After realizing I had to take apart the bed to get it level, I just removed it and the rest of the rails and mirrors from the casing, disconnected the power and ribbon cables, and put the casing on the floor.
I then clamped the rails down on my workbench to see if I could get things back in line. I had to slip the belt off one side as @jamesdhatch recommended to get the sides of the gantry even. Easy enough.
This also gave me a chance to make sure that the mirrors were aligned properly in every corner by using my shark with a frickin laser beam attached to his head. I didnt have to keep switching out tape or worry about getting burned. This made things a lot easier
After that, its was just a matter of installing the carriage assembly back into the box, making sure it was square with the walls, reconnecting the cables, and doing final alignment with the mirrors.
Finally success! its pretty damn close to spot on in every corner so im not gonna argue with it. Time for a test cut! I made a very small engraving first by accident, so I decided to see how one of the calibration images would do, so I grabbed a small piece of EVA to start with
Everything seems to be working so far to a degree. Its not really hitting the greyscale yet… as you can see by the wheel which is supposed to slowly ramp up the engraving depth. It just kinda went 0 to 100 in one step.
So thats it for tonight. Made some good progress. Everything seems to be in working order. Now I can start diving in to the more complicated things like power levels, calibration cuts, and different materials etc. Til next time
If at first you don’t succeed, …
… take it apart!
Gets my vote.
… and, can’t remember where I read this, "If you take something apart often enough pretty soon you’ll end up with two. "
I purchased the same Air assist - let me know if you put yours on. I still have to get time to fire my machine up. What do you suggest for the air supply? an Aquarium pump or an air brush compressor?
I will probably use an aquarium pump for the air assist. Neither of my air compressors are near the printer. I will probably add an outlet to the case that is switched when the unit is turned on. That’s 3 AC devices that need to be turned on when in use now.
Another thing I will probably do early on is redo that control panel. I’d like to upgrade the switches, and put a Min/Max scale on the knob. One of the very first things I did was pull out my labeler.
I got the light objects version and the upgraded lens. The printed ones tended to come unhinged, get into the n beam, catch on fire. Was not worth the frustration but ymmv.
I am considering buy a 100w laser from China. It has the option of a Z-axis table and also a rotary tool. The price is $3800 including the shipping cost. The cutting surface is 5x4 which is plenty of space for anything I would need. Has anyone dealt with these before. I am still planning on keeping the Glowforge order and just adding it to my shop. The system seems to be limited to AutoCAD and Corel Draw, but that is OK because I primarily have been using AutoCAD. It also has two laser heads. I thought that was a nice feature. This system has a lot going for it. I just haven’t found much information about them. Anybody used one before? Thanks
After a half a day with the K40, I don’t think I will turn it on after the 'Forge arrives, unless I need to do a rotary engrave, or engrave something really deep.
I just ran a test cut. its supposed to be cut and engrave at different power levels, but it really just did engrave at full steam or nothing. I think its mostly just a problem with knowing how to use this terrible software. Im gonna see if there are any alternatives out there to use. For some reason I feel like the answer is no…
Now check a couple of things - is the lens installed correctly (convex side/bump up) and is the material set for 50.8mm from the lens for a focal point. The former is an occasional issue and the latter is a common mistake where folks measure from the head or other point.
Also, make sure your mirror alignment is still good. The fixed mirror at the end of the laser tube is critical. Now that it’s all back into the box, you need to check using the real laser and not the shark
Fire up either LaserDRW or CorelLaser and send a box to cut.
yeah its more of a software problem. im still figuring out laserdrw and the plugin for corel. If I go through corel draw the laser moves insanely slow. just crawling. it feels like 1mm/m. so I exported the above image from illustrator as a png to cut/engrave in laserdrw, but I dont see any designation as to what is what, so it really didnt do much but engrave full power.
Are you still using laserdrw/corellsr? Got any pointers or know of any good cheat sheets/user guides out there?
Also, have you found any other software that will work that is easier/more user friendly?
The software is awful. I do my work in AI or Inkscape and save as/export as either a BMP or DXF file if it’s something I may use on other lasers (I use the K40 for smaller stuff or for scaled down versions of something as I test designs). Then I open it up in LaserDRW and send it over. The pop-up asks for Engrave or Cut (it can’t do both at once) and hit the “Starting” button. That’s also where you set things like power, starting position, speed, etc.
CorelLaser is useful if you want to manipulate your design and then you hit the icon to send it to the laser & you’ll get the same pop-up options.
Your speed issue is likely a config problem. In LaserDRW or CorelLaser hit the config or machine setup/preferences. In the machine field (top box) make sure you pick the entry with “-M2” in it. In the serial number field (bottom left) enter the serial number from the controller board under the right side panel of the machine. If those two settings aren’t correct you’re going to get weird things happening.
This is one of the biggest reasons I’m looking forward to the GF. The software for these is a bad English translation of rudimentary Chinese functionality that has to be matched with specific hardware. Dan’s going to do for lasers what HP did for printing The GF lets us focus on design and not need to be hardware/software geeks. It’s the next step needed to make laser cutting/engraving get out of the niche world and into mass market capability.
so i found out why its having issues in corel draw using the plugin. it doesnt default to the model you set up in laserdrw. for some reason it picks a different firmware version and will go really slowly. So I got that working. The other crappy issue is that if you engrave before you cut, it crashes the plugin after the engrave, so you have to close everything out, then open it back up lol.
There’s another one you’ll find - the little laser control buttons in the ribbon bar from the plugin may disappear on you after you send something to the laser. If they do it seems you can’t pause or cancel it. But, in the system bar in the lower right of your Windows desktop it’s loaded a control applet that you can use to pause/resume/home/reset/etc the laser in the middle of a job.
Velma looks goooood! Planning on decking it out with anything lasercut?
I still have an ‘old’ R53 rusting away. I’ve recently bought a new house with a very big garage so mine will go inside and I will make it a project to run it again. Cool to see it’s still an enthousiasts car!
The GF lets us focus on design and not need to be hardware/software geeks. It’s the next step needed to make laser cutting/engraving get out of the niche world and into mass market capability.