I have wanted a laser engraver for quite some time but the price has always been prohibitive for me. Recently though, I found some engravers from china on Amazon for about $500.00 USD and free shipping. Plus, I contacted the vendor and found that the unit would ship from California. I read all the r
Wow!
Hi James,
What a difference a few weeks makes. I searched Ebay when I was purchasing mine and found no such deals! That is an amazing price! You got a smoking deal there.
I’ll work on the schematic for you, but it is very similar to the one in the link above. I eventually plan on adding an emergency stop switch, laser fire indicator, limit switches, air assist, and an adjustable height bed to mine. But these are down the road a bit. Right now I’m just working on dialing the machine in.
-Don
It was me
I bought that unit on the 19th and I got the message a day later. Vendor said it was shipped, no I just have to wait 
Laser Cutter
Cheers for sharing this. At some point in the future, I’m also thinking about getting my hands on one of these “cheap” laser cutter machines. Should be great for robot construction. Good to know about all the pitfalls and what needs to be done to avoid them.
In my case, UK Ebay has them for sale for approx £415 ( $655 ) - Not as cheap as I’d like, by a long way. Hopefully that price will drop by the time I’m ready to buy.
Also, please share any more information - So that other LMR users and I can return here in the future, and know exactly what’s needed. Thanks.
If you guys aren’t afraid of Beaglebone Black boards
you might do some research in to loading machinekit on one and using it to drive the laser. Some people have even enabled pulse per inch (millimeter) to gain just that extra bit of control and because of the way these power supplies drive the laser you actually get a slightly more powerful laser than what is advertised, or, at least a last that meets the stated power level.
I forgot that you would also need a cape of some type to drive the steppers. You might have $100 in hardware, but, it would become a networked machine at that point.
Best link I have found to date. http://www.robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1861&start=0&sid=fdbd13b03628b1d2cedbfaaf0570b526
Hello SG,I know that this is
Hello SG,
I know that this is a terse write-up of the modifications to the unit. I was rushing just to complete the project and get it up and running. I will update this post and provide some more detailed informaton in the near future. At the moment I am finding myself with little free time due to some big time sensitive projects at work that are bleeding over into my off duty time. Once I have those knocked out I should find the time to update this project page with better links, pictures, and schematics.
Thanks for your interest and your comments.
Don
Hello BirdmunThanks for that
Hello Birdmun
Thanks for that link. Lots of good info there. Now I want to take apart the focus lens assembly and see if mine needs the housing machined to fit the lens.
I don’t know much about the Beaglebone, never had one. One of the reasons that I elected to use the Arduino was because I had several sitting around the house. When I can find some time I will look into that option as a possible future upgrade if it looks like it yields significant improvements.
As always, thanks for the great information!
Don
Update
Total fail… money refunded after 40 days of waiting
It was worth the try…
Did you ever draw your schematic?
I’m interested in doing this with my Moshi machine, but I don’t want re-invent the wheel if I don’t have to.
Can you share it with me?
I never got around to it.
I never got around to it due to a lack of free time. I am on the road this week. But, next week I will have some time and will try to draw it up for you. Mind you it will likely be hand drawn and not too pretty!
Did you ever draw your schematic?
Thanks! That would be great!
Updated the Post
mtb604,
I updated the post to include a partial wiring diagram. It may be a little hard to read due to the size constraints. If so, let me know and I will see about getting it to you another way.
Cutting performance
What type of materials and cut rate are you able to process with 40W? I tried to buy one but the vendor defaulted. Luckily I had used paypal and got a refund. Thinking about trying again.
Hello GG,I use my machine to
Hello GG,
I use my machine to cut .125 and .25 inch acrylic, light plywood (hobby/craft store kind), stencil plastic (from the sewing store), cardboard, balsa. For .25 inch acrylic I use a cutting speed of 10 inches/minute. For stencil plastic I use between 30-39 inches/minute (800-1000mm/minute).
Hello,try using a program called LaserGRBL and you can use grbl in the laser mode whereby the spindle on /off is used to control the beam .also it is setup for engraving and cutting and I have found it cuts inside parts first then the outside last…also take a look at K40 whisper by scorchworks.I have used his software on my cnc machine and my large format pen plotter for file conversion to gcode and it works very good.
