I only really have an early picture of the machine during testing. It started life as a desktop CNC machine, I designed a mount for the laser and a friend 3d printed it, the Z axis is used for laser focus, the spindle speed output on the board is used for laser power (shading), basically, it's a big black and white laser printer
. The machine has evolved since this picture (I'll take another more recent picture once the work area is cleaned up
) with ventilation (4" duct with a booster fan venting outside), more shielding so you don't always have to wear glasses, I added an arcade button (yes, like the push to punch red buttons) as an emergency stop in case something gets too warm or I mess up and it isn't lasering where I think it should be. A lot of time was spent figuring out what speed the gantry should move at and matching that with the laser power, so if you're moving at "X" inches per minute, you need "X" laser power to match, otherwise it's too light or you burn too deep. Also the optimum distance for the laser from the material, each material, even each different color of leather absorbs light differently so lots of testing to determine what distances and power would work best, and then keeping samples burned for reference to go back to if you're using that same leather again down the road. I also had issues with the initial laser lense so I sourced another and filed it to fit. I'm working on the bed area (wood isn't the best idea for laser engraving...) and changing it out to a sheet of metal, and we'll use magnets for hold down clamps instead of weights or painters tape (painters tape is great but it can leave residue on the finished product).
Here's the machine and one of the tests, burned on deer hide scrap, I took a picture of my truck, vectorized it, converted it to gcode, and test burned it, original source photo and finished test:
Machine (early version)
Test picture with background removed to vectorize:
Finished test, little dark in the tire area but detailed enough you can make out the glass in the windshield!
But I digress, this isn't a laser forum so back to picking! (to which I have much....much to learn)
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