So I (Johno, Yenrabbit, that other ginger dude, whatever) joined the project. Without further ado, here is what prompted me to join:

(https://hackaday.io/project/560-mini-laser-cutter) And a sample cut through polystyrene:

There are two DVD drive sleds, mounted at right angles inside an old power supply, both stepper motors driven by easydrivers and an ATmega328 with gbrl firmware to interpret gcode. A 500mW laser being (under)driven my an LM317 based laser driver and some fluff for the fan etc round out the setup.

I also have a larger axis from a printer which I can swap out for one of my sleds. To test an idea I taped a lens to it and tried to harness the sun to my will. My nose probably got more burnt than the wood - precision and grass+electrical tape do not go together!

I think that about wraps it up for my introductory log. I have a few more steppers lying around from a laser printer I destroyed yesterday, and I am hoping to dig up a few more drives soon, so hopefully more hacks to come :)