[MonoNeuron]

Hi Largo.
Love the work.
I was going to ask you how much you stuffed up when testing all the different parameters but you covered that so I won't. I nearly heated the house for the whole winter a few years ago when I was testing my wood router and the stuff ups went the way of the slow combustion heater. :-)
Experience is hard won sometimes.
Isn't it funny when you see a piece of CNC equipment now you think "Gee, I reckon I could make one of those". :-) some of my friends think I am a genius but I just tell them that they can do the same as me by spending about 3 years on the internet and wasting about $5000 buying stuff you think you need but don't plus I have never had any kids so I have a bit more money to play with. I make a lot of stuff ups because I am mildly dyslexic so it costs me a bit extra than some "normal" people for that privilege .
I looked into using the 80-20 aluminium sections but the expense couldn't be justified for the development of my first laser. I just didn't know if the thing would work and I got burned by one company (PK Unlimited, they burned me so I burn back) selling me a laser they stated would last 10,000 hours, and it sat on the shed wall for 8 months while I built the machine and collected parts for it from all over the world. When I finally got around to installing it it was putting out about 10 watts down from the 30 I bought. A good paper cutter though.
That's when I turned to the American RF lasers and won't go back now. I am saving up for a 80-100 watt one for the future. ($16,000).
Lamacron
Linkmotion has a version for Plasma, router and laser so all you have to do is tell them what type you want but I can't see that buying a $1300 program would be any better than Mach3. For the laser it is but I don't think the rest warrants the expense. IMHO.
Rich.

[MonoNeuron]

Oh, Did your friend take the plane out of the container before he started flying the thing. Yeah, I would have expected he did.
You sound like me in that you want to do everything you can in life.......but don't have the money to do it? I would need 2 lifetimes to do what I want but it will never happen so I limit what I can do in this one.

Lamacron,
The PWM is used to modulate the laser frequency so that you can effectively detune it to output the beam at a lesser wattage. (I think that sounds right.) So it's not used to turn it off or on but to vary the intensity.
Rich.

[largohome]

Rich, it sounds like we are twins on opposite sides of the earth. I have about 6k in the machine I am building and posted pictures of and now another 1400 for software for it. If it works properly then I will have saved a great deal, if not then I will make a plasma or waterjet with it. The big machine I bought new with a 5 HP Colombo router which swaps out with the laser, it was just over $50k but the best investment I have ever made.

[oneeye]

Congratulations Mono, that s amazing!
i made my own cnc machine and drive board ( cnc3ax) 2 year ago and now i got 2 laser tube 18w and 40w with power supply and GaAs lens but i´m just starting in laser area, i dont know how to controll power supply by software ( i dont know what softare and if my board work to this...) actualy i´m using a simple mechanical device to on/off laser in cutting.....a micro switch in Z axis...( don´t laught...) . any help ll be welcome!

[largohome]

actually i´m using a simple mechanical device to on/off laser in cutting.....a micro switch in Z axis...( don´t laught...) . any help ll be welcome
That is a great idea! PWM pulse width modulation is what controls the power of the laser, there is always a tickle that keeps the laser ready to fire and then the PWM is what determines the output power. I use synrad components and there for use a UC-2000 for the control of the laser power. The older units (uc-1000) are just as good and your a electronic type of guy then you can build one from a frequency generator. They are pretty pricey from synrad.
As far as software you need to think about what your going to do with the laser, cutting vector files or raster files for photo engraving. If your just going to use vector then any software like Mach will do the job, if your going to do raster then its a different deal all together. I just purchased wincnc which I use on two other machines, Rich (mononeuron) uses another, I guess it depends on what your really wanting to do with the machine. One other thing, Mach has a way to control pwr in there software, it uses the output for router speed to control laser pwr.

[gld952]

HI

I have a CNC router built with 80-20 alum t-slot....Would like to add a laser that will cut up to 1/4 inch plywood....

Every time I do a google search all I end up with are medical lasers or company's that do custom work.

Would like to find a company in the US (preferably the Mid West).
Hopping to this for around a grand.

Help

Gary

[MonoNeuron]

Hi Guys,
The thing about building your own machine is that you can use whatever you want to get the job done. I don't think anyone here would laugh at you for what you have achieved so far and if you look at what this thread was originally intended for, Gene Yo had seen a lot of people asking and trying to build a laser but none actually being completed.
I think we hijacked this thread (as so happens a lot here)
One thing I found was that when you finally complete your "dream" machine you spend so much time throwing stuff at it and trying to burn the hell out of it and see what the capabilities are that you don't come back to the forum and share your new found information. Paul the site Mom has one (maybe the first to build one here) and now you don't get boo out of him as he is busy with his model plane making business.
If you want a cheap laser then your only option is the glass laser tubes from china which will last about 800 to 1000 hours but the power drops of rapidly when it starts to go. You will need more than 50 watts to comfortably cut 1/4" Ply and 80 watts would probably be the ideal. The tube alone will cost about $1000 then the 30K volt power supply will set you back another $300-$400 with PWM. If all you want to do is cut stuff then you won't need PWM just a neon sign transformer and sundries at the right power and voltage. Go to SAMS LASER pages and read all the info there and it will give you a good basis of what to look out for. I'm not an electronics wizz so I opted to buy one which ended up costing nearly $800 AUD after all the taxes etc the gov throws at us here. Now it's a paper weight while I try and think of what to do with it.
If you are searching for lasers then try "CO2 Lasers" and it will bring up a lot more relevant stuff than just "Lasers" then you can also got to the companies "links" pages and branch out from there. Try Coherent, Trotec, Synrad, Hobart, Sinoptic etc. You can also try your luck with YAG lasers as well and just may find a bargain on EBAY.
Synrad have a good page that show what power setting it takes to cut about 100 different types of materials in varying thicknesses.
Hope this helps somewhat.
Rich.

[zoltan]

Hi Largohome,

Did you experiment/built with diode laser? What are the resultz if you did? I am interested as I would like to build one cnc laser with a 60W diode laser I bought on e-bay. Could you, please, share your experience on building it?


Thank you.

Zoltan

[largohome]

Hi Largohome,

Did you experiment/built with diode laser? What are the resultz if you did? I am interested as I would like to build one cnc laser with a 60W diode laser I bought on e-bay. Could you, please, share your experience on building it?


Thank you.

Zoltan

Purchased the same diode, yes I have experimented with it, the lower frequency really makes a difference on materials I have used with the co2 laser. I don't have a focus lens that I am sure of yet but hoping to cut thin metal with it on vector files. I purchased a 80 amp optical relay to use on the switching of the diode but really need a good current regulated power supply that you can control the power with before I go any further, for now its full pwr when I hit the switch which needs to be controlled somehow. The current regulated pwr supplies are big bucks and my wife has an evil eye on me with my purchasing of this stuff. What have you done with your diode?

[zoltan]

Hi,

Thank you for answer. I am afraid I do not fully understand what you say about using it with CO2 laser neither about switching relay. I did not do anything yet as it is not clear for me how I can use it. I was thinking about puting a focusing lens in front of it and a fluid cooler from PC and power it by a power supply controlled by software. You said that Mach3 is not doing raster. I am little confused as I plan to use Mach3. I have seen that there is an engraving plugin for Mach3. Is this plugin not doing raster? Could you, please, advise me how to build the laser head with the diode laser? I have the diode, the cooler, the high power focusing lens as it was stated on e-bay from where I bought it and the power supply - 3V, 50A controlled by 5v TTL. What I need else and how I must mechanicaly build the head?

Thank you very much for help. I really appreciate it. Sorry for poor English.

Zoltan

[zoltan]

Hi,

More one question: What frequency you mention about? I power it with DC 3V.

Thank you.

Zoltan

[largohome]

The frequency of LIGHT in a diode laser (Yag) is lower than the frequency of a CO2 laser. What I meant was it will cut some materials better than CO2 because of lower frequency of the beam of LIGHT.

MACH 3 will only raster with another program that can create the G-code every single firing of the laser. This creates huge files that can eat up your memory and create problems, if your doing small etchings then this is not a problem, I do pieces that are as big at 48 x 96 inches on my big machine and it was a problem. Smart Raster is what I use now and as far as my knowledge Mach 3 cannot do smart raster. I just purchased another card and license from Wincnc which I use on 2 other machine and like very well. You English is good, much better than my Romanian.

[largohome]

You can email me if you like
[email protected]

www.thelaseretcher.com
www.jhegranite.com

[zoltan]

Hi,

Thank you. I understand. I was thinking about the control frequency, despite the fact that now when I re-read the previous post you stated very clear. I apologize.
I have sent an e-mail to you. Thank you very much.

Zoltan

[MonoNeuron]

Hi Zoltan.
I will send you a mirror from one of my pulled down photocopiers tomorrow. I cut mine into pieces about 20mm wide to make it easier to align the mirrors. If you are building a laser, measure the height of the mirror directly above the center of the focusing lens and that will be the center height of all the rest of the mirrors back to the laser. (work backwards for this phase of building and it will make it easier to align the mirrors to the exact center of the lens.
GaAs (Gallium Arsenide) lenses won't pass a red visible laser through them so you won't be able to use a spotting laser to align things up, which is very handy. Go for the ZnSe (Zinc Selenide) lenses which are more versatile. They are auctioned off on EBay regularly and about 16mm to 22mm is a good size and a focal length of 2.5" to 5" inches. The longer the focal length, the thinner the kerf width.
Rich.

[zoltan]

Thank you very much. Please, send me an e-mail to the address I sent to you by pm, with the cost and how I can pay.

Zoltan

[Alex101]

Hello!
Does anybody know how to connect laser power supply? Did I need a special board to control it and what G-code answer for capacity?

[MacGyver]

Please don't double-post... if you want to keep all questions about your machine in one thread (my suggestion), that's fine, but please don't start multiple threads about it. Answers can become scattered that way.

[cncadmin]

I've built 2 and one is running on a daily basis. It's a 42x 60 cutting area and I'm running a 50watt laser tube, also it's servo driven.

[oneeye]

Thanks all for hints!!
now i got a chinese 20~40W power supply running a 18w tube. that work fine. See test:
[ame="http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=ynYDL-egEZs"]YouTube - Laser Co2 Rick Efeitos[/ame]
[ame="http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=8h6j_4OYqOY"]YouTube - Co2 Lase Rick Efeitos[/ame]

I instaled the tube in my router to learn how to control and optics. Now i got a 60w tube & power supply and ll start to build a cutting machine, like all cutting machines, i ll put the tube behind machine and use 4 mirrors to delivery beam to focal lens, i ll not use beam expander, only a focal lens, is that work?