New Year, New Store, New Shop, New Stuff... hopefully the end of new problems.

When I first started getting into laser cutting, I was apparently at the heights of that first peak of the Dunning-Kruger graph. Laser cutting was so easy and I was designing products at a pretty decent rate. I had my Etsy account which was driving web attention and my time spent on social media was getting peoples' attention. But, I didn't stop to think about scalability. As the months came and went, I found myself struggling to maintain the lifestyle of holding a day job and fulfilling several orders each week; on my first cutter, a single organizer would take about 13 hours to cut. Something had to change.

In the Spring of 2022, I decided to invest in a much larger laser cutter, one with TWO cutting heads on it. I thought, a few minutes to set up each "run" and I would get twice as much product for my labor. I was wholly unprepared for the difference in learning curve of a bigger cutter. 

I was plagued from the start with issues I had not foreseen. The build up of smoke inside the machine was a much more critical issue than the smaller cutter I was used to; more smoke, means more "stuff" the laser beam has to power through and every cloud it passes through diminishes its strength. Electrical was another concern. Turns out big cutters really do need their own dependent electrical circuits, no matter what the specs say. Temperature fluctuations in my workspace were the last major issue, but it took a couple years of tracking before I was able to solidly identify it as a major contributor to the focus and alignment issues I was having. After nearly three years of fighting with the big "production" model laser cutter, which included rewiring my workspace electrical and having an electrician upgrade the service, I finally decided enough was enough.

So, moving forward, I decided that many small lasers would suit my needs better than one or two big lasers. But that also meant I had yet another round of workshop upgrades I needed to do. Each laser needs a few things to run smoothly: a stable power supply, a water chiller to cool the laser tube down, exhaust for fumes and smoke, and an air compressor to help keep cuts clean and reduce fire flareups while cutting. How much would the electrical in my workshop support? Upping my service again was not feasible. 

I determined my workshop could handle four 50w cutters, two dual chillers, some vent fans and four air compressors. I have learned my lesson from the 2-in-1 big cutter; when all your components are in one machine and one fails, EVERYTHING is down, so separation and compartmentalization is the trick. Okay, from here I needed to figure out how to organize everything in my workshop. Space isn't quite a luxury, but I couldn't take up a whole wall to have a bench-top for four cutters either. I needed to be a little more practical with my space. 

So I set to work designing a shelving system with pull out drawers for each of the four machines I had planned to expand to. I found suitable drawer slides, capable of holding 250 lbs each with a max extension length of 36 inches, plenty of room to pull the drawer out and get to the backside of the machine. In the meantime, I also picked up my second 50w Omtech for a good price. 

With the shelving designed and half built, I had a home for my two cutters... but none for the two air compressors, and I found out REAL quick that even the "quiet " compressors get pretty loud when allowed to travel in packs. So, great, now I need to design some sort of housing that would have some sort of sound dampening to keep the noise levels down. And, if two compressors were uncomfortably loud, four would be deafening. 

My first design looked somewhat like a 1950's microwave; it had a huge heavy door with a baffle maze inside for air flow, thick sides full of rock wool and weighed probably close to 200 lbs empty. It worked great for cutting down the noise. It just didn't work to keep my air compressors from overheating. On to version 2.0

For my next design, I decided to remove the baffle door system and have direct vents at the top and bottom and to cut down on noise inside my workshop, I'd put the whole case outside. Which of course meant that I needed to figure out how to keep it from being obnoxiously loud for my neighbors, and how to run electrical out to it.

In the end, my little "air compressor" house would fit four air compressors, and be connected to four separate electrical circuits. With this and the other two shelves built, everything was finally coming together. Then the threat of tariffs reared its ugly head.

I really wasn't ready to ramp up to four cutters yet, but I didn't really want to risk having to pay another 50% ($1200) for each new machine by waiting. So, after sleeping on it, I pulled the trigger and sourced my last two machines. And another dual chiller, and two more compressors.

Many, many trips to Home Depot and I've finally got my workshop pieced back together and all four machines up and running. There are still some small upgrades here and there that I'm working on; indicator light stack upgrades for example, but those are relatively minor jobs compared to everything else in the last year and a half. For now, my shop is running smoothly, got this new website put together, and I've got some new organizers designed for Marvel Zombies and Massive Darkness 2 that I've been eager to release once I was certain my production capability would be able to handle demand. On top of those, I've begun work on designing an organizer for Batman: Gotham City Chronicles (that condenses ALL three seasons down to three boxes). I've also got some other non-organizer products in the works that I'm planning on rolling out soon. Among them are some 3-d printed pinchbowls that will come in various colors and sizes (including a holder for a set of 6), and a storage tube for painted minis that acts as a display case as well. It's fully dustproof, has a magnetic base, UV resistant and is the perfect size to hold about 20 standard size minis. So keep a lookout for those in the coming weeks!

That brings us up to date and concludes this epic adventure getting to this point. I'm looking forward to creating new things this year! See you around!