2018 new laser build

[Dan Noren]

the fun is almost ready to begin! already have the laser kit, and most of the parts for the build. thanks to bill for sending the bits of makerslide, and robert johnson for cutting the new end, and carriage plates. today i finally got the new wheels from china. surprised the daylights out of me, as they are already assembled! hopefully, the idlers should be here in about a week or so. i the mounting bracket arrived the other day, and i'm planning to set up the laser in it like the one in open builds. seems straight forward, and very protective.

 

[Bill Arnold]

 

[Darren Wright]

 

[Dan Noren]

got a bit more done today. built the platform for the laser, and added some doors to the cabinet.

 

[Robert Johnson]

Looking good, now if you just had all the pieces of the puzzle!

 

[Dan Noren]

funny that you should mention missing puzzle pieces... after checking, the idlers should be here early this coming week.

 

[Dan Noren]

yay! the idler kits showed up today! (a whole day early). there's some other parts missing, but i just can't put my finger on them for the life of me....

 

[Dan Noren]

i knew i should have slept (pre-work nap), but those darned idlers kept calling to me. so i assembled them...

 

[Dan Noren]

figured out how to build the laser mount yesterday, the cooling fan for the arduino/gshield showed up today, and the enclosure for the arduino/gshield shows up tomorrow. ordered the pins for setting up the controller, should be here in the next week.

 

[Brent Dowell]

You really need to get a 3d printer for this project Dan....

 

[Dan Noren]

That's just plain wrong....

 

[Dan Noren]

started working on the actual laser mount tonight. cut the laser shielding curtains, and fitted them to the mounting bracket. i wasn't too comfortable with just the sides covered, so i added the one in the front. now all that is left to do, is add the aluminum angle iron brackets for the actual laser mount. just in case you were wondering, there will be a hole cut in the bottom curtain for the laser to poke its nose through. the gshield/arduino enclosure showed up today, and it turns out that i had ordered a slightly smaller fan. oh well...

 

[Bill Arnold]

 

[Dan Noren]

there are some other parts slowing me down (aluminum angle iron, cutting center hole in safety stuff), but am doing what i can...

 

[Dan Noren]

finished up the laser mount assembly today. cut, drilled, and tapped the odd bits of aluminum angle iron, and put it together. i found that my set up differs just a little from the set up in the pictures, but hey, it works. i also found that there is a little bit of a flaw in the drilling of the angle iron for the laser. it has a very slight angle down, and to the left. i need to make a new bit of angle iron to correct that. now that that is done, i'm just waiting for the new fan to show up. the first one i ordered was too small.

 

[Dan Noren]

added the new fan to the arduino/gshield enclosure cover. now to figure out what i can do next...

 

[Dan Noren]

got the pins for the jumpers for the arduino today.

 

[Dan Noren]

started assembling the framework today. since i've been disallowed to make a mess this weekend, the best i can do for the moment. now i just have to figure out how long the makerslide needs to be for the gantry.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Dan, Have you thought about how you are going to control this beast of a laser?

I'm working on a little project right now and I just thought I might recommend the way I'm doing it. I've got a little laser that I'm using a Jtech Photonics 2.8w laser.

I'm using a raspberry pi running CNCjs. Makes it easy to run the laser and monitor it without having to actually have the your computer directly connected.

I also use octopi for running my 3d printer and I just find it's a really convenient way to control these little robots. Once I get my CNC back in business, I'm planning on using cncjs to run it as well.

Just throwing it out there.

 

[Dan Noren]

got a bit more done today. added the carriage plates to the ends of the gantry, then checked to see how much space i will have to play with.