and pictures. You see, CNC wasn't really to well known back then either.
Fast forward, and it has been fast, just 50 short years. I am the proud owner of a cheap CNC laser engraver. The machine I purchased has a working area of about 11X14", and uses a 2.5watt violet laser. That's the short story, there are several reasons why it's cheap and I don't know as yet if that equates to a good value as they are seldom the same thing. This is a blog about my journey getting to know, learn about, and use one of these marvels people couldn't even imagine not so long ago.
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