It wasn’t long ago when 3D printers were deemed inaccessible to the everyday consumers. For the juice to be worth the squeeze, you either had to be a professional or a hardcore maker able to assemble a machine by scratch. Today, 3D printers are more plentiful and affordable than ever – and laser cutters are just now seeing the same renaissance.

One brand on the precipice of the budget-friendly desktop laser cutter market is FLUX. The company recently introduced the FLUX Beam Series, an eclectic trio of desktop laser engravers designed for novice-level hobbyists, seasoned makers, and semi-professionals. The series includes the FLUX beamo, FLUX Beambox and FLUX Beambox Pro.

Accompanying this series of desktop laser cutters is Beam Studio, a simple and easy-to-use software that allows users to harness the full potential of their machine. This laser cutting software makes the process quick for beginners, while also offering advanced settings and flexibility to professionals. It’s compatible with some of the most common file formats, including JPG, PNG, DXF, SVG, AI, and PDF.

Boasting high adaptability and intuitive features, the FLUX Beam Series provides frugally-minded makers with an array of affordable laser cutters. Fusing high-performance with a low price point, there’s a good reason why the brand’s tagline is “Bring Any Design to Life!”

To showcase some of the many creative endeavors you can undertake with a laser cutter machine, FLUX has shared some captivating and next-level projects created by real customers – a group of makers who the brand calls FLUXers. Let’s hear from them about their projects and why they choose FLUX laser cutters to get it done.

FLUX Beam Series: Laser Cutter Uses Cases to Inspire Your Creativity

FLUX has shared six different examples, pulled from actual customers (Known as FLUXers!), that should provide you with a solid idea of how laser cutting technology can be leveraged for any project you can imagine. Let’s walk through these various use cases, along with quotes for why they chose the FLUX Beam Series to get the job done.

Slice of Life

Slice of Life is a VFX artist and a director from Croatia. Together with another friend, Slice of Life runs a production company specializing in TV commercials. Creating commercials is their job, but film is their passion. ‘We are authors of the award winning short film Slice of Life, and are currently working on a new film project.’

Machine: FLUX Beambox Pro

What do you need laser cutters for? What does laser cutting help you accomplish? 

“Our last short was a science fiction film and we created the futuristic world by using miniatures. It’s an old school approach that was extremely popular in the 70’s and the 80’s, but nowadays it’s almost completely replaced by digitally created visual effects. We fell in love with that technique, it gave a certain charm to our film, and we decided it will be our visual style in the future projects as well.  When one is building miniatures for filming it is important to make them as perfectly and precisely as possible so they would hold the realism when filmed. It is very hard and labour intensive to do everything by hand, and that’s where the laser cutter comes in. With the help of a laser cutter one can make the pieces for model building extremely precisely and, what’s very important – fast.”

Why did they choose FLUX?

“There are not many brands of laser cutters available for the “hobbyist” or “semi professional” user. One option is to go with the lower quality CO2 lasers from China, but from reading user experiences I realized I would need to spend a lot of time and effort to upgrade them and get them working properly in the first place. That was a no-go for me. I wanted to spend more time doing creative stuff and not fixing my laser cutter.”

So when I searched for a serious product that would work right out of the box, FLUX was the name that popped out immediately. I appreciated that there was minimal assembly needed, the software that came with it is very intuitive and I started using the machine half an hour after I got it. And lastly, there are many users of FLUX laser cutters, so when I had a question about how to do a certain thing I could easily find the answer on FLUX facebook groups or youtube. That’s extremely valuable.”

Scrittle

Scritte® is an editorial project born to experiment new writing possibilities, to spread a new narrative culture, to imagine new devices, materials, supports with which to tell and share our stories. Scritte thinks of themselves as part of a community that considers stories as important as bread. By telling stories they take care of themselves, because a story is not made up of events that follow one another, a story is the way we understand what happens to us and give it meaning, it is the design we give to our lives and to the passing of time, it is a database of our experiences, of the experiences of the generations that preceded us and of the generations to come.

Machine: FLUX Beambox Pro

Where do you need laser cutters for? What does laser cutting help you accomplish? 

“As Storytellers we started writing using the lasercut to tell our stories. Lasercut is our machine for writing on materials such as leather, wood and fabric. The engraving feature allows us not to print colors on the materials we use but to emphasize the color that is already present under the natural surface of the leather, fabric or wood.

We like to think that this practice allows us to remember our ancestors who wrote by carving stone in caves.”

Why did they choose FLUX?

“We chose FLUX thanks to our contacts with the Italian retailer 3DItaly, who provided us with information about the product which we found useful. We also found FLUX friendly to use from the very first moment.”

Wooden Gifts & More

Dennis Marechal, a 23 year old woodworker from Belgium whose mission it is to make sustainable wooden writing instruments for people all over the world. With his business Wooden Gifts And More, he uses special wood species from all over the world with a sustainable story to make stationery equipment unlike any other. Dennis started the business when he was 16 in his parents backyard to earn some money back from his hobby, but since then it has slowly evolved into a business that has sold pens in over 25 countries yet still the workshop is in my parents backyard. With Dennis’s company, he really wants to create the most unique (fountain) pens that people will use on a daily basis and gift to create everlasting memories.

Machine: FLUX Beambox Pro

Why did they choose FLUX?

“Since the start of my business personalization was key for me, I wanted people to have the possibility to add that extra touch to their pen. Something that made people appreciate the wood and the pen even more. In the beginning I used an external party, but this was a hassle with transportation, waiting times and much more.

So slowly I started orienting towards buying my own laser, a few brands repetitively showed up where Flux was one of them. The traits that really convinced me about the Flux laser was the great quality, versatility and the price. Besides that, the active community on social media was a great sign of credibility. Because a laser is always a significant investment, I contacted the Flux team in combination with some competitors, but here they truly set themselves apart.

Willing to go above and beyond for their customers and displaying an extremely thorough knowledge of the machine. Since purchasing the machine more than a year ago, I also haven’t had any issues, but any questions I had were always answered quickly and new updates/additions were shared in a free way.”

Ross McSweeney

Ross McSweeney is a hobbyist designer and creator. I started creating moving sculptures and machines in my spare time using traditional hand tools. Due to limited free time, Ross switched to laser cutting as it saves me countless hours of cutting, sanding, and testing bits and pieces. What was once a hobby is now slowly turning into a fun and exciting side business. (More Info: Shop | Downloadable Files on Etsy)

Machine: FLUX Beambox

Advantages of working with FLUX Laser:

  • Powerful Laser: For enthusiasts like me, 40W CO2 Laser is powerful enough for me to create and work on my projects , it cuts wood quickly
  • Easy to use: Especially the built-in HD Camera which makes cutting and engraving hassle-free with our preview mode – It’s such a useful function so I don’t waste any wood or other material
  • Wireless Integration: Beambox is fully equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity for a seamless workflow anywhere I am, for example, I design on my computer and send the file to the laser which is in another room. Very convenient for me!
  • Built-in cutting & engraving parameter setting: There are preset parameters for power and speed based on multiple materials equipped in FLUX Laser Cutter, it gives a better understanding of the parameters to use or start with, saving hours of work – It’s so easy to find the right settings for a new piece of material

Sylvia Draws LLC

Sylvia Smith, aka Sylvia Draws LLC, creates products that are designed to make people smile! Her work features bright, cheerful colors, cute characters, and clever designs that are sure to brighten anyone’s day. (More Info: Website | Shop)

Machine: FLUX Beambox

Advantages of working with FLUX Laser?

  • Spacious Work Area: Beamox offers a large, square work area, and the laser bed is spacious and easy to maintain and keep clean
  • Easy to Use: Having had some previous laser cutter experience, Sylvia was blown away by how easy the Beambox was to set up and use! When Sylvia used a laser cutter previously, it did not have the camera feature, which is incredibly helpful
  • Convenient Assembly: Sylvia was amazed that her Beambox arrived completely assembled and practically ready to use! There was some pretty simple setup and then for who was set to start cutting!
  • Intuitive Interface: Sylvia highlights she loves the full color screen on the Beambox, and she found the material presets in Beam Studio to be extremely helpful. There are even material test swatches pre-loaded so you can easily test the power and speed settings for any material. Sylvia uses Adobe Illustrator to create her designs, but she finds the Beam Studio software to be incredibly intuitive and easy to use when it comes to setting up my projects for cutting and engraving. Sylvia also really appreciate that the software is installed on my machine and not cloud based, to me this is a huge advantage FLUX laser cutters have over competitors

Why did they choose FLUX?

“Ever since I purchased my FLUX Beambox last September, I have felt so inspired and creatively energized to create new fun products for my brand. I receive so many compliments on the work I have created using my laser cutter, and my business has grown exponentially since I added Beambox to my toolbox.’ Sylvia added. She especially mentioned the ability to dream up an idea, design, and execute it within a matter of hours in her own home is a game changer!”

Bandicute

Bandicute, an Australian handmade business based in Gunning, NSW. As a creative mother and daughter duo, we have been designing and creating our own handmade children’s clothing and homewares line for the past five years. We purchased our Flux laser cutter at the end of 2021 in order to expand our creative pursuits and create amazing products to complement our already successful range. (More Info: Shop)

Machine: FLUX Beambox Pro

Advantages of working with FLUX Laser?

  • Affordable Price: It was a great entry point and price range as a newcomer to laser cutting
  • Good Customer Support: It is one of the vital reasons for Bandicute to  choose FLUX as the brand has a head office/reseller site based in Melbourne while FLUX Inc. headquarter is located in Taiwan. The team has been so helpful in helping us to learn how to use our machine. We find the service outstanding and very personalized
  • Large Work Area: Bandicute chose the Beambox Pro for its large work area so they have flexibility in what can be created. To date Bandicute has been making the own earrings and ornaments and more recently which have been able to make their own signage for the market stall so it is looking amazingly professional
  • Beam Studio – User-friendly Software: ‘We have prior knowledge of Adobe Illustrator so we create all of our svg files ourselves and export them to the beam studio software.’  Bandicute said, ‘Beam studio is very simple to learn and even if you don’t know how to create your own files, they can be purchased from other designers so they are ready to go’
  • Easy to Assemble: Bandicute highlighted that the Beambox Pro is very easy to assemble – ‘It is pretty much plug in and once we followed the easy process for calibrating the camera, connecting the software and checking the mirrors, we were off and haven’t looked back.’
  • Versatility: Bandicute mentioned they are also impressed by the versatility of the machine with so many different materials they can work with. ‘For the past five years we have been hand carving our own stamps to print fabric for our projects. We can now design our stamps and cut them on the laser cutter which saves so much time!’ Bandicute added.

Learn More About the FLUX Beam Series

CLICK HERE to visit the FLUX website to learn more about the FLUX Beam Series and where you can find the laser cutter at a local retailer. Unlock your imagination and creativity with these next-level laser cutters.