Upgraded laser tube!!! Obviously the laser cutter I bought was a dud. The laser tube lasted about half the time I expected and the power supply, fan and water pump failed and have been replaced. Even with this poor performance, I managed to earn enough to buy 5 of these machines. that’s pretty good I think!
It fit my needs which were a 50m diameter and power requirements that matched my power supply.
I bought the thinnest cutoff wheel I could find for my angle grinder and made a hole for it. I also needed to extend the water tube and high voltage wire. The water tube was easy but nobody around here sells high voltage wire - except auto parts stores! I purchased a spark plug wire and spliced it in and it works great.
My initial testing shows that I can cut 3mm MDF at 15ma and 20mm per second. I’ll keep dialing this down to get the lowest power / highest speed I can get.
I’ve got a lot of cleanup to do and a box to make to protect he tube. Hopefully I’ll get that done tonight.
@K1111 Sure. It’s a box I made from foam board that I purchased at Walmart. There’s a hole that allows the exhaust to be sucked in. Blowing air out through the tube is a 90 millimeter computer fan. It’s a very heavy duty fan and blows about 120 CFM. The fan, along with internal LED lighting , is powered buy a 12 volt power supply I added inside. I also have an inline exhaust fan at the end of the duct that blows the exhaust out the window and keeps my room smoke-free.
@Nedman I saw that after I had purchased the parts to build a box. I wish I had done more searching on their site. The parts cost me $20 and for twice that I could have had it already made.
