How to Finance a Laser Cutter
The laser cutter is one of the work horses in a Fab Lab — and comes with a corresponding price tag. If you’ve got a budget to pay for it, then you’re fine. But that’s not always the case. So in a little brainstorm the other day we came up with a few other options:
- Leasing, the bank will take their share for “the risk” they are covering. You probably need to have your supplier sign a contract that he’ll take back the machine at a certain value if you become insolvent. Banks don’t like to deal in laser cutters.
- Do the same thing, but with a friend, uncle, etc. He might actually be substantially cheaper than a bank.
- You are in a co-working space? Find one of your co-working companies (an architectural practice? a packaging designer?) and convince them to buy the laser cutter — or you buy it together.
- Set up a laser cutter sweat shop: engraving anything from pens to phones, laptops and thermo-mugs can be a business — use the spare capacity of the machine to make it pay for itself. This is a little bit like Ponoko started: David ten Have was playing printer technician: “That’s the downside of doing something new. You have to prove it yourself. And that means you have to do these grubby jobs.” (source: Chafkin, Max (2009). The Future of Manufacturing. A New Zealand company called Ponoko has reinvented the factory for the 21st century. Inc. Magazine, 1 Oct. 2009. Online at: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091001/the-future-of-manufacturing.html, page 3.)