xiphmont

The bending brake has added a third dimension!

Not a perfect job, but not atrocious either.

I didn't notice till after I'd finished that the bend depth adjustment had slipped, so the bends are a little rounder than I'd have liked, but meh. Let's tack weld it and see how well it fits before complaining too hard.

Given the two laser control panels and the design comparison, what's the actual goal here?

The first goal is functional: I need to add a number of new control and status functions.

Second: I am a vain man, and I want this tool to look a little less hokey. Not entirely, just a little. I mean, I gotta be me.

The biggest addition will be a software control for the laser. I somewhat arbitrarily decided to go with a rebranded Anywells controller from LightObject-- I'll find out later if that was a good idea or not.

The huge, spread-out, not-calibrated-to-anything digital PWM laser current control gets replaced by a thumbwheel implementing a Kelvin ladder. And instead of a 7-segment LED display that simply goes from 0-100, I'll use a good-old analog meter that measures actual milliampres.

While we're at it, a matching analog meter reads cooling water temperature.

Like on the American control panel, the key switch is the only power on-off, and the emergency stop will be a real immediate-stop interlock.

I have an onboard air assist, so that needs a switch too, along with a lighting switch and two switched laser pointers, one a centering beam and another for focus.

And, why not steal the tube runtime meter from the nifty panel as well? :-)

Last of all, arrange it in a more 'American' style: functions grouped together, consistent labeling, and no angry color salad. And just one or two inside jokes, because the tool is still a bit hokey.

For contrast with the Chinese control panel posted earlier, here's a mid-80's control panel for an American-made laser supply.

It's about the same size, and roughly comparable, though there's more diagnostic functionality here than on the laser cutter.

Although I do think it's better overall, the big difference is really the aesthetic design. This is an unabashedly '80s American instrument panel. It fills an American geek with warm fuzzies.

BTW, thanks for the panel Taylor! :-) And thanks to me partner Fox for bringing it home for me.

Another post I meant to make a while ago... George, my Tiniest of Tinies, has taken a liking to lasers and mirrors.

eBay and Amazon advertise a number of little Chinese 'optics experiments' kits with a laser line source that makes three parallel beams, a number of partially frosted lenses, prisms and mirrors, and a few other fun things. There's no English version but it looked like a good gift anyway.

Using Google's realtime image translate and no knowledge of technical Chinese whatsoever, I cobbled together a partly translated box and a translated instruction manual. Unless the original Chinese was quite subtle, I don't think there was actually a ton of useful content there, but hey.

In any case, here's scans: My English translation, and the original Chinese pages (in the event someone would like to improve on my atrocious hack job). Given the Amazon comments, I expect a few others may be interested :-)

(Empire of the Lasers has nothing to do with the original Chinese. It's a silly take on George's usual gaming handle.)

....and, of course, immediately after mastering the water slide decal-fu, I discover the laser printer will, with no intermediate steps, print and fuse directly to the polyester diffuser sheet thankyouverymuch.

Ah well. Knowledge gained for next time. Hmmm.... I wonder upon what else this thing will print directly.

<img src="banana.jpg">

I needed a few chunks of acrylic that were a little thicker than anything in my supply closet. Cyanoacrylate (superglue) bonds PMMA nicely, makes an optically clear joint, is easier to work with than acrylic-specific solvent glues, and doesn't add nasty internal stresses to the plastic.

On the downside, the bond isn't quite as fast (I suppose this is just as easily an upside) and the index of refraction of the glue won't be quite the same as the sheet. A perfect joint will still be noticeable right around the critical angle where seam's angle of total internal reflection will be a little different from the rest of the plastic.

IMHBCO that's small price to pay for getting perfect, strong, bubble-free joints every time without getting light-headed indoors.

Pic related: two in-progress parts curing and my go-to favorite CA glue. Once the glue is fully cured, I'll mill and polish them into rough lenses.

I hate to do this to a nice indicator made in the US, but it's the year 2000+17 and still no one has digitized any of the classic industrial control typefaces used by American manufacturers in the early- and mid-20th century.

A few used Futura or a close knockoff, but that sticks out a little too much. And no, Sublime is not a valid answer either. I used Leroy pen sets. Sublime is neither authentic nor true to purpose, it's just a more subtle kitch font.

TD (@enginetankard) will concur--- I wouldn't shut up about it when he was here.

Chinese laser cutters often come with a little air pump; it's used to blow smoke away from the optics while cutting. You're supposed to set it up somewhere near the machine, and run an air tube in. It's a simple little AC coil/solenoid attached to a piston. It also vibrates enough that it will walk across a workbench under its own power unless you bolt it to something. I want my air pump internal to the cutter, and I want it automatically controlled to only be on when cutting. Vibration would be a major problem mounting it inside the case, so I took two of the little ones, machined a custom output valve housing/gasket and connected them in opposing orientation. Viola! No vibration.

I've built up quite a pile of project pics I took meaning to post, then never got around to it.

OK, so, laser cutter.

China sells a lot of cheap cheap cheap "It's so cheap I can't believe that price covers shipping let alone materials" maker tools. Some are better than others, and many barely work for their intended purpose out of the box. Overall, plan to get what you pay for, and I mean that in both the good and bad senses.

Most of these tools make decent starting kits though! Research a bit, then choose the kit with the most parts you want to keep (or the fewest you plan to toss).

I bought a K40 variant (SL320) on AliExpress, and I'm building it into a complete cutter now. It has a decent X/Y stage, came with a good tube (which I promptly broke while being an idiot), a larger than normal case, tubing, flow sensor, air assist head, and a better than average power supply. It also came with an exhaust fan and aquarium pump I don't plan to use, a useless Z-stage, and an air pump that makes half of the ideal.

Others are already doing a good, detailed job of documenting their K40 builds. I've been referring to Dons Things and Tims Machines extensively for tips in my own build. So, I'm going to stick to pictures, terse captions, and the few things I've uncovered that I haven't seen solved elsewhere.

I don't want my water cooling tubing dangling out back to an open bucket and a failure-prone aquarium pump, and I'm pretty sure an external chiller is overkill. I want a fully internal, closed water cooling loop. Water cooling may be useless (if still cool) for PCs these days (ha ha, see what I did there), but it does mean nice cooling parts are cheap and plentiful for other uses.

So, step 1: shoehorn in the biggest possible radiator core. And by biggest possible, I mean, "move everything else as far out of the way as I can to make more room". That starts with lifting the laser tube tray up by about 2cm. The original mounting flange is just tack-welded on. It's easy to pop it right off.

The limitation to how much higher I can go is actually the clearance of the mirrors along the left side, and the XY stage fitting under the door opening lip in the front. You can see I also nibbled off about half the depth of the left side of the door opening lip.

Aside: freehand nibbling is really hard to get straight.