I loved the idea of the Laser 2.x project, but I was disappointed to find that the useable area seems to be around 12" X 20". In the US, standard sheets of just about everything that go into a laser are in 12" increments. Most people will want a laser that can accept a 12" X 24" sheet and cut within .25" on each edge. I don't know what drove the design decision to make the working dimension approximately 20" in the X direction, but it's a shame to have a laser that will almost cut a 24" sheet, but in practice, when buying standard sheets of material, will require 12" X 12" material, typically with more edge waste and a significantly higher cost per square inch for the material (or manually cutting 12" X 24" sheets in half).
Yes, I get that this is a build project and we're all free to scale it up a little if we like, but it just seems from my own needs and many comments I've seen on this forum that a lot of people want the 12" X 24" size.
This is not just a Laser 2.x issue. I went off in search of other solutions, and I found a very nice XY stage from China.
http://www.lightobject.com/Pro-400600-X-Y-Stages-for-DIY-CO2-Laser-P707.aspx#I wasn't above cheating, and buying a solution instead of redesigning my own, but alas, the 18" X 24" class of XY table would probably net a 20" to 21" usable dimension in the X direction, much like the Laser 2.x. Big thanks to Marco at LightObject.com for the excellent pre-sales support he provided.
Many of the fully assembled Chinese imported lasers have this "slightly too small" problem, too. It's frustrating.
I'm not going to buy a laser printer that requires me to crop all of my 8.5" X 11" letter sized paper to a maximum 9.9" length, and I don't want to build a laser that requires me to chop 4" off every standard sized sheet of foam, plastic, wood, etc.
The hobby CNC routers don't seem to have this problem. They're more customer oriented and are almost always available in sizes that accept 12" X 12" or 12" X 24" or 12" X 18" or 25" X 25" (slightly larger than 2' X 2') sheets.
Unless someone has a better suggestion, I guess I'll go with the basic Laser 2.x design concept, and extend the X and Y axes to cut to the edge of a 12" X 24" sheet. So, I'll be drawing my own plans, ordering my own unique extrusions from Misumi, ordering my own unique lengths of MakerSlide, making my own panels, making my own mistakes and reordering parts to fix those mistakes, etc. While I'm doing that, I might as well extend the frame on the right side to make a work surface where I can prep materials or design on the PC that I'll also use as a controller and user interface, with storage under the table for the PC, sheets of stock material, laser supplies, etc. The frame under the laser XY table on the left will be enclosed and would house the fume extractor, air pump, water pump, water reservoir, laser power supply, etc. The extended table on the right side would house a longer 80W laser tube on the back side.
I really didn't want to get into that much design, but I know that I'd be unhappy every time I trimmed 4" of scrap off a 24" sheet, or paid $11.06 for one square foot of foam, rather than paying $8.19 per square foot for larger, more convenient sheet stock that would net an extra column of parts I won't get by cutting two 12" X 12" sheets.