Hello! As the title states i am looking for a reasonably priced honeycomb laser bed in a 900x900 size. Cant seem to find any options in europe.
Cheers!
Hi.
“Reasonably priced” will always mean different things for different folks, but this:
came up a while back when similar needs were discussed in this:
thread.
.
For some odd reason they don’t list list square beds, but it doesn’t hurt to ask if they can supply those as well.
Since Google is nowadays primarily a marketing and advertizing platform rather than a search engine for information like it used to be, there are quite a few hits for 900x900 honeycomb beds for hobby lasers as well:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=900X900+honeycomb+bed
Shipping something like a honeycomb bed will play a significant role pricewise in the equation, building the required support below the honeycomb to allow fume extraction a smaller -but an important- one.
IMO if the total price is below ~500€/£ for a well performing ~1m2 honeycomb bed, it’s very reasonable.
Regardless of whether it’s store-bought or DIY 
.
Regards,
Sam
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I’m not sure if you require a honeycomb bed, or that’s just what you’ve thought of. I switched from a honeycomb bed to a piece of sheet metal and spikes attached to magnets that I can place where I need - I’ve never looked back. The honeycomb left small marks and smoke stains - I’ve never seen a mark from the spikes. I use a metal peg board (a grid of 6mm holes spaced 25mm apart) and I’m not using a large bed, but I have 128 magnetic spikes that align with the holes - I’m pretty confident that I could get away with less than half the spikes (maybe even less than 1/4) for cutting 12mm+ wood I could probably get away with four spikes.
I’m using 20mm “punk” spikes sold to decorate clothing (something like https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806130846938.html) and 10x2mm ring magnets for the base - total height of each spike ends up being 22mm. cost ended up being less than $.20 US each.
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You could DIY with steel pegboard, if needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLAoh60X9j0
or Cloudray does have some options: Cloudray Honeycomb Bed For Laser Engraver – Cloudray Laser
I’d put in a steel bed. Nothing is worse, if you want proper air flow than honeycomb. Air need to flow across/under the material to be useful. A honeycomb bed allows air to bypass the actual working are and just go down the holes…
Besides that, it just wipes off with solvent, you can’t do that with a honeycomb bed.
The supplied honeycomb lasted less than a couple of days, then I changed it out.
This is cutting 5mm sub flooring with a fully open lid and original ventilation fan, which are pretty poor.
Hello Elias,
Sorry a little later here, but this is a topic close to my heart.
Honeycomb beds or worktables, are very heavy and so aren’t easy to import into Europe. I’m in the UK so rules are a little different now but the challenges stay the same.
Until recently I was importing cutting machine into the UK and that made it easy for me to import extra work tables and honeycomb beds. However the sizing varies wildly on these with almost no two manufacturers having the same sized aperture in their laser cutters working area, so whilst bed sizes might seem standardized - 700x500, 900x600, 1200x900 etc the edging and the actual bay sizes in machines are so varied that each bed is essentially made for the machine.
You can purchase bed from Ali Express, but for 1 bed expect to pay 3x the cost in shipping.
You’re also asking for something very very specific 900x900 is an unusual size. The best way to achieve this size would be to buy a bigger bed probably 1200x900 and take it apart and remove some of the rods and wavy cross pieces. I recently did this for my partners cutter. I’d got some 900x600 beds that simply didn’t fit inside the machines I’d got them for (causing many customers to be sad, and rightly so).
I might see if I’ve some photos of how I took it apart and the work involved in reducing the size. It might make a good deep dive on the forum perhaps?
Hi.
Industrial walkway grates are usually “flat” within +/- 2mm tolerance or so when new, and while that may be ok for CO2 in some cases (and such grates are used extensively with oxy-acetylene- and plasma cutting in DIY circles), it’s unlikely that it’ll be enough for diodes.
Those grates aren’t exactly cheap either, at least not over here.
Because these grates are also more than likely hot-galvanized:
a well working fume extraction like You seem to have at the cutting spot is absolutely necessary in order to avoid zinc-fever and other zinc fume related nastiness.
And obviously under-bed extraction as well, just as with any honeycomb for multiple reasons.
There are stainless steel varities of industrial walkway grating available as well, but the flatness tolerances are even worse, and the price is a lot higher.
That would be great, and would undoubtedly help a lot of people here.
Better yet, make it a pictorial 
.
Regards,
Sam
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