2 benefits I see from the k40:
- it can do rotary
- I have no qualms about ripping it apart
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Turned it on today, just the machine and not the co2 tube yet as I’m still adjusting some things but seems to home itself great and the interface is impressive. It moves smooth! My Windows laptop should be here tomarrow so il get started on aligning the laser tomarrow and hopefully some test cuts. Here’s a super short clip of me moving the head around the bed with the controller, better videos soon!
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Video of it turning on and doing its homing
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Looks great. May I ask what something like that costs? Looks very impressive.
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It was 2200$ on eBay
I turned on the laser and got it to fire and it was aligned but I had to twist the co2 tube to get the bubbles out of the water jacket which messed up the alignment. I tried aligning it by eye by pulsing the laser and using tape but I could tell thats going to take forever, I checked amazon yesterday and ordered some 6mm red diodes that are coming today. Im going to do something similar to this guys method for using a red diode in place of the co2 laser to align the mirrors
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Check it out! First test! I used a old old computer with corel draw from 2002 so so the trace function left a lot of defects in the lines but it looks great so far!
After a few tests Ive figured out I still need to align the beam more for the front sections and tighten up some of the belts. The top section seems aligned great, the beam seems to hit at a odd angle towards the front but should be a beam alignment issue.
Aligning the beam was a challenge at first. The tape over the mirror method seems easy on youtube but I found it dangerous at points. You couldn’t be sure where the beam will bounce after taking off the tape to align the next mirror so after checking out the youtube page above^ I decided to order a 6mm red laser diode on eBay and use that in place of the co2 beam for aligning! Helped immensly
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Man thats lookin pretty sweet! Im jealous! I like the LCD readout of what its about to cut.
Laser alignment is definitely a pain. Soooo much easier with a laser pointer. That helped me immensely too.
One of the things that was causing my alignment to work everywhere but in the front right corner was the gantry mirror adjustment screws:
The gantry mirror was initially positioned all the way back, and once I put it forward after getting everything square it fixed the last alignment issues I had. I cant tell from what youve posted if you have those or not, but sliding your gantry mirror out a bit could fix that front corner issue youre having.
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Did you do this? Wowsie!
I didn’t design it, it’s a Mayan calendar but this is from my machine after a couple hours of mirror alignment
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Wow, speedy
Very cool!
Nice work, and thanks for the video demo! 
If I’m not mistaken, that is the Aztec calander… or an Oreo cookie 
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Mmm, Oreos. . .
Need to buy milk.
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So jealous. That is exactly the stuff I want to do with the GF.
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For $400 you can do it now and practice for when the really good machine comes in the mail 
pick up a chinese laser, its fun to have something in the meantime!
They seem rather bulky and finicky with lots of nuts and bolts stuff you need to fiddle with.
Don’t think I am physically able to do all that, thus the reason for the GF 
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Just for clarity. A $400 Chinese Laser can do some cool stuff. But don’t get confused, the laser cutter pictured in this topic is a more expensive machine.
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