Lasers - general chat.

[BobL]

DanL;

When you hit reply, click on " additional information" bottom left.. There you may add images..

Cheers
Bob

[DanL]

Thanks bob

This is how I think I will make the head and heat sink for my laser

[Mooselake]

After hemming and hawing (or perhaps we could call it deep introspective thinking and reviewing...) I just ordered one of those (claimed) 40W Chinese K40 Lasers from eBay, for not a lot more than the 2W solid state diode version I'd been looking at earlier.  It's supposed to ship out of California, so maybe in a week or so I'll see just how good a decision that was.

Kirk

[DanL]

good luck with that at lest you know if the controller is bad there is a good replacement

[Mooselake]

Yes, many choices for replacement controllers, from laserized Marlin on an arduino to smoothieboards to Mach3/4, with a lot of stops in-between.  From comments in the K40 G+ group and elsewhere even the Moshidraw controller and software might be getting better and be good enough for a while.  Remains to be seen, until then it's a project in a blue box.

First it has to get here without a lot of glass fragments rattling in the box.

Kirk

[ArtF]

Kirk:

Ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

  Let us know how it works out.

Art

[Mooselake]

Ill keep my fingers crossed for you.

Thanks!  Mine are crossed too.   I've got a few celtic knot laser patterns ready for testing.

It'll help fill the wait time until I can balance my checkbook with Auggie   Well, if ignore the honeydo list, that is.

FedEx says it's coming tomorrow.  I'm taking a break from building a workbench to put it on (ignoring that honeydo list again...), simple steel frame with a 2x (as in 2x6/2x8, must be 50x for you metric guys) top.

I'm sure it won't be as good as tweakie's (the only laser I've ever seen working) but hopefully it won't become a new fish reef in the lake down the road.

Kirk

[Mooselake]

The laser has landed!  After unpacking, fixing a couple loose screws, a quick alignment test (almost, not quite, needed a bit of adjusting), and installing the included LaserDRW I fired it up and engraved a Celtic knot pattern on cardboard.  Not the best looking results, but it proved it's working!  No outside venting, the window I was planning to use was caulked shut so I need some driver vent hose to reach an unsealed one, so I didn't get very adventurous.  Still, it'll engrave or cut cardboard on very low power, and I did a little practice Plexiglas engraving with some of the kid's drawings.  I'll try Gearotic DXFs with the included sw next.

It came double boxed, almost 2" of foam sheet around it, and the tube had (synthetic) foam rubber pads to protect it.  Using about a 4 gallon drywall style bucket for the cooling water (no leaks), and our soft tap water.

Couple pics attached.  I took some unboxing pictures that I'll post somewhere, too.  I'll seek out some dryer vent hose, distilled water, some RV antifreeze, and a bigger water reservoir tomorrow.  Flow switch and other goodies ordered, need to 3D print an air assist nozzle.

Kirk

[John T]

Thanks for pics  I had no idea how big a laser unit was - I probably can't afford it anyway but it looks pretty compact.  Lots of smoke?

John

[ArtF]

Kirk:

Excellent. I see the software actually varies the power over the run based on greyscale, I wish mine did.
Ill be interested in comparing cut power and depths with you. Let me know when you figure out speed
at 100% power to cut say 4mm acrylic or so.. Id be interested in your results.

In my experience, with a 40 watt even running a lot, a buck of water is fine, even it will not heat up.
Id just feel the water occasionally to be sure. I find it a lot more forgiving that youd think. I added
a full litre of windshield antifreeze to my bucket...I found that worked great last season..didnt use water
at all. 

Art