K40 Laser Upgrades

[Arlyne Doepner]

HelloEveryone. I recently Got a Ortur Laser Master 2 and have been having great fun with it. I feel the 20w is under powered for cutting. am still testing different air assist. But i was wondering since i have the casing for the laser modular is there a way of swapping the laser diode and lens for a more powerful version say 40 or 80w? if so would i need any thing more than just the laser diode?

This post has me totally baffled. I have no idea what is being said here. An explanation or withdrawal would be in order, especially since it seems to have no bearing on the topic (or reality for that matter).

To better align items on the honeycomb, I have cut out an alignment helper from 5 mm plywood. With that I have found out that I really have a 39.539.5 cm cutting area and not 4040 cm. Maybe I can adjust this with moving the zero position.

I asked around and checked many forums on that subject. What I ended up was adding an industrial cooling chiller (yes, again from China). I considered the CW-3000, but that one only has passive (fan) cooling so would not be good enough as the room temperature can be up to 30C. I decided for the CW-5000 which is commonly used for laser tube cooling. So here is now the shiny (and overpowered) cooling engine:

Luckily I did not had to deal with fire yet (except a really, really tiny one ? ), so I have now a small water pump which can easily extinguish a small fire, of course only after shutting down the machine. For a bigger emergency I have a (powder) fire extinguisher ready, but that would be rather bad if I ever have to use it.

I always run the laser with the lid closed, but still I feel better wearing laser protection glasses. So I organized some special CO2 light protection glasses. Not sure how well protecting they really do for $20 from China, but I feel that might be better than nothing.

Yes, Halon would be ideal, but hard to maintain or get. The one I have is a dry chemical one (will be a big mess if I ever have to use it, but better than nothing).

As for the justification for the laser cutter: I really did not had one too, except just curiosity ?

Great improvements !!! You are smart!!!

1. Have you tried using a painting tape to fix it?

2. Points from any, even cheap plastic should be protected, as they stop the wavelength of this laser (50 W). For metal lasers special glasses should be used. This is due to the wavelength of the laser.That is, if the plastic passed the wave, then it would not leave traces of the laser.

3. A good idea with plastic clips for a small diameter of water pipes.

1. Yes, I have used painting tape to fix items. It works for some items, but not for all.

2. Yes, agreed, they do the job as well to some level, but blockign the specific wavelength helps too ?

Yes, you can use it for larger objects, but the cutting/engraving area is limited by 4040 cm.

Cutting 4 mm plywood is working fine, but that depends on the type of plywood: the more layers you have, the harder it will be.

Engraving normal wood is fine too.

I would not use it with any painted wood, as this can create dangerous smoke depending on the color used.

Thank you Erich for sharing your experience. After reading about you on Hackaday I ordered exactly the same machine from the same seller. Just like you suggested I am using K40 Whisperer and Inkscape. Although I like sketchup very much and I use it for the model which i convert to PDF for the InkScape. I am using doPDF printer for the conversion. It all works very well. Cutting is amazing! So detailed and sharp I could not believe it.

I had to get a 110V->220V step up transformer however because they shipped 220V model and did not even warned me. But that is OK.

Engraving is giving me a hard time though. For some reason instead of gradient I am getting binary engraving with no middle tones. So the gradient bar on the dark half is uniformly engraved to the same depth and the light side is not even touched. I suspect I am doing something wrong, but can not find it. I have tried test files from thingverse too with the same failure. I would appreciate any advise.

Thank you very much

/pavel

Thank you Erich. How did I miss it? I will have to wait a little before I test it however. Last night the water pump failed and before i realized what was going on the tube overheated and sustained irreparable damage near ground electrode. It took less then a minute. I ordered a new tube and while waiting I decided to spend some time making flow meter with inflow and outflow temperature sensors. Your water cooler is absolutely justified.

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First, as mentioned it protects from misfires (or fires!), but more importantly given the next upgrade, it helps your XTool cut cleanly and more efficiently by raising up your workpiece, reducing grimy looking cuts due to flashback.

Again, it is not cheap. You could get an aquarium pump to do the same job as the compressor in the kit, but you would still need to direct the air flow to the right place, which is where the special nozzle comes in.

An air assist blows smoke and soot out of the way of your laser, giving your cut more power and with reduced residue. This means you need to not use as much masking tape or do as much post-processing such as cleaning or sanding.

I have a 7W JTech and have considered adding a standalone CO2 laser to my shop. Having a Onefinity with a laser for engraving somewhat negates the need for a CO2 stand alone. So I am wondering if the 14W Dual Pro upgrade on the OF and a new Fiber laser would be a better approach. I would really like the ability to etch/mark metals and the like and that is the incentive for the Fiber laser.

I would go that route. I have a CO2 laser and the 1F. I just did a cutting board project for my son and wanted to engrave the pattern (a Millennium Falcon) on the board. I wanted the darker burn that a laser provides vs the board color a v-bit engrave would give (& the improved resolution the laser provides) so I used both machines. The 1F cut the board into the shape of the Falcon and then I put it into the laser to engrave the details.

But none of them let you do the kind of fine engraving on metals that a fiber laser can. A 1F with the 14W diode laser attachment and a fiber will be far more useful than just getting a standalone CO2 laser.

Since a lot of FDM printers coming out nowadays seem to have the functionality of being able to change out the tool head for a laser engraver, I decided to see if anyone had ever tried that on their Prusa (I own a Prusa MK3S+). What I found was this kit online sold by Opt Laser. -laser-upgrade-kits/prusa-laser-upgrade-kit-with-plh3d-2w

Has anyone here ever heard of or tried this kit upgrade? It says Prusa in the ad, but I have my doubts that it's an official Prusa product. While we're on the topic, has anyone attempted to install a laser tool head onto their Prusa in general? If so, were you able to get it to work or achieve some distinguishable results? I'm curious if this is something other users have tested. Any insight would be certainly appreciated.

Do yourself a favor, just by a laser that meets your needs, it's very important to evacuate burnt particulate properly, a laser system designed properly will account for this, even if your just burning through plywood or bass wood. If your looking for something beyond a CO2 laser and more along the lines of a fiber laser you will want a very specific enclosure with a filtration system. It's impotent, please research before you do this.

Aside from filtration issues there is also the fact that any laser powerful enough to cut, etch or burn also makes an excellent Retina burner if the beam gets reflected in unexpected ways. Is it possible to overcome all of the safety issues? Of course! One could just put the whole thing in a ventilated, filtered and laser wavelength proof enclosure with a safety interlock switch on the door. But it would be a lot more effective and probably cheaper in the long run to just get a dedicated laser engraver with built in safety features as well as probable better performance and longevity.

Some of the same thoughts crossed my mind as well as it seems odd that a lot of the newer 3D printers on the market now come with this modular laser head assembly. It has me wondering how that's safe especially since most of them don't come with an enclosure. It also has me wondering how they can get away without having a honeycomb or special type of bed to support the parts being cut/engraved. I can't imagine it takes that high of a fluence to actually start damaging metal components. It seems odd to me. Some of the hobbyist grade desktop CNCs on the market seem to offer a similar setup with the modular tool head, but those seem slightly better equipped. I rent an apartment, so installing a heavy duty ventilation system would not be an option. However, I could set up some sort of filtration system as I own bunch of those solder fume extractors with activated carbon filters.

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