|
How does the airflow on the included K40 fan compare to some cheap 80mm pc fans? I have tons of those lying around and was thinking 2 (or maybe doubled up to 4) might be a better fitting replacement. I ordered my K40 on Friday, there were literally dozens of sellers to choose from, all with 99% approval ratings, all within $10 of one another, and all shipping from California (I'm in Vermont), so I picked the only one that guaranteed Thursday delivery instead of Friday/following Monday. Of course Saturday morning I wake up to a out of stock email. Now I re-ordered it from somebody else for $5 less, hopefully it still gets here by Friday. From everything I've read it sounds like over the past 2 years these units have been getting cheaper & quality control (at least as far as packing & shipping goes) has been getting better. I'll bet the importers must have so many of these things sitting around & there is so much competition that they have priced them down to barely above cost and now are trying to distinguish themselves by (gasp!) getting your order delivered undamaged & offing customer service. Hopefully mine arrives undamaged & on Monday I can honor our service members by blasting holes in poo poo with frickin' laser beams.
|
#
¿
May 23, 2016 20:34
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:01 |
|
|
politicorific posted:Okay dumb question, the white wire in the upper left would appear to be the ground to my apartment's electrical box, but it isn't hooked up to any of my outlets. What country do you live in? Typical electrical practices are going to vary widely between different nations. I'm not sure what that tan wire is, it looks like a grounding wire for the box but I wonder if it isn't just tied into the line neutral somewhere else in the building. It's also possible that it is a ground wire, but it's pretty small gauge and since you don't know how/where it's tied into 'ground' it might not handle any serious current. I also am not sure what that red jumper wire is doing between the 20A & 30A double breakers. It kind of looks like they didn't have a long enough wire to run another line from the main breaker to the 30A one, so they piggybacked on another hot terminal closer to it.
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2016 17:27
|
|
|
Double posting cause I just got my laser this afternoon!    Surprisingly it's very clean on the inside, doesn't look like any cracks in the tube, the bed looks flat, the controller board has a USB-B connector & the dongle has a Feb. 2016 date on it so it's got to be a relatively recent revision.
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2016 21:53
|
|
|
I just wish I had time to play with it. It was supposed to come Friday and I'd have had a 3 day weekend to burn stuff with it, but on the last leg of the trip somebody at FedEx got lazy and it spent 36 hours in a warehouse less than 150 miles from me. I've got to work late tonight and I'm leaving tomorrow for a weeklong vacation, so no pew-pew until the 8th at the earliest. 
|
|
#
¿
May 31, 2016 22:24
|
|
|
If you get lucky like I did you'll get a laser that doesn't need any calibration, all the parts included and works just fine with Windows 10. But since these are all knockoffs of knockoffs with little quality control there isn't really any way to guaranty you get a good one even if you buy yours from the same distributor I got mine from (Orion Motor Tech). If you are willing to risk having to spend some time learning how to align the mirrors, etc. I'd say you've got a pretty decent chance of getting one that works out of the box or just needs some minor adjustment. As far as capability goes, it will etch or cut paperboard like no tomorrow. I'm holdinging off on playing around with wood and acrylic until I get my air assist and exhaust system upgraded, but I've lasered a few sheets of very thin cardboard:  I'd say this piece was about 0.5mm or a little thicker, with the power dial turned down as low as I could and still get a beam out of the tube. The first engraving is barely etching the cardboard, the last one is so far through you can see light through the engraved portion.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2016 23:55
|
|
|
ante posted:Oh you'll find a use for it And from what I understand running the laser at less than max power will extend it's life, so a 40W running at 25% may last longer than a 20W running at 50%.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2016 04:26
|
|
|
huhu posted:Would this material be decent for laser cutting? The description says it's coated in linseed oil. I'm not sure how much more flammable that makes the wood after it's all dried out, but I'd have one hand on the off button and the other on a fire extinguisher to be safe.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2016 17:55
|
|
|
Rakins posted:Does anyone use a planer to solve that problem? Was looking for a cheap one on craigslist. From personal experience you don't want to use a planer on material thinner than 1/4 inch. With real wood it's likely to splinter or crack the material which can jam up the planer and nick the blades. With MDF it might be safer since it's homogenous, but most planers (especially cheap ones) are going to give you some snipe at the ends. Mine is a $500 one and I still get between 1/32" - 1/16" snipe on the ends of boards because the top carriage isn't rigid against the bed. You'd be better off getting a $10 digital caliper and just making adjustments to your cad files based on the actual material thickness you are cutting.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2016 16:22
|
|
|
You want CO2 laser rated eyewear, the protection needs to be rated for around 10,000nm wavelengths. Make sure the item lists either CO2 specifically, or even better the wavelength of light it blocks. Here is the pair I ordered
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2016 17:15
|
|
|
biracial bear for uncut posted:Would this machine and this upgrade kit be a good starting point for getting into the hobby (without ever putting power to the machine until after installing the upgrade kit)? I think those kits are overkill. You don't need those huge drivers or a new power supply, and the control panel is superfluous if you are going to have a computer right next to the machine to control it anyway. Here's what I got to upgrade my K40: $100 Cohesion Mini3D controller board & drivers - This is made specifically to drop right into a K40 as a smoothieboard controller replacement with pre-installed custom firmware just for the K40. Took me less that 15 minutes to swap out my stock board, no problems at all. $35 Aquarium air pump $20 4" Inline duct fan - Very quiet but I might upgrade to a more powerful one, I can still smell some acrylic fumes when cutting. $12 4" duct hose $6 4" Dust hood adapter that fits almost perfectly in the rear air vent. $7 10x15mm Drag chain for air assist hose. This will just barely fit, you might want to buy a slightly smaller one. $20 Laser head w/ air assist $28 Laser focus lens for new head $10 Air hose $41 CO2 protective glasses $0 LaserWeb4 controller software. Was hoping to run mine on a headless Pi3 & accessed through a web interface on another PC but it looks like it isn't powerful enough. Works perfectly on my old (2014) laptop though. Total: $279 As far as exhaust goes you don't want to risk a small piece of cardboard or plywood with a glowing edge landing in a can of sawdust. I've had heavy cardstock smolder for almost a minute after I stopped cutting. Plus if you plan on cutting acrylic that stuff stinks so you won't want it vented into an enclosed space. Realistically you don't need a huge amount of airflow, just enough to create negative pressure inside the case so smoke won't seep out while cutting.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 13, 2017 15:56
|
|
|
peepsalot posted:Do any of the chinese laser cutter electronics have support for open source firmware / drivers / host application? Or is that a matter of completely replacing the controller with something like smoothieboard. I replaced my board with a cohesion mini 3d board a couple months ago. $100, drop in with no rewiring etc. 15 minute upgrade.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 16, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
It used to be you could spend extra money & get cutting edge technology before all your friends. Now you can spend extra money & get a proof of concept prototype.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 28, 2017 19:00
|
|
|
The bread and butter 40-50W Chinese CO2 lasers will do that for you once you add an air assist. You might have to spring for a more expensive one to get a bed bigger than 300mm x 200mm though.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2018 23:29
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:01 |
|
|
Sagebrush posted:california I'm glad I was lucky enough to be born in the US, if I grew up in the People's Republic of California I'm sure I would have a tumor by now. Extension cords, sawdust, everything causes cancer there. My prediction for WW3 is that it starts when they label coffee beans as carcinogenic and in response Seattle blocks all their ISP's from Amazon. Things escalate pretty quickly from there.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2018 23:38
|
|