I am an engraver by trade. I run multiple CO2 laser engravers (Epilog and Universals) and they all have dedicated air assists to not only clean the surface while engraving but to cool the substrate. I have not read anything about how Glowforge deals with these issues. I have watched your videos and noticed a lot of surface flaming on the substrates you have been vector cutting yet there seems to be no burning and minimal smoke. From my experience the air assist would be essential in keeping smoke away from your lenses. Can you explain? Thank you.
Also canāt wait to get my hands on the pro model I ordered. The Glowforges capabilities are impressive.
Air assist blows a strong stream of air directly into the cut, which helps keep things clean and prevent too much burning. Purge sucks the smoke and fumes out of the box.
Actually, there are a bunch of things going on (and terminology varies). What we use:
Air assist blows on the cut and helps clear debris
Purge air blows clean air on the optics to keep them from getting dirty
Intake air brings fresh air into the case
Exhaust air blows air out of the case
Cooling air blows over things that get hot
it gets confusing. : ) one of the ways we were able to lower the cost versus a traditional laser was by combining subsystems - like the exhaust also does cooling.
On other laser systems, I remember having to be hooked up to shop air (shop air where I was at was about 90psi, but Iām not sure if the machine had a pressure reducing valve in there at all). It seemed like the air assist also helped to blow out flames (my working theory on this is that despite it blowing oxygen on the flame, the speed at which it blew āknockedā the flame off of itās fuel). @dan, is the air assist in the Glowforge going to require āshop airā? If not, does the air assist come from a muffin fan that produces enough air flow to reduce the flame? As you mentioned, the earlier videos didnāt have the air assist and I donāt recall seeing a recent video (I get each new post in all discussions sent to my email, and while I review most of them, there are some that slip byā¦I also tried searching, which lead me to hereā¦if I missed something, just share the link)! Thanks!
No external air hookup for the air assist or cooling. Ambient air only. [quote=ādan, post:5, topic:70, full:trueā]
Thanks for all the great questions! No removable bottom, rotary axis, or tilting z to announce yet. Thereās air assist in place already although it doesnāt have an external hookup, so itās just ambient air.
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Curious - Is there any benefit of the air assist nozzle being closer to the material? Iāve kinda wondered about extending the nozzle to almost touching to see if it totally kills all smoke residue on the top surface when cutting.