Need: Laser to cut paper only - must have passthrough front and rear - smallest avail

[stereophonic]

Hi,

I need to find a machine (as small and cheap as possible) to do the following:

• Cleanly cut holes of varying lengths but between 1-2mm (0.04 - 0.07") wide in standard thickness paper.
• Paper will be 12" wide (30.5cm) max, BUT up to 40 feet long (a roll of paper) . (I plan to build a capstan/servo type arrangement to move the roll through the laser cutter)
• Obviously due to length of paper, a front and back passthrough door or slot is needed.
• Typical number of cut holes in a 30 foot roll would be 3000 - 3500.
• I would ONLY be using the machine for this, so a high powered one is not needed. Speed is not critical but I understand from my research a 12W machine would take around 15 minutes to complete such a project. Up to 30 minutes would be acceptable to me.

I'm trying hard to find a machine that's capable of all I want. Size wise, the Aeon Mira (Aeon Laser Cutting Engraving Marking Machines) seems to be ideal but completely lacks a pass-through slot at back, rendering it useless for my project. The Thunderlaser Nova24 (https://ozrobotics.com/shop/laser-ma...utter-nova-24/) seems to have all the features I want, but is large, expensive, and somewhat 'overkill' for just cutting paper. Something cheaper and smaller and lighter would be much better.

I have contacts in China and have been searching Alibaba, but my lack of knowledge of laser engravers and cutters leaves me very in the dark. Does anyone out there have an idea of the ideal machine for my project? Many, many thanks in advance for your thoughts.

(By the way, the project is to create and reproduce these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07krQ661fok )




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[Storen]

Any CO2 laser should be able to cut the holes. The main challenge would be the critically accurate feeding system.
There are many Chinese companies offering Roll-To-Roll systems, but usually, they are meant for cutting fabrics for large-scale production. Most likely you'll need a custom system engineered specifically for your needs. Of course, this would be quite expensive.
If you intend to build the feeding system yourself I'll suggest researching the galvo-head options.
Another idea - Instead of making an ultra-accurate feeding system you could first print the holes with any printer that works with rolled paper and then cut the holes using camera auto-detection.

[cinematic2]

Any CO2 laser should be able to cut the holes. The main challenge would be the critically ultra-accurate feeding system.

There is no need to build any ultra-accurate feeding system. Original rolls were made semi-manually so ANY roll feeding system will be OK.
I would use old dot-matix printer for that.
Galvo-head system would be great but it is not cheap.

By the way. I hate pianola`s sound.

[grawley]

Shenhui has a roll-feed laser machine. Unlimited length. It is a plotter style, quite inexpensive, however, oversized for your need.