Hello everyone,
New to the group and not yet in possession of a laser. Did some reading in the group but didn’t come up with “to be regarded when getting into laser / engraving”. Does anybody have a good source of newbie information…“what am I getting into” or equivalent? I have 4 3D printers and been tinkering with this for a year, now it’s time to broaden the portfolio. I like to do my own research to not need to ask too many questions, now I need a kick in the right direction. Any information is appreciated. Happy engraving.
Alex
Btw: read the pinned post, but can’t seem to get at the info (sidebar with external links) on my mobile.
Without considering the tenchinal differences of 3dp and lasers , I would say that youll need to learn and think in 2D for making complex stuff. Also learning some 2D tools it’s important, depending on that you already use for 3D.
Maybe to make my question more precise: is a k40 or equivalent ready to get into action without any add-ons, or is it necessary to get the surroundings going (I have seen pictures with 5gal water tanks and so on…So again…Without asking a newbie question, anywhere I can go to soak up some more Info? Thx
Feel free to ask questions, we were all newbies at one time or another. Basic upgrades that I consider mandatory with the K40 would be:
Installing safety interlock limit switche for the laser compartment to prevent the laser from firing if the door is open.
Installing a water flow interlock so that the laser can not fire if the cooling water is not on.
3)Get a pair of acrylic safety glasses (Standard safety glasses will absorb the wavelength that the K40 puts out).
Remove the aluminum material clamp that ships with the machine and replace it with an adjustable bed of some sort.
Also, if you remove the internal air exhaust duct, you will gain a little bit of work area.
Optional:
1)Consider upgrading the controller board with a smoothieware or grbl based controller board, this will allow you to run Opensource software such as LaserWeb (https://github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4) or Visicut (https://hci.rwth-aachen.de/visicut), which are, in my opinion, much more versatile and user friendly than the stock software that comes with the K40.
2) If you decide to keep the original controller, check out the K40 Whisperer software from Scorchworks (http://www.scorchworks.com/K40whisperer/k40whisperer.html), he reverse engineered the K40 controller and developed software that can run it without use of the dongle.
Hope these suggestions send you off in the right direction.
Have fun!
There’s a lot of them and they’re hugely detailed so they’re going to take a while to work through - but I think it will be worthwhile.
I actually came across them while looking for details of a cheap power meter. I’m sure I saw a posting by Don that mentioned how useful that would be, but can’t find it now to follow up. So, Don - watch this one :
