Darren's Laser Project

Darren Wright

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Springfield, Missouri
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Not as cool as the one Jay has, but I had bought a 2w laser from http://jtechphotonics.com about a year and a half ago. I had planned to use it on my cnc, but found that Mach3, my controller software, added a bunch of pauses during Z axis movements. This basically caused any pictures to come out as burnt toast. The laser isn't strong enough to really cut much, but will let me do some engraving, which I what I'm wanting to do.

Given I now have the 3d printer, I figured I'd give building a new x-y table for it a try.

There were several designs on thingiverse and openbuilds.com, but the one I settled on was one using openbuilds parts (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1233664). I've scaled it up a little to about 15" wide and may go up to about 36" wide, but haven't decided yet. I'd like to see the materials and decide what will work for my needs.
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Over the last week I've been trying to print the parts for it, but between bad filament and temperature issues (warping), I've had a hard time getting them printed.
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The last couple of days I've gotten things worked out and I've just about got them done, still have some legs to print out.
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I'm planning to use a Grbl Controller, which is what the Xcarve and Shapeoko tables use as their controller, and you can get them for $12.99 ;)

I'm still waiting on the last of the parts to come in, but have enough to get the motors and controller running and tested out.

For the Sender, I'm trying to decide on using LaserWeb (http://www.openbuilds.com/projectresources/laserweb-laser-controller-software.191/) or Mr. Beam (https://wiki.mr-beam.org/doku.php?id=software_releases), which uses a Raspberry pi also connected to the arduino controlling the laser.

Any, more to come later.
 
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I'll take a stab at this. I believe Darren is using PLA, as thats pretty much all either of us have been using so far.

But, we both have some PETG. Darrens is in his shop, mine is still in the mailbox. I may get it tomorrow, lol.

PETG is supposed to have the benefits of both ABS and PLA. That is it has the strength and heat resistance of ABS with the ease of printing of PLA.

Price is comparable to PLA.
 
Darren, are using PLA or ABS ?

PLA at this point, like Brent mentioned, I've got PETG now, but will see how these work out first. I'm leaning towards redoing the motor mount plates as they are a bit thin for my taste, but given how they mount they will probably be fine.

The parts that warped were just printed too hot and weren't sticking to the glass very well. I dropped the temp on the bed and hot end quite a bit and things have printed well since.
 
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I saw something on Facebook about carbon fiber filament. Is that a gimmick or a new kind of super strong filament?
I've read the same as Bill, it's pretty much carbon fiber dust mixed with PLA or another plastic, mostly to give the look of the carbon fiber. Kinda like the wood or metal filaments, usually a 40% metal to 60% plastic ratio. I do think there are some fiber filaments out there that do add some strength which have strands of fiberglass in them.
 
I finished a few more parts today. The a controller board mount, the legs for the laser, and a part for my dad's rifle I threw in there.
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As you can see in the last pic above of the legs, there were some supports added by Simplify3d to allow the printer to print the hollow centers of the legs. One thing I really like about Simplify3d is how well it does supports and how easily they come off, most break away with very little effort. These were a simple as grabbing them with the needle nose pliers and pulling them out.
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Currently the printer is working on some brackets to hold a cooling fan for the controller and brackets and switch cover for the electrical supply.
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Those should finish by morning, then I'll get back to some lithophanes. I'm beginning to understand why some folks get more than one of these printers, hard waiting to get the next job going.
 
Another installment of parts completed, two brackets to hold the cooling fan on the controller, electrical cover, and two brackets to mount the PS.
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These will be mounted to a board on the back of the laser.
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I'm also working in a screw terminal on the outside of the cover to allow some 12v taps for fans and such.
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I started the assembly of the laser this weekend. I got a torsion box made for the base and most of the hardware assembled.
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I found a couple of things from the original designers plans that just didn't work, several screws weren't the right sized listed on the build list, and the drive and idler pulley sizes were too small on his list to work properly. I ordered new drive pulleys and they should arrive tomorrow. The idler pulleys I had I started to use as they were close, but then decided to draw my own and print them. The old ones were 17mm in diameter, the new ones 22mm, which gives me about 1mm of clearance per side of the extruded 20/20 aluminum. I made them a little wider too, to center them better.

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I also started to wire up the motors to test. I'm planning to run the Mr Beam firmware, which has been forked from GRBL and OctoPi to work together with lasers and over wifi. I ran into an issue writing the arduino code, so will have to figure that out tomorrow. I got the cable chains laid out, but may need to design and print some end brackets for them, and may have to make some brackets for the stop switches.
 
My new drive pulleys arrived today, so spent a little time getting those installed.
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Also figured out the issue with updating the Arduino, so after learning a few GRBL settings and commands, I had things moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uwuKTvHK7s

I am re-printing the idler plates and probably will reprint the motor mounts also, both about twice the thickness. They are just too thin and flex when I get the proper amount of tension on the belts, the originals were supposed to be aluminum.
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The idler plates finished last night, here are they are in comparison to the first ones.
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I kicked off the motor mounts this morning, doubling the thickness of those as well.

I also wanted to put end caps on the extrusions with some beveled edges. The belts appear they may flop a little and cause some rubbing, the end caps should help protect the belts if that does occur. However, I realized my corners only had one bracket supporting them, so I remixed the endcaps for those areas to include an extra tab with screw holes to tie them together on the outside. The filler will also lock into the slots of both pieces to align them.
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