Quick Ebay Laser Write Up

[genobpgh]

Hello All,

After a good amount of time reading and researching I finally took the plunge and purchased a 60watt Laser/Engraver from Ebay.

I'll admit, I was nervous, but I'm pretty handy, so I figured if it came with some broken parts I could figure out how to fix it.

My main goal was to cut acrylic for prototyping different projects for our company.

So I ordered the unit for roughly $1800. It came with the standard stuff:

Air compressor - (which after about 20 minutes gets ridiculously hot).
Cheap Water Pump - (Tried if for a sec - but purchased a chiller from a different dealer). The water pump is pretty much worthless, you can get a better one at Walmart or a fish store, but a Chiller is really the way to go.
Some silicon (or what looks like silicon) 6 inch ducting.
Tubing for the air pump/water pump.
A giant blower which is extremely loud and runs around 550watts.
A CD with software and instructions on how to install everything.
A bunch of other misc. parts that I didn't even take out of the plastic bags (Ethernet cable, manual, clips, bolts, screws, mounts).

My laser tube came preinstalled and not broken. I've heard some horrible stories about tubes coming in smashed - that was one of my biggest concerns.

Now my first issue was how was I going to vent the exhaust outside?

Well the door behind the laser is currently broken (it's sealed shut now) so I cut a hole through it and installed a 6inch duct vent with spring loaded flappers (cost was around $8.00).

Then I initially connected the fan that came with the laser and turned it on... My goodness.... The thing sounded like a C130 was taking off in my back yard. So back to the drawing board.

One of my other hobbies is hydroponic gardening, so I knew the local hydroponic shop sell blowers + mufflers to keep the noise down when venting grow tents. So I headed out and purchased a fan and muffler ($170.00). I hooked everything up and the thing is SILENT.

Once the fan was working, I patiently waited for the chiller to arrive (which came a few days later). I ordered the CW-5000 series chiller which was recommended by a few people I've talked too. I plan on upgrading to the 80watt laser tube in the near future - that's why I purchased the bigger chiller unit.

Before I hooked up the chiller, I had installed the cheap fish tank pump to test the laser, and check for leaks and everything was a-ok (at least I thought...). I then hooked up the chiller and turned it on and found that I had a leak inside the engraver box somewhere. After checking around I found they used a cheap (maybe brass) "Y" connector for the water junction, and used thin zip ties to hold the tubing on... This caused the tubing to almost slip off of the junction. It was leaking all over the place. So I ran to home depot, and bought a nylon barbed "T" fitting and new hose, and re-plumbed most of the inside.

I found that the increased pressure from the chiller caused the shoddy plumbing to fail. Easy fix (<$10.00).

The last part is addressing the cheap air pump. It is extremely loud and get's incredibly hot when running for 20 minutes. I blows hot air out of the laser nozzle.

I haven't purchased a new air pump just yet, but I will in the next week.

On to the software:

It came with RDWorksV8 which is terrible, but not super terrible. If you want to cut out basic shapes and do very basic CAD work, then the software is for you. I am a TuboCad guy, with a sprinkle of Inkscape.

My work flow:

1) 99% of design is done in TurboCad.
2) Convert files to DXF (also convert from inches to MM).
3) Import DXF into RDWorks.
4) "Download" to laser via Ethernet. (I'll talk about that below).
5) Run over to machine, Frame, then Start Cut/Engrave.
6) Linger around machine, make sure I don't burn the house down.

The cool thing about the machine I purchased is it has an Ethernet connection. So I put it on my local network and RDWorks can read/write directly to the laser which is a HUGE help.

I did find that the laser tends to "fall asleep" on the network, so after about a minute or so, if you try to talk to the laser you will get a "communications error", but if you try again, it works just fine.

That's my story - I look forward to reading all of the tips and tricks on this forum, there is a ton of great info on here.

PS: I attached a few pics of the setup.






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[davek0974]

Nice - it looks almost identical to my eBay red/black

I am looking at the exhaust for when i finally take it home (its at work ) is that hydroponics tube the one with the activated carbon in it?

I was thinking of the same if it has and wondered if it was good enough to stop the smells especially acrylic???

My air pump must be different as it runs ok and not too hot. I got the CW3000 circulator/radiator but will likely get a 5000 series chiller as it gets pretty warm in my shed even in the poor UK summers.

My chiller blew all the pipes off inside the machine - dumping all of its 9ltr of water into the cabinet, i was out of the room, came back and it was raining, luckily no damage was done and was caused by no clamps or ties at all on any of the pipes ! I have fitted cable ties now all over and its been good so far.

PS unless the tube sticks out the end of the cabinet it will be a 50W tube - these are 1000mm long where a 60W is about 1200mm

[genobpgh]

Nice - it looks almost identical to my eBay red/black

I am looking at the exhaust for when i finally take it home (its at work ) is that hydroponics tube the one with the activated carbon in it?

I was thinking of the same if it has and wondered if it was good enough to stop the smells especially acrylic???

My air pump must be different as it runs ok and not too hot. I got the CW3000 circulator/radiator but will likely get a 5000 series chiller as it gets pretty warm in my shed even in the poor UK summers.

My chiller blew all the pipes off inside the machine - dumping all of its 9ltr of water into the cabinet, i was out of the room, came back and it was raining, luckily no damage was done and was caused by no clamps or ties at all on any of the pipes ! I have fitted cable ties now all over and its been good so far.

PS unless the tube sticks out the end of the cabinet it will be a 50W tube - these are 1000mm long where a 60W is about 1200mm

That particular exhaust piece was just a muffler. It's basically sheet metal, 2 flange ends, and foam. It works like a dream. I checked out the carbon filters and they had some super nice ones, but I didn't mess with them because I can push the air directly outside.

[davek0974]

Thanks,
i might get a couple of carbon ones and try it out.

[MichaelHenry]

One of my other hobbies is hydroponic gardening, so I knew the local hydroponic shop sell blowers + mufflers to keep the noise down when venting grow tents. So I headed out and purchased a fan and muffler ($170.00). I hooked everything up and the thing is SILENT.

Do you know what the volumetric flow rate is for that blower? The HF-150P that I see on the Ebay and Amazon are rated at 300 cfm but they don't specify outlet pressure for that flow rate.