Hi All, i just registered to hopefully get help to get started and perhaps later on share my experience.
A friend of mine was about to move, and he had this G.WEIKE 3040 (40W) Laser in his garage. (it was built 2012.4.25)
It had been sitting there for a couple of years.
He said that he had problems getting it running - but he's not that tech savvy, so we'll see if i can manage.
Basically it ended up with us loading it into my car and putting it in my garage instead.
So now i have another project.
First of all, since it has been sitting in my friends garage for a couple of years i was thinking i would go through it to make sure that there's no obvious issues.
I found was that the usb cable was completely rusty, so that's been replaced.
Everything else is clean and tidy, no other rust etc. Belts look and feel ok. Is there anything i should look at specifically?
The cpu card in laser is Leetro (cpu v2.0)
I have a couple of questions:
- We have freezing temperatures here (in sweden, and also in my garage). Can I use some anti-freeze in the cooling water to avoid damages to the laser? Is there any specific recommendations?
- Anyone have a users manual for this model?, Only a product catalog came with it.
- There's a usb port (for a usb memory?) on the machine, what file formats are supported, and what filesystem should be on the usb memory?
- Is there any central repository for open source/shared/free models, projects that you can recommend for a novice like me?
Right, So i've done a bit of reading on the forum. I should probably have done that before posting.
Here's a short summary of what i've been working on so far:
- I'm going to use pink coolant. (lucky me, i already some 10L left overs in the garage)
- I've gone through the rest of the machine without finding any obvious issues.
Up next:
- Finding a container with a large-enough opening to fit the pump through, with a lid that would allow me to run the cables/hoses out in a good way.
- Recieveing the SoftDog from the previous owner who had it packed up in some box due to moving.
- Test firing the laser to see that it actually powers up properly.
Later on:
- Getting LaserCut53 to run on a computer to prepare a mol file to test run the laser from usb-drive.
- Getting hold of some computer to put in my garage to communicate directly with the laser.
I've now set up the Laser with coolant & compressor.
I got the softdog by the previous owner, and installed Lasercut53 + dog driver.
The software works fine - I set the work area size and the proper controller board in the application.
But when i exported a mol file to FAT16-formatted USB memory, the laser gave the error message:
"DLL FILE DOES NOT MATCH FIRMWARE VERSION"
I'm loading the .mol file from usb memory, moving the laser head to a rough staring position, then i click "start", and it runs fine.
I'm not exactly sure about the movement from the head from where i placed it to where it starts the job. I guess i'll figure it out after using it a while.
I've tested engraving on Birch ply, and that works fine.
I've tried some cutting, but i'm not getting through the 3mm ply, not even 100% and speed 30.
Laid hands on G.Weike 3040
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