MSRaynsford

Note how most of the LED's have stopped working There was a single row of leds mounted under the gantry on my laser cutter, over the years the LED's have slowly stopped working and they were in a bit of a sorry state. I'm going to be installing a new camera into my laser cutter at some point and lighting is always important so it was a good time for an upgrade. Instead of one strip of light that moves and creates ever changing lighting I thought it would be better to put two static strips one the Y rails. Removing the 24V wire from the loom up to the gantry The old strip lights are pretty disgusting from years of cutting I pulled the LED strip off the bottom of the gantry, it was pretty badly stained from years of laser cutting. The new lights are weatherproof, silicone coated so they should stay cleaner and functional for a lot longer. They are wired into the existing switch so they can be turned on and off from the outside of the machine. The new lights a...

The laser upgrade went remarkably smoothly and the laser cutter was functional but there were a few minor changes and improvements that needed to be done. Fixing the screen image Image flipped on the controller The first and most noticeable tweak for my new Ruida system was to fix the screen display. Most of my cuts are symmetrical so it was a day or two before I noticed that the image on the screen was mirrored. The laser cutter was cutting the correct way so I knew this had to be a simple setting on the controller. In the menu system is an option called 'Screen Origin' we have to set this to 'Top Right' so that the controller knows it's cutting from the same corner as the laser. Screen origin setting Screen Origin should be set to top right Image corrected on the controller Wiring in the water protection The additional wire patched into the WP line on the PSU The lid switch and the water flow detection were already wired direct...

Coolflow DTX from Hydratech, good for lasers We're having a bit of a cold spell in the UK (I'm aware the US has it worse too) but we're not used to cold weather, temperatures dip below zero and we all panic a bit. One of the things that people always forget is that the glass tube in the back of their laser cutter is water cooled. If the water freezes it will expand inside the tube and cause the glass to smash, that's going to leave a hefty bill to replace the tube. Putting some antifreeze in with the coolant is easy to do and it's going to save you the worry. If your laser is in the garage and isn't warm and snuggly inside your house it's well worth doing. If you have the CW3000 you're going to need 2.25L of antifreeze and if you have the CW5200 you're only going to need 1.5L. The internal reservoir of the CW5000 series is smaller because it actively chills the coolant. Small quantities can be purchased via ebay and the usual sources at sensibl...

New laser bench with sheets stored underneath it I've had my new laser cutter resting on it's packing create for several months, I recently ordered 100 sheets of Birch plywood, 800x600mm and I still had about 50 sheets of poplar left from the last order so all of that needed a new home inside the garage (rather than the utility room). I rummaged through the scraps and planks in the shed and I already had enough parts to make a new small bench so I took my trusty little helper and we made a bench one day (you can tell the girls were out because we made it in the kitchen to avoid the rain). The bench works well, it's a little bit wobbly but it does bring the laser up to a nicer height for working at. As you can see I still have to plumb the extraction in to the existing outlet rather than opening the garage, especially in the cold weather, everything takes time. My helper for the day Child shown for scale Laser in place on new bench

My extractor fan always sat at an awkward angle where the inlet needed to be on the wrong side and the outlet was best pointed vertically. I previously achieved this using some shelving brackets but it was always a bit wobbly. While I was laying the floor I noticed that they were bent and the whole thing was touching the floor so I upgraded to this wooden stand instead. The fan is now held firmly in place again, better than ever before. The whole thing tucks in neatly behind the new machine in the garage.

I made the most of a sunny day to pull everything out of my garage and restack it into a sensible order. I bought some shelving a few months bock and had all the materials on them but because they were crammed at this end (where the crates are in the photo) I was unable to actually pull sheets out of them, I shuffled them round and gained myself a whole bunch of material shelves. Some of the materials do stick out a little but nothing too serious. I even managed to empty 4 crates which is why there is a such a big stack.

I've not really written any PC software since I quit my job a year ago and I've quite enjoyed making this little program for the Z controller. I'm pretty much at the final revision so I thought I would describe some of the features. Firstly and most importantly the software is able to detect the presence of the Z controller. The Z controller is an arduino nano, this means it has a USB to serial chip on it and it can be plugged and unplugged at any point. The PC controller detects removal and arrival of USB devices and uses those notifications to check that the controller is still attached. It gets a list of current serial ports and attempts to open them all one at a time, if successful it pings the device with a "?".  If the Z controller is on the other end of the port it replies with "Z Controller" and the PC knows it has found the device. The status is updated in the square at the top which show green/pink for connected/disconnected but it also giv...

I was expecting to make changes to this device but I wasn't expecting it to happen so soon. I've now made 3 of these devices at peoples requests. I was thinking about how it connects in to the leetro controller and I realised if I connected to the original controller I could duplicate the signals coming from that too. This would allow me to adjust the Z controls using the PAD03 panel the same as before. I can also draw power from the leetro controller so even if the device isn't connected to the PC the whole thing still works.

Lasercut 5.3 has a bit of a slack way of dealing with the z control, you nudge it up and down a bit until it's in the right place according to the height tool. The amount depends on how long you hold the button for. One of our customers wanted to be a bit more specific about how much the Z axis moves, that way they could make 5 passes on their material and drop the Z axis by 1mm each time. So I made them a custom Z axis controller, this one connects to the PC and allows you to send specific mm commands to the Laser cutter. The PC end is a simple interface that allows you to send 0.1, 1 and 10mm commands to the controller, but it also allows you to send a custom distance. ( software bundle here ) The PC controller actually detects when the USB serial port of the Arduino is attached and removed and it opens and closes the serial port appropriately, this means you can leave the program open all the time. The laser cutter, softdog dongle and Z controller could also all be attached...

With my second laser still coming and going at a moments notice (soon to be permanently dismantled in my garage though) I often end up with a spare exhaust port that's just sucking air in and not pulling air from my main machine. I made up this close able vent which sites between 2 blue pipes and allows me to turn the tube off when not in use. It's made from a few stacks of 12mm ply and it works ok. I think it might be better to develop a shutter type version for both sides (and when I box in the extractor) but it's not bad for a first attempt.

With 2 lasers now running in my garage the pumps and fans can really drone on (I'm yet to box them in to make them quieter). I've been wearing my ear defenders quite a bit recently to help keep me sane (and to keep my ears warm) but I also like listening to music while I work and the two are not very compatible. I headed off to the interwebs to see if headphone ear defenders were a thing and it turns out they are. £33 will get you a set of defenders with an audio jack input, being a bit of a cheapskate I suddenly realised that I could add headphones to my £3 ear defenders , have them ready asap and have spent significantly less amounts of money on them. The process was pretty simple. Drill some holes in the side of the defenders large enough to pass in some ear buds and then hold them in place with some sugru. Job done, everyone has a pair of ear buds kicking around and I picked up the sugru at one of the many maker faires I've been to, so not only did I have a s...