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K50 Laser It arrived early

Well I have finally filled my work shop to brim any more equipment I will need a bigger work shop that’s not going to happen unless I move. I still got to figure out were some bits will be home.

Well after siting in Lichfield DHL hub of all places for a few days with out warning and by luck I checked the DHL Germany Tracking ID I got from a great seller from china with a German warehouse.

I got out for delivery lucky I was in work to receive it. as if it had been a day later would have been my day off.

100kg of fun to get it through the office door.

With the help of the pallet ways driver we man handled the 100KG create in to the office.

Armed with a screwdriver I thought I would open it but no it was 9mm screw bolts lucky I had a manual nut runner. 22 nuts/screws later and the lid came off to reveal the top of the K50.

Yes, I know its not the standard blue and white version but the blue and whites are now shipping with a different DSP that is not Ruida 644 so don’t work with Lightburn Software. That was not an option I wanted. Will end up covering the green at some point but for the moment it’s the big green machine.

Now un boxed and with the internal boxes containing water pump, air pump, vent hose, instructions, cd rom, and sealants, tubes, tools, etc its still a whacking 65KG and an awards size to lift by myself lucky me and a friend share a day off so I un crated the machine. Yesterday after hours me and mate lifted it home it just fitted in my SUV with a little persuasion, we then drove it home and loaded it to the man cave. (god I hate walking backwards especially when there are a few steps and a garden path to navigate.

Unboxed ready to go home.

During the day I had been off to B&Q to get 18mm MDF sheet cut down to make a work top thankfully it all fitted the lid does not raise all the way but may revisit that later there is just enough room for me to squeeze in to the work shop.

I then took a break to make some food and kiss my little one good night as he was off to bed.

Its very tight in the cave ran the water tubes and air assist need to bolt it down tonight. Took the distilled water from old k40 bucket drilled some holes for new container need to add one more for power but last night was all about getting the machine up and running to make sure it all worked.

Unbound the laser head before initial power up plug everything in. power on laser homed and then repositioned itself, tested the electronic bed works goes up and down removed the blue plastic. Changed the ip address to as set as 192.168.1.100 my network doesn’t need the 1 so set to 0 connected to light burn no issues.

Ready to test alignment hit switched on the laser fan kicked in and hit the pulse button water error looked at my return water return line water was trickling through. Odd I thought check the laser tube for kinks in pipe work no all fine. Topped the water up Doubting myself.  Same thing error eek at this point my tech head was throbbing. I then sat back and thought about things I then revered in with outlet and it work dam you who ever labelled it.

So, it’s now 11:30pm mirrors are aligned all the way from the factory in china impressed. So call it a night will go do some further testing tonight but all looking good.

Its Alive will be doing more testing soon
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How much can one man cave hold in a 3.15m polygon

In answer too much, been cleaning on and off an hour or 2 here and there and starting to make a dent. this post has been going on for the last 2 weeks have been updating picutures as i get bits sorted.

Chaos in the man cave. it was alot worse than this as have moved a lot around.

2 rack shelving units to move resize and rewire. one housing my 2 x 3d printers. one housing my CNC router and Viynal cutter/plotter. 3rd work top for my laser cutter.

A this point i realise i have collected alot of stuff let the sorting begin,

Both moved and have changed hight of shelving so bottom parts of the racking can be used for storage and top half for equipment.

Getting there first rack sorted can now see the floor of the work shop.

Right after 2 weeks of 20 / 30 mins here and here it’s getting better just started on wiring last night both working 3d Printers are both wired up just got to add a raspberry pi to each on for printing capture and control.

On to the CNC and vinyl cutter and storage racking. Have moved the shelving up so I can house more storage as space is already tight in my little shed.

moved from on side of the shed to the other have also adjusted shelving positions to allow for more storage.
Just needs wiring up have installed power strip ready for plug in later on.

Right just got to wire up the CNC machine and run USB cables for CNC and Vinal cutter back to new workshop computer. It is starting to get to the stage where I can see the floor of the workshop just my desk to sort out and worktop to order for the laser desk. have put my k40 on it for the time being.

this will be going off the for sale pile soon.

just a bit more to sort out. Then find a box to put my out of order prusa in till I am ready to do the Haribo upgrade in the near future.

Last bit of mess to sort out and then ready for some wiring

Well, the count down has started I ordered my K50 Chinese eBay model in the green and black configuration should be arriving at the office on the 4th march just got to get I home.

just ordered my K50 50 watt roll on the 4th march

Now to get ready my old workshop pc had started to fall to bits so time for an upgraded so reconditioned my old gaming server to be my new workshop powerhouse. started to commission it last night swapped it over from the old machine time. will post some more pictures of the work shop once its all fineshed.

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Running out of space fast time for a re shuffle.

Well the count down has started for my new 50 watt laser now i need to have a spring clean and move around the joys of small work shop.

So 3D printers, cameo 3 cutter and CNC machine are moving from one side of the cave to the other old laser cutters going to my smaller wales workshop.this will be done a few weeks before I place the order for the new machine.

I am going to also be purchasing an industrial chiller as then I don’t need buckets of water hanging around. so investing CW-3000 to see if worth it. this will be ordered in the near future so will be ready to install with the new laser.

I will also be ordering some laser safety glasses so I can protect my eyes as wife gets scared when I go on about the big scary laser and to be truth full would do some damage if eyes ever met beam.

Will post some images of the new layout soon and will be looking to get some streams up after everything is wired up and working.

working on a list of projects i want to show being done shorlty but short list for this year

  • Haribo Conversion of my original Prusa i3 mk2s as since doing the multi-material conversion has not worked so going back to a single extruder have the metal work for the frame just need to do some PETG of parts and get some t-nuts smooth rods and other parts to get ready for the build.
  • odifying my 50 Watt laser as will need some add-ons as its a Chinese laser. So fitting amp meter checking over all the wiring looking at pictures I will be replacing the 2 American plugs on the side for accessories and replacing them with industrial C-13 connectors as much more reliable connection and earth as well. i
  • live streams will work on doing this depending on how well my videos go down as hate being in front of the camera but for you lot, I will do it.
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Happy New Year to all my supporters out there in cyberspace.

Well back from Christmas brake well for a few week now but day job has been keeping me busy. I have have been playing with wiring and relays and arduino uno and other little ideas. I am currently sell off some stuff it make some money to buy my new laser for workshop. I am going to start to play with my cnc machine time allowing as got some great ideas for some future projects.

keep watching this space for some fun projects that are coming up soon.

will make 2019 great year. had a little bit of a tidy up before leaving for Christmas.

Did manage to do some Christmas gifts. next year i will do them directly on their boxes as the new laser will have a bigger bed.

Christmas eve boxes for family will do direct engraving on the boxes next year this was just a mock up.
Gift tags i put together for some pressens
Beer holder for brother inlaw (Not my design)
Voucher for Nice’s day out using someone else artwork traced and modified for a gift.
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New Laser coming soon bit of Prep work

I have decided that i need a bigger laser now before I bite the bullet press the buy it now button on eBay. I have been doing my homework as a 50watt laser may look the same but are definitely not equal.

I have been looking at about 5 or 6 they are all around the £1200 pound mark they all look like a Chinese laser blue and cream paintwork. But when you look closely they are very different machines. things I have noticed.

DSP early Ruda  controller / newer Ruda controllers there are  the early monochrome display model or the newer colour display  look identical on the panel.

Ethernet connection or not this is dependent on DSP from what i understand might be a earlier model or it could be different variation of DSP

Manual bed compared to the manual electric bed. I am going for manual electric bed as looking at the model I want there is a Z-axis that I might be able to tap in to make allow it to adjust bed hight automatically.

Now this is a beast of a machine size wise it 1020 x 650 x 630 mm and 102 kg apparently so going to have to call a mate to help transport it to the cave. 

I have just knocked together in fusion 360 a workbench that will be 710 high time I have added castors to the bottom of it as want to be able to move the machine around,  as this makes the ajustment of lenses easier to perform. 

 As I hate doing woodwork I am going to get someone to cut all the lengths of wood for me so I can put it together.

I have made a shopping list of wood to make my life easy

50×47 timber Qty
50x47x650 8
50x47x550 2
50x47x920 4
MDF Sheet  
12x1020x650 1
12x1020x650 ( 100 mm Sq notched out of each corner) 1
Hardware  
90 Degree corner Bracket 8
50 x 50 Casters 2
50 x 50 Casters with brakes 2
A lot of screws.  

I wont be buying this till the new year as I need to get some money together the joys of not being a YouTube celebrity. I have to fund it my self so will be selling off my games collection for arcade machines to fund this new adventure.

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New Safety Panel for K40 Co2 Laser part 3

Been a couple of days I know since I posted last part. been fitting in bits between doing other stuff as having a nearly 14-month-old who is just about starting to walk keeping me busy as ever.  I also do not want to disable the laser for long periods of time. as got some gifts to get run up before I head off to Wales for holiday period.

I Started off by cutting wooden panel as will cut perspex one after the system is up and running as easy to swap over. also a learning curve as not cut perspex using the C3D mini board. so will need to runs some testing.

temporary panel for the control panel.
fitted all components bar one of the temperature gauges as was waiting on it to be delivered

after mock assembling the panel. I decided to put cutting disc to metal, so armed with Marker pen I marked holes and inner cutout box. I then centre punched holes before drilling.

ready for drilling and cutting.

I then drilled the 4 x 3.5mm holes and started the cutting process it took 3 discs to cut the cut out.

nearly cut out.

 I then realised As had made it to small as the standoffs for the main control panel and the bolts for the new one were not away enough so going to have to notch the other control panel to fit the nuts but trimmed down the bolts with Dremel so it fits.

now to mount back to the machine.

I fitted the other control panel to make sure it looks right in the machine. i started on the wiring last night by joining the positives and negatives for temperature gauges and running them both off 5v pin off the original power supply. as I have separate power supplies for controller board 24v  and 5v one for my machine lighting, my factory one is not overloaded. I will post a picture of them in action later on this evening as forgot to take camera down the man cave with me last night.  Tonight I will wire the LED’s and the flow switch in. and if i get time i will wire up the emergency stop button as well. will cover all this in a later post. 

Its alive! only issue is the 12v LED’s are too much power drain i might have to swap them out for 5v ones just he E-Stop to wire up now.

need to figure out what to do with LEDs

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New Safety Panel for K40 Co2 Laser part 2

Ok Back to the drawing board as someone burnt though memory card ribbon when soldering up a powerless USB plug. (Doh) as i have been having some brownouts I decided to install this kit. will review it soon.

https://www.tindie.com/products/brianlough/power-blough-r/

Never mind so time for safety panel Mk2. just going to order a second temp sensor as then ill have water input and output readings.  Jumped on to Lightburn and just adjusted will post SVG once I have finalised it all.

So tonight little operation on the k40 is to first of all cut another test panel as my 13mm led bezels were a little tight. Will then cut a template panel for cutting the hole in the metal work. before drilling fixing holes and taking a Dremel cutting disk to the panel.  I will be doing this off the machine. vibrations love to mess with mirror alignment.

The wiring of the system:

Wiring up the emergency stop:

The emergency stop is 4 terminal so will have both Live and neutral running through it on each side of the switch. then to the power switch on the main panel.

Wiring up the LED’s

Pump active LED will be wired in line before the laser on/off switch but after the water pump switch.

I will splice the laser active LED to its switch. so when on its lit when off its not will take some images and add them later.

Water flow switch

After looking on Amazon found a cheap one from China will give it a test drive. as will be open when water is running through it going to fit it to return pipe to the bucket.

will wire this before the laser active switch so will cut output if pump or water fail will shut off the laser form firing causing any damage.

Argh, amazon prime was out of stock of second digital temp gauge so have had to order off eBay now waiting on bits before I start cutting up the machine, so there will be a part 3 to follow soon as I have all the bits in.

probably Monday Tuesday next week.

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New Safety Panel for K40 Co2 Laser part 1

As I have had some mishaps over the last few months. 2 minor fires as I was not paying attencion.

One resulting in damage to my perspex window. that and a water issue when my outlet pipe came out of the water bucket.

I have decided to add the following.

  • Water Flow switch which will cut if there is no water running through it.
  • LED’s to show laser is active and flow is active.
  • Temperature gauge to show the temperature of the water in the bucket.
  • Emergency stop switch.
  • SD Card slot (This May Change if it doesn’t work I will replace it with inlet water temp outlet water temp gauges)

I have done my first draft run of the panel and have also marked out where i am going to place the panel.

Next job is to cut out the metal so I can put the panel in and drill holes for fixing panel in place.

I have wired up the temp gauge to the 5v output of the laser supply as I no longer use it due to have C3D mini installed. That way when the laser is switched on the temp gauge goes on.  I will get into the wiring of the emergency stop switch and led later on as I do it.

As I am off to Wales for a few days I will resume the project on my return next week.

Looking to buy a bigger laser in the new year for more fun projects hopefully will be then able to do more stuff on the youtube channel.

will be looking to open an online shop for commissions and goods as on my downtime have been designing some cool stuff that I will be sharing soon.

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Busy time of year in the mancave

There has been a lot going on in the background have been doing lots of projects for friends and family too much to fully document. some images below.

Friends  40th birthday guest book

Pen box for my Cameo 3 cutter plotter as I didn’t like the plastic box they came in will be publishing the files to things soon. link here

Turned a friend’s wedding logo into a Christmas decoration

Nephew’s birthday party favours

Built my self a wire spool holder for the cave as was fed up of having to dig out boxes.

with my son’s first birthday and a lot of NCT friends birthdays, we have been making birthday books. with this, I installed a new bed in the k40 laser and had a little fire nothing too bad just need some more perspex as mine got a little melted.

so will be posting some live videos of cutting soon on my youtube channel.

been making dog tags up for a band who wanted something custom using laser bond 100 wicked stuff that will mark glass and ceramics as well as aluminium and stainless steel.

getting the CNC machine up and running has been a little bit of a challenge but we are getting there as I have some commisions I have been asked to do soon.

I have started to design a safety panel for the k40 that will stop the laser from firing if the pump stops will also display water temperature and have an sd slot for updating the firmware on board and adding g-code if I want to run offline. waiting for parts from China and Amazon this will be my next featured project.

I will be installing a camera in the laser to film it in action soon can then show project being made as I do them.

last of all started getting some ideas for gifts for Xmas together for friends and family.