Originally Posted by
lesthegringo
Gents / ladies, I have just purchased one of the K40 clone machines, and have spent yesterday setting it up. Today I am trying to get it to produce some test pieces to familiarise myself with what the machine does and how etc, but from the off I am having some issues that I need some advice on.
Using Inkscape and K40 Whisperer I designed a simple design that used raster and vector engraving, plus vector cutting. Noting fancy, just a gauge face and outline. K40 Whisperer connected to the machine fine, the design looked fine on the display screen. I had checked the alignment of the laser and mirrors and am satisfied that while not perfectly centred, it's within a millimetre or so.
So first I tried raster engraving. I used a piece of MDF as the test piece, however my first attempt resulted in nothing - I had set the laser power too low. Another try, with the potentiometer set at 50% power started well, but as the laser mover towards the front the engraving got fainter and fainter, until the engraving was barely visible. The gauge dimensions are 60mm x 60mm, not large by any stretch of the imagination. I tried Vector engraving, and that seemed to be better. Finally I went for the out line cut, and set the laser to maximum. The laser barely engraves the surface, for the 4mm MDF I was using I estimate it would take a minimum of 40 passes before breaking through.
The focus is obviously OK because the engraving and 'cutting' that was done was nice and fine
I tried again, bringing the part a bit closer to just see if focus was an issue. This time, with the laser on full power ( the only way to make a mark) the engraving only did the 'back' half of the gauge, by the time it got to the front it was doing nothing at all. On full power. Just to see if there was any difference I set it to cut the outline, again at full power, and while it did make the outline all the way round, the outline engraved was noticeably more aggressively produced at the back than the front. As for cutting, I would have more luck cutting with a feather duster I suspect! However the 'power meter' shows full scale deflection while 'cutting' so in theory at least it is on full power
So, there seems to be a problem somewhere. The fact that the laser peters out nearer the front seems to be consistent both with cutting and with engraving. If it supposed to be powerful enough to cut through MDF, then either the laser is not working properly or the power is insufficient or maybe both.
Before I go back to the vendor to see about money back or replacement parts I want to check with you guys to see if this is an issue that is known with a known fix.
Any help / insight you give would be very gratefully received!
Thanks
Les