First off NO this is not a cheap K40/Blue evilbay laser. It is a mid priced Vollern WR3020 one from
http://en.voiernlaser.com/ and ordered from here
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/2857016?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.653c4c4d4yXqoiBasic transaction was fairly simple dealing with Ronny whose English is good. For a freight option I used TNT air which was under a week for delivery. Sea Freight would have meant port fees handling and a delay so Air made sense in this case.
Basic specs are 40W, 300x200mm Bed, Air Assist nozzle, water cooled and adjustable height bed. It includes water and air pumps and also an extraction fan and ducting. Mine also came with an Aluminium Honeycomb platform and the standard fixture platform.
The costs of a cheap K40 brought to this spec with extras and time spent makes this one well worth considering.
It will take a few days to get to a first cut so patience including for me
The few shots in this post are just a quick look at. There is a few minor cosmetic issues (including a crack of the front window) to deal with but generally packaging and contents look good
Watching with keen interest
Adjustable feet on. I forgot before the head also includes a low power laser diode for initial setup.
Linear Rail and belt drive seems really nice on the cross axis. The other axis runs a dual ended Nema Stepper driving belts at each side and a chunky rail and cable rack.
First job is to peel that blue plastic film off the PSU enclosure!
Best part of a new thing is peeling the protective film off.
Agreed
Blue film removed from the stock bed, external handles, paper removed from the cracked window and I will get into the PSU tomorrow when I have a proper look at the electrics and in particular the Earthing on the Chinese made product
Earthing - CHECK
General cabling on the mains side looks up to the job, sensible lengths of cable and heat shrink on all of them. The universal 2 pin plugs on the rear aren't ideal but at 25W and 15W for the air and water pumps are not really a major issue. The main extraction fan doesn't have any spec but looks around 50W.
First mod of sorts will be fitting the air pump for the nozzle in the electronics bay. There is plenty of airflow available with a 50mm hole in the floor with this air then being drawn through the main chamber exhaust fan so any heat will get removed. The air pump has rubber feet already do vibration transferred to the case and laser will be minimal if any.
Note commencing the removal of the evil blue plastic too
Loom tidied up. 20 Cable ties instead of 3 helps a lot.
Exposed mains pins on the cutting bay LED light disconnected. Added two cable grommets where the single insulated cable went through the chassis.
Rest of the Blue plastic removed and a peek inside the laser power supply for good measure.
Air Pump installed, wired internally, vibration seems fine.
LAME
10% spot test. Proper setup and some test cuts later or tomorrow but so far so good
Punched through the cardboard at 10% btw looks nice and clean even way out of focus.
30% quick test on some scrap Ply. May not have been clear on the spec or the earlier photos but the front of the laser is removable which means you can feed it longer stock x 300mm wide and use the laser to cut that strip if needed. So get your 2.4x1.2m sheets stripped to 300 wide then play, locally our Bunnings with do this for $0
Some details of the adjustable bed and a few photos of the Cable chains.
Fairly straight forward upgrade at some stage if I think it is needed will be adding a simple stepper drive and motor to electrically raise and lower the bed. Currently there is a wheel under the unit that drives the 4 legs via the toothed belt. If as I suspect it will mainly get used for .5 - 3mm materials it won't be needed but for $20-30 worth of bits it could be done. This was one of the major reasons to get this over the K40 with a fixed bed, so many videos on youutube showing props platforms and such rubbish to get a correct focal length for a given material thickness.
The LED light at the back provides plenty of light and now the other ends pins are disconnected electrically it's 240V is safer.
Adding a laser lockout switch to the lid would be easy if anyone thought is needed. Certainly for a school or where multiple people had access to it highly recommended.
Time to install some software and check the Laser alignment and focus. Several Coffees and or Beers may be required
There is a set of Australian Standards relating to Lasers and Laser Safety for higher power (Class 3&4) Lasers. Regulations on Lasers are a mixed bag that vary somewhat from State to State due to our out of date Federal Constitution like our electrical and gas safety laws and regulations
We do have limits on the power of Laser pointers for example (due to idiots pointing them at planes and people) and some regulations on medical Lasers (due to unskilled idiot 'beauty therapists') and there use but for industrial Lasers the Standards seem to be the best guide. We also have workplace Safety laws that will refer back to those standards, breaching those isn't an option unless you want to be shutdown or fined.
In the case of this or any Laser Cutter minimizing or removing the risks of Laser Reflections or Emissions is critical as is always wearing protective glasses. So to bring this particular unit closer to a low risk enclosure (Class 1) fitting magnetic interlocks on all doors, lightproof seals, keyswitches and such could and maybe should be done. As I mentioned in the preceding post easy to do.
Each country I am sure will vary so a discussion on this topic isn't easy on a forum with a worldwide membership.
Dare I say it but 'commonsense' applies and be careful out there
Not very adventurous but I don't have the extraction fan hooked up yet. 8% (reduced from 15% during the engrave due to burning) power for the engraved letters and 12% for the cut (to high). Edges fairly clean but power/speed needs a lot of playing. Fan hookup and plastics soon.
Taking a detour for a few days. Assembly time for my CR10S 3D Printer as the extraction fan mount sucks beyond all sensible....
2 days is because Creality first sent me a CR-10 not the S version I ordered and paid for so I need to swap most of the electronics out and add the second lead screw
Also looking at software for ongoing use of the Laser the plan is to use Inkscape
https://inkscape.org/en/ with plugins from Scorch Works
http://www.scorchworks.com/ The software that came with the Laser works 'ok' but is clunky in a Chinese/English sort of 1/2 finished way.
Happy to hear from anyone with better ideas on software?
Thanks beanflying for reporting all this.
Enjoying playing with new toys and software and this one was different to the stock K40 to be worth it
Got the CR-10S fairly well dialed in to print a new fan adapter but the models already made didn't really suit so I have been taking a crash course in Fusion 3D and learning to driver Slicing software. Drawings nearly done so I should get to print them tomorrow and while not perfect cosmetically the prints are mechanically up to the job. So some heavier cutting over the weekend I hope.
I will add the print files here if anyone wants them. They should suit the K40 too.
Watching both the laser cutter and 3D printer with interest.
Is the glass platen heated ?
Running PLA for these tests. It does have an insulated heated bed. Gets easily to 70C+ in my sub 10C shack (really getting over winter!) With the PLA I am getting better adhesion and less warping with low temperatures on the bed (circa 20C) and the printer is going into a cabinet for elevated ambient temperatures for ABS and such.
Close up cat shots and a torture test I ran last night. Rather than clog up this thread maybe we need a dedicated 3D printer thread and their industrial uses (I haven't found one) now the printers have matured as a product? Youtube is an excellent Resource too.
I'm hanging to see how this laser goes cutting acrylic.
Using some newly gained Remedial Fusion 360 skills and my 3D printer I have sorted out a modified exhaust flange for the stock fan. It is fairly airtight thanks in part due to the silicone tube inlaid into the flange. Part of the issue with the stock one was it needed to be removable to access the Laser Tube area with a little geometry and offset it can now stay in place and allow the door swing if needed. Also the stock one was sh1T like on all the K40 clones.
4mm Brass knurl nuts are dead easy to insert into the print and the outer flange I made suitable for fitting a better quality industrial blower if needed at some stage.
Happy to make the Fusion or STL files available but it needs a little tidy up to make it really nice.
The Laser can no go into a more final location and get to doing some proper cutting.
So I went to the big smoke to buy an outlet flange to punch through the shed wall. #FAIL #NILSTOCK
So back to Fusion 360 which is growing on me. Two custom interlocking flanges 89mm ID on the way in for the Blue supplied flexible pipe and 90mm on the outside for a standard stormwater elbow and a ring to retain some flywire to keep the buggs from getting inside. Reason to use a commercial elbow is mainly as the supports needed to 3D print it would have added 10-12 hours and cost more in filament than buying one.
Providing the Springtime Gales/Hail and Pouring Rain have a break tomorrow breakout the holesaw for the wall and some plastic lasering tomorrow.
As the rain comes in again so the plan worked a treat
Is a plastic exhaust manifold a good idea? Some of the build/setup guides I've seen on the net recommend metal because of fire risk. Just sayin' - I don't have a laser cutter myself but was interested in getting one, and would have to squeeze it into a tiny apartment.
Not sure about the fire risk on the outlet
. The only thing that will be exiting is smoke and plastic vapors and at 40W shouldn't be to hot but I could always throw a thermocouple near the outlet if it seems a problem. Different story if you were higher power and throwing sparks off metal I guess.
Minor delay my spare PC has is having Windoze 'Upgrade' issues so I am rebuilding another.
So I am re visiting this thread of mine after some useage with mainly Balsa, Ply and Card and all going well (touch wood).
This is still not a recommendation to buy from the seller and the minor inbound shipping damage finished up unresolved
Surprisingly I have done very little with Acrylic or plastics mainly due to my now fleet of 3 x 3D Printers
All I have done is get a decent feed speed and power for 2 and 3mm cuts but haven't got any settings for engraving or pushed the limits in anyway.
So I have got a small stack of Acrylic sheets and plan to make some side and bottom panels for my HP 419A that came without any as part of this.
Since last checked in I have dismantled the main cutting bed and rehoused it with a combination of 3D Printed sections and Aluminium Angle which makes doing multiple runs easy as there is a fixed locatable zero point to use as a reference due to the raised corner and edges. The small jack screws at the front of the Laser allow some adjustment of the bed.
More to follow....
Also a couple of shots of yesterdays 2mm Acrylic plate fitted into a 3DP printed enclosure wrapped around a 76 year old working and in spec. Weston Standard Cell
Just because Old HP Rocks, so none of that Agilent or Keysight Rubbish
Time for some engraving testing with Acrylic.
In order of most speed at the left and the best result 20% Power @ 300mm/s engraved and the outer cut was on 2mm Acrylic 40% power @ 10mm/sec. Some of the deeper slower engraves will lend themselves to paint filled enclosure fascias.
I will run some tests at lower power settings but the last one seems close to where it needs to be and the laser seems happy at that speed.
Cleaning up a couple of random boxes of 'stuff' today turned up a remnant of 6mm Acrylic so off to the Laser with it to help the cleanup.
Continuing on with a higher speed lower power engraving the 10% @ 300mm/sec is looking really sharp and clean. Maybe some very minor improvements to be made but unless you want to back fill the engraving with paint then this is about the correct setting.
I haven't tried cutting over 3mm Acrylic in the past so this was a quick Google some guesstimates on power and speed and call me amazed it was so easy
Several things of note focal range is important on thicker materials so set it toward the middle of the cut (adjustable bed is great!). The 4mm/s @ 70% is a better result than the 5mm but both released clean and you can see the edges are fairly well flame polished by the laser it is possible a reduction to 3mm might help but below is a different option that seems to work better again.
There is a very slight angle to the cuts (the parts still self stand so it is slight) and some visible Striations on the bottom of the cut. From what I have read this is caused in part by to much air from the nozzle causing cooling so I will be fitting a needle valve to the air system to reduce it for Acrylic cutting. This apparently allows the beam for focus the energy and heat with less cooling vertically through the cut.
I am thinking based on this that if needed 8mm Clear would be about the maximum cut for the laser but at that you are really into CNC Router or bandsaw territory with some edge sanding.
EDIT: Tried 2 and 3mm cut speeds of the tiny bit I had left. Cleaner but increased angle across the cut so air reduction is next.