Session 4: K40 Xtreeem Laser Cutter; Finishing The Upgrade Build And Laser Machine Setup

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The K40 Xtreeem Laser Cutter Upgrade Series with Russ Sadler.

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Session 4: Finishing the build and Laser machine setup.

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Welcome to what I hope will be the final session of our little remodelling of the K40 Xtreeem.

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We’ve got a few more details to sort out, but basically as we found out in the last session, we have a machine that works.

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It still doesn’t work properly because we haven’t got the beam lined up, we haven’t got the mirrors in.

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We have got the lenses in, um and we haven’t got the air assist in yet, so there’s a few more little jobs to be done today.

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They’re going to take a little bit of time to finish off, but let’s get stuck in and see what we can do.

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You see, we’ve got most of the kit here. We’ve got a lens tube. We’ve got some various types of nozzle.

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We’ve got the fitting for the head, for the air assist.

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We’ve got mirrors. And finally, instead of this water tube that I was using before for the air assist,

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I’ve been out and bought some slightly thinner stuff that matches the size of the six millimeter tube that I’m using throughout.

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So this is a six millimetre O.D. with a four millimetre bore. it does fit into those fittings.

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I thought it might not. I thought that might be far too floppy to fit in there.

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Let’s start off by trying to work out how we’re going to fit this air assist pipe.

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So the first thing we’ve got to do is to plug this into, the air assist valve system. It doesn’t want to plug into that particular type of fitting.

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It is pretty easy to plug the six millimetre silicon tube onto the six millimetre polyurethane tube. Now I can

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just a small stub off like that and that will plug into the push-in fitting.

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That doesn’t kink. That’s perfect.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup

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Because it’s a smaller pipe, it fits neatly. Hey, I’ve got my lovely six millimetre P-clips here, look little plastic P-clips.

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And here we are at the back of the gantry and look very, very conveniently.

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Those P-clips just perfectly fit along there. I think I might want one more.

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The great thing about the P-clip, I can actually direct it up like that.

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Let’s put that fitting in there and see how that works.

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We set that to the middle of those slots, we’ve got plus or minus about six millimetres of adjustment. Although this might be floppy,

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it’s designed to be floppy. So, we’re going to take a bit of a gamble now and cut this piece of pipe.

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If I put it down. Does it kink at any stage, that’s the question?

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No, it doesn’t. I’m really pleased with that. That’s working extremely well.

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Here we’ve got our little butterfly clamp. Fits on there.

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Let’s just put a nozzle on there. You can just adjust it up and down.

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So this is why you don’t need an adjustable table because the nozzle adjusts up and down, instead of the table.

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Look at that, perfect. That’s about as low as we need to go, and we’re nearly on the table.

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And we’ve still got a nice amount on the clamp here to keep it nice and rigid. Well, I think that’s our air assist pipework sorted out.

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If that was going to hit, then I could just drop the pillars down another two millimetres and that would it give me all the clearance that I want.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Machine Setup

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But that is absolutely the maximum I could possibly get.

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As I said, look, I’m just about a millimetre clear of the head there, and it can’t come any further forward.

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That’s it. Well, we’re just taking a look at the mirror mount, number one mirror mount. Now,

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the tube is mounted on a piece of channel,

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and this now fits in the channel. I’ve designed this mirror mount so that it has got a couple of extended pins

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sticking up. It allows me to adjust the mirror in a linear fashion, backwards and forwards,

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which I shall need to do to align this mirror with number two.

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So I’ve had to fiddle with both the mirror frame and the mount itself to get the beam into the centre position, which I hope I’ve now done.

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I’m sure there’ll be lots of people watching this video that will have never seen my beam setting method.

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The first stage involves locking the beam and mirror one together so that once it’s set,

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we do not have to change the relativity between the tube and mirror one.

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What we should find now is I’ve got my mirror set up in such a way.

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The beam is nicely on centre.

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I’ve got to twist the mirror to guide it onto Mirror 2. That beam will always be on the centre of Mirror one, and I haven’t got to touch it ever again.

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We know that it’s not going to line up with Mirror two because Mirror two has been raised by about 10 millimetres.

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So now we’re going to have to sort out what we want to do with Mirror two and we’re then going to have to lift this tube up.

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I’ve taken the mirror holder off to add the mirror to it, but it doesn’t really matter.

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This whole mirror is located on the reference edge at the front here. So when I

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plug it back in. It’s going back in exactly the same place. One clamp screw and it’s locked on there solidly.

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Now it is difficult to get to the screws on here to adjust it.

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So what I’ve done on these, I’ve put the adjusting screws on the front where you’ve got more space to get to.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So the first thing we do is check where the beam is. We’ll put a piece of card over there and we’ll do a pulse and we see where that beam is.

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Oh, just about passes through that slot there at the moment. It might not by the time we raise it by 10 mm.

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No idea at all where the beam is pointing! Let’s take the lid off for the time being.

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Well, because we can’t be sure, what we’ll do, we will create a barn door to aim at.

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Let’s see what’s happening now. Well, it’s not too bad where I want it to go to.

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As far as that way is concerned, I’ve got no idea how that beam is sitting in relation to the axis, but I know it’s got to go up by at least 10 mm.

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So the first thing I’m going to do is to remove the screws that are clamping the tube down.

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I’ve just created a little notch there. Hopefully that should be enough to let the beam pass through, so that I can see what I’m doing at mirror number two.

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Well, that’s where it was. But of course, now hopefully it’s going to come up here by at least probably 10 or 15 mm. So if

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I want to move the beam now. All I’ve got to do is undo that screw there, and slide this along a little bit.

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So eventually, when I get this set, I will find out what height I’ve got to have this mirror set to and the spacing that I need under here,

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and I’ll just make some packing pieces that go underneath the tube and screw it down to the base.

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So I now need to put Mirror two on there to try and get the beam roughly lined

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up with mirror two. What I’m trying to do now to get the y-axis set approximately.

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Just so that I can see where Mirror two has got to be sitting. OK, well, after a little bit of fiddling, I’ve managed to jack the tube up by 15mm.

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I’ve got a reasonable alignment now. Enough to work out roughly where the tube has got to sit.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So let me just demonstrate to you. I’m going to produce what I call a target mark, at the back most position. Pulse.

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And then we move it to the front position.

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And you can see where the mark is. Now if I just do another burn, so that means I’ve now set the beam absolutely true to this bearng rail here,

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but we can see that it’s not in the right position on Mirror two. All I’ve got to do is to slide mirror one across that way.

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And I can put it onto the centre of Mirror two. Although I have slid this across now to get my offset.

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There’s a problem. Spot the problem? Yeah, I’m hitting metal.

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Well, I think we’ve fixed our mechanical obstruction now, so let’s just see what we’ve got. Too much now.

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I’ve not bolted anything down, so this is only an approximate setting.

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There we got, look we’re spot on. There’s our target there, we’re more or less in the centre, but not quite.

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But we are too high by probably three millimetres.

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So that means instead of a15mm spacer under the tube, I need a 12mm spacer under the tube.

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I’m going to move this a further three millimetres over, so it runs parallel with that edge.

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So that’s where I’d ideally like it to be. So that I can slide that backwards and forwards square along the edge there.

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So let’s see whether I can get another three or four millimetres,

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of movement, on Mirror one.

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Oh, look at that. Yes, I can. That’s brilliant. That means I can make both these mirrors exactly the same.

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I’ve modified the tube holder now by adding a 12 millimeter spacer to the bottom of it.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So that should bring my tube up to the right height. I noticed that there were some drips coming from the fittings that I had, up here.

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So I’ve decided to rework the water system because there is a big difference between this system and what

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I’ve been used to in the past, with just a simple fountain pump or a submersible pump buried in a plastic box.

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If you shut the pump off completely, no flow.

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It could possibly reach as much as three or four psi. The pump in here, although it’s only a very small pump.

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It’s got a high flow rate and a very high pressure rate. If you block the flow off completely,

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it can get as high as 16 psi. This tube, very flexible, although it’s a nice, snug fit,

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on there like that. This pressure in the tube is ballooning this flexible silicone pipe,

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but against 16 psi, there’s just enough to start leaking past there as a drip.

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Now that worries me, because it means that if this is ballooning after a while,

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this could quite easily take on a relaxed shape and that ballooning could all of a sudden become a failure.

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I’m planning to go a bit OTT (Over The Top). With this system now, to make sure that I don’t get any potential leakages in places that are going to worry us.

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Put connections out here rather than up here because I can see if there’s a leak here and if any failure does happen,

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it’s going to fail in an area where it doesn’t particularly matter. Up here, where we’ve got high voltage = bad news.

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I was going to put a little teeny weeny stainless steel tubular connectors on here, but the problem with these stainless steel tubular connectors.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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They fit in there wonderfully well. But look, I can pull the damn things out.

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They don’t. They don’t lock in there. There is a there is a system in there, a claw system, which is designed to stop plastic tube from coming out.

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Well, this is not plastic tube. There’s no give in this.

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So what I have to do, I’ve had to manufacture my own little teeny weeny plastic tubes, solid out of Delrin. So they will fit in there snugly like that.

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And they don’t come out. They’re locked in there solid. You’ll see,

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I’ve already prepared this one. I’ve glued it on with my RTV silicone adhesive and I’ve put a tie wrap behind the knuckle that’s on that

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glass fitting. So that the tube can’t pull off. Here, again I’ve used silicone rubber and a tie wrap. There we are we’ve got our pluggable fittings sitting neatly,

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and obviously there now. On a little bulkhead plate. We’re all ready to carry on with our beam setting.

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Now we’ve got this tube back in. It’s not in the right position to hit mirror number two on centre, but hey,

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that’s no big deal because what we’ve got to do, is fire the beam and move this backwards and forwards.

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It doesn’t matter where the tube is, because the tube is always pointing to the centre of Mirror one.

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We’ll just do a quick test to see how things are lined up there? Now that

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I’ve got the tube fixed back in and it’s solidly fixed.

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OK, now I’ve done a quick adjustment, but it’s still not a final adjustment.

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We run to the back of the machine and we do a pulse and that’s our target.

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So that’s my target mark. And as you can see, it’s on center.

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So we managed to get our 12 mm height set correctly for this mirror. What our alignment is like with the second pulse.

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It’s not bad, not bad. It’s got to go very slightly that way.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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And let’s just put a clean target on. I’ll run it to the back again. Pulse.

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Now we’ll see how close we’ve got to that mark. So that’s pretty well lined up.

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Except we’ve got to move. We’ve got to move the dot that way.

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At the moment, we’re not trying to set the beam up perfectly what we’re trying to do to get the mirrors into approximately the right place.

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This is the underneath of the head. OK, I’m not.

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I’m pretty close to Mirror two now, and we’re going to just see where Mirror two reflects the beam onto target number three.

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I haven’t put the mirror in the mirror three position at the moment, I’m using my cardboard targets so that I can assess where the beam is landing.

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Now we’ll run across to the other end, because this is where we have to steer the mirror,

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we’re trying to get the beam over here aligned with that spot, which is our target.

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We can’t see it anywhere at the moment. So let’s just see where it’s landing shall we? It’s about the right right height.

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But it’s a long way out of position this way. So that means we’ve got to steer,

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number two mirror to bring the beam across.

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OK. Now that I’ve reset the head. There’s our Target Mark approximately on centre, height wise.

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Let’s see where the reflected beam is in relation to that target.

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It’s over here. Yeah, I’m going the right way.

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That’s not far off as far as alignment, this way is concerned.

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Now I’ve got to get the beam aligned that way. So I’ve got to use the adjusting screw the other adjusting screw.

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And I do believe I’ve got it

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spot on. I’ve got to go back to Mirror two, and I’ve got to gently adjust mirror two position to put the beam in the middle of that target.

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And there we are, we’re just about on centre now. So basically, we’ve now got all three mirrors in approximately the right positions.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So now we can actually start doing a proper beam alignment,

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and I’ll explain what I’m doing. Now, before I dive into beam setting.

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Let me just explain a couple of things. Number one, we do not have to be absolutely spot on the center of every mirror.

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Now here is a 25 mm mirror, and if you were the laser beam and you were running towards mirror one, what would you see?

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Because the Mirror is sitting at 45 degrees?

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It would be about 12 millimetres wide and 25mm tall and the beam in this instance, probably somewhere in the region of about 8mm diameter.

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So we could afford to be a millimeter or so off of center, left to right,

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but we could afford to be two three millimetres high or low on centre for that mirror.

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So it doesn’t need to be spot on. That’s just a challenge too far in a difficult challenge anyway.

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What does a mirror two look like to the laser beam? Well, the answer is exactly the same.

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It’s tipped at 45 degrees to the laser beam. Again, we don’t need it

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spot on. OK, now what does mirror number three look like to the laser beam?

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The answer is it looks like that, it’s the opposite way round.

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So this time we could afford to be a little bit left to right, but not very much high and low.

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But having said that, what happens at Mirror number three is not controlled by where the spot is on Mirror three.

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It’s all to do with what they call the sweet spot on Mirror three, and I will explain what the sweet spot of Mirror three is when we get there.

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So let’s start at mirror number one. Do we need to do anything to mirror number one?

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Well the answer is no, because the beam is already set onto the centre of Mirror one give or take a millimetre or so because it’s pre-set.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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We never need to touch this remember.

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So mirror number one has only got one job to do. It’s not trying to get it onto the centre of mirror two it’s trying to get it parallel to the bearing rail?

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That’s the important thing to remember. Now I’ve just put a piece of tape across it.

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We’ll stick it across the front of the mirror, just so that it basically protects the mirror.

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We’re going to take it towards the back of the machine. We’re going to produce what I call a target burn, close to mirror number one.

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It’s a long way off centre. It’s there. Look

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It’s going to be adjusted from here even further away from centre.

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Don’t let that worry you, well we’re nearly there look! Just a shave more and that’s just about it.

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So now all we’ve got to do is go down just a little bit. Too much now, up a little bit.

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This is not a one hit job, only when you’ve got two or three of these results, exactly the same.

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Do you know that the iteration has got closer and closer and closer until you can’t get any closer?

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It’s still a little way out. You see, that looks pretty good.

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We do it again. Here we are for about the third time. We are very, very close.

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That’s not far out. So we’re on centre, up and down. We’re out of position, left and right.

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We can’t touch those screws on Mirror One anymore. We shall be losing the alignment to the bearing.

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But what we want, we want the beam to finish up roughly in the middle of that mirror.

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So what we’ve got to do, we’ve either got to move the beam complete or the mirror.

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Well, we don’t want to move this mirror,

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which is why we just undo these two screws here and we can move the whole of the beam and mirror across by six millimetres.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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And there we go. Just tighten the tube up and check one more time.

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Yeah, we’re still spot on. So we’ve got the beam set vertically and horizontally.

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We will test it one more time. And pulse, there we go.

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So that’s how you go about setting up an axis, you align it first and then you move the mirror or the beam,

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in this instance. To hit the centre ish of the mirror. Now I’ve fitted Mirror three, we’re now going to align the beam to this X-axis.

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The beam is being reflected off of Mirror two here, remember? And.

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If we’ve got it about right, it should already hit mirror number three, approximately. So that’s our target burn just down

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at seven o’clock. A fraction too much.

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Pretty good. And now, we’ve got to come up. Yeah, that’s pretty close.

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But we shall never know until we do it again with a piece of clean tape.

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It’s going to take two or three hits, at least to do this. And now we’ll check again.

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And they’re one and the same now, so that’s setting the beam parallel to the X-axis.

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It’s not in the centre of the mirror, but we’re going to deal with that in the next step.

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Now the centre of the Mirror might not be the correct position for it to be in, as you will find out.

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For this next operation, we’ve got some, we’ve got a sheet of special targets here which I’ve designed.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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And they sit in that corner there. The mark that I’ve made is off-centre.

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So that means, that beam is not going down in the centre of the lens tube. Now,

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not only is it off axis, it may well be going through the lens tube like that at an angle.

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Okay, I’ve exaggerated, but the point is it’s probably not going perfectly straight down the axis like that.

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Even though it’s off axis, it’s not parallel with the axis.

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Here, I’ve got a little jig that I’ve manufactured. A little setting aid, so that it picks up the outside diameter of

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this. Basically it projects the axis of this down to the bottom here.

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So when I drop that into that little nest, at the bottom, you can see that the beam is passing through the lens tube at an angle.

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It’s not going through straight at all. And so what I’m going to have to do is exactly the same on this as I did with the other axis.

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I’m going to use the two screws at the top to align the beam and make it parallel by making this mark align with that mark, the target mark.

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And that’s looking pretty spot on, to be honest. So I need to do that again.

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As I keep saying to you, this is not a one hit job. We’ve made a correction to the bottom one.

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And in making the correction to the bottom one, we’ve also upset the top one.

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So the top one is no longer in the same target position that it was before.

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And you can see it has changed position. It’s moved out of position

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this way. It was forward of the cross before. Now it’s nearly on the cross. Now we’ll check it again.

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It’s still just a little bit out, so we’ve got to make a little correction, bring it back a little bit further.

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And that’s pretty good. We’ve now corrected the beam. It’s not running through the axis of the lens, it’s just running parallel to the axis of the lens.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So to get it true, we’ve got to move the spot across this way.

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And on this machine, remember, we’ve got adjustment on here. So we’ve made our adjustment in Y – too much.

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Well, that’s pretty well spot on in Y.

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But now, if you take a look, you’ll find that it slightly changed in this direction.

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Now to correct it in this direction, what you have to do is think a little bit about the problem.

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The beam is coming down in front of the cross, which means that the beam, if it was on centre, it would be there. Because it’s in front of centre,

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it’s here. So what I need to do is to drop the beam down the mirror and to drop the beam down the

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mirror. I’ve effectively got to raise the mirror up. So if I lift the mirror up slightly.

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Like that? Just snug it back up again and check what I’ve done to the position of this dot

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now. I’ve raised it too much.

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I purposely raised it too much, so you can see that it’s gone the other way.

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So I’ve got to drop it down a little bit now. And there we go.

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Now the real test of whether or not the machine has been set accurately. Is what I call the fourth corner test.

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So we start off with a nice, clean target and we drive it to the front corner and we do a test.

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And I think you see, that’s pretty central. So now we’re going to drive to this back corner and do the same thing.

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We’ve got a problem. So let’s come over to this corner. So,

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my settings are not as good as I thought they were.

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The fourth corner problem is something that always tends to happen. Because mirror two is in the middle of a big lever.

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I put one of those targets on there. We’ll put a burn on that target over in the rear corner,

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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and then we’ll bring it over to the front corner and we’ll see how far we are out between one and three.

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You can see, it’s pretty perfect here, but it shouldn’t be.

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It’s actually got to be that back position. So now what I’ve got to do,

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I’m going to go to mirror number one and I’ve got to make some very small adjustments there, to bring that one off centre to that one,. Very slightly,

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and we’ll see what happens. A little bit more, now I haven’t taken the diagonal error out.

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We’ve created an offset problem here, which means we need to adjust this up and down again.

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But before we do that? We really need four dots in the same place.

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And then I move, it doesn’t matter which way I move. Move into the corner, make sure you reset the target because it will move. Maybe a half to one millimetre out.

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Much the same. So basically, all four corners are now pretty accurate.

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The only thing is they’re in the wrong place. So at the moment, the Beam is striking here and we want it to strike here. Now, to get the beam to move up the mirror.

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We can’t move the beam. What we’ve got to do, is to move the mirror down so that the beam hits the mirror higher.

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So if I push that down a little bit, just make sure it sits in the corner.

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Just got to go down just a shade. And there we got.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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So we just lock the head up now. And there is one further locking mechanism that we’ve got to use, which is the screw at the bottom here.

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Locks the head up nice and solid so that it doesn’t jiggle around which it hasn’t.

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Now the only problem is, these fumes here might look innocuous,

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but I suspect that if we go look at that mirror, we should find that it’s coated with smoke fumes now.

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Well, actually, it’s not too bad. So we’re all set up and ready to cut.

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I did mention the phrase sweet spot earlier on when we were talking about mirror number three.

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It’s a very important concept that you’ve seen me actually use while setting.

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But let me explain it to you.

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Your laser beam comes in and this black centerline here is both the centerline of the laser beam and the centerline the axis of the lens itself.

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Now, the axis of the lens, if you project it up and hit the mirror, it hits the mirror at that point there.

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Here we’ve got the entry mouth, which normally exists on most heads.

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They’re made of solid material and there’s a hole in The Head. That’s what these green lines are supposed to represent.

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Most people are trying to aim for the center of that hole.

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But if you aim for the center of that hole?

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You’re in totally the wrong place, because what’s going to happen is your beam is now going to come in here on this red line,

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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for example, and it’s going to come down here.

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Well, look that centre line there, if that is a centre line, that’s nothing to do with the centre line, the axis of the lens.

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This spot here is called the sweet spot.

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It is the only spot on the mirror that will reflect the laser beam down the axis of the lens tube and through the axis of the lens itself.

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As you’ve seen me do, I’ve moved the mirror up and down to make sure that I get my beam reflected off the right

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spot on the mirror to pass down the axis of the lens. Without an adjustable head,

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you are suffering badly because you have to move the beam up and down.

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You can’t move the mirror up and down. To move the beam up and down.

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You’ve got to go right back to the beginning of the system and move the tube up and down.

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Well, as I tried to demonstrate to you, that’s an absolute waste of time because you’ve then got to set all the other parts of the system to come

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back to here and find that you still haven’t got it right and you’ve got to go back to the beginning.

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You’re going to go backwards and forwards and you can spend hours chasing trying to find this sweet spot.

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And that is why I designed the head so that it is adjustable.

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And of course, the other thing about a solid head system is you don’t have a break in here where you can put some sort of target in.

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So that’s the great advantage of this open C-series lens tube system.

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We can make sure that we set the lens tube up, the axis of the lens tube perfectly to match the axis of the laser beam itself.

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There is only one sweet spot. Before we rush off and try and cut our way to Australia with this machine.

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We need to know whether or not the tube in this machine cuts like a butter knife or like a samurai sword.

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This is a tube which is supplied by CloudRay. Now, I expect it to be very sharp, not blunt. But,

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I don’t trust anything, so I have to test it myself.

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Especially, you guys are that may decide to convert a K40 machine because all of K40 machines will be supplied with B-Grade tubes,

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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which will be fine for engraving, but not very good for cutting. And I will show you what I mean.

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I hope when I burn my way into this block of acrylic here with a 10 second full power pulse burn.

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This is a 45 watt tube and it should probably run a maximum of 19 milliamps. Let’s establish where 19 milliamps is.

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There’s no lines in this tube, so the beam is passing straight through the middle.

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Whether I have that lens tube in or not. It just gives me a better guide as to where the actual beam is.

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So let’s just check where is to start with, there.

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We can now put this underneath here. I shall be firing the laser beam into water, so let’s just have a look.

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Look we’re just, we’re just beginning to boil the surface of the water. Now at the same time, I’m firing this laser beam.

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You’ll see the ammeter go up and down as I press the pulse button.

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About 20 percent power is reading around about six and a half milliamps,

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if I hold the button on. So I’ve got to adjust the power on the display, it says 20 percent power.

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I anticipate I’m going to have probably round about 70 or 75 per cent power to make

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this read 19 milliamps, and we will change it up to 70 per cent. And there we go, we’re at 19 and a half.

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Maybe 68 per cent, hold the pulse button – 19 million.

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So I can’t set this machine any more than 68 per cent power.

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That’s it. That’s the limit. So we leave that set to its maximum power now, 68 per cent. So I can put that 20mm thick block of acrylic on the top there like that.

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I’m just going to count 10 seconds of burn and we’ll see what we get. Hmmm.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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There is a chance that I’m going to catch fire to this, because it’s got quite a lot of power going into it.

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And here’s where the air assist override comes in handy because I can go.

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And I can now produce some blowing. Zero one two three four five six seven eight nine 10.

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I don’t think you could misinterpret that as anything other than a sharp beam.

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If we if we had a bad tube, I can simulate what a bad tube looks like because I can change the shape of that.

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If I take the power down to say 15 percent zero one two three four five six seven eight nine 10,

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even at 15 percent, that is still a pretty sharp beam.

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And just by way of example, here’s what I mean about a blunt beam. Look it’s definitely got a rounded end to it.

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And that’s what I was half expecting to find at 15%. So this is a very, very good tube.

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OK, well, up to now, we’ve been basically getting the machine ready to work.

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We haven’t calibrated the machine yet, only roughly to make sure that it doesn’t go bonkers when we turn it on.

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So we’ve got several things to do.

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The most important thing we’ve got to do to start with is to calibrate the machine so that it knows what the real world looks like.

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What does 25mm look like in terms of steps on the stepper motor?

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That’s what we’ve got to calibrate, but before we can do that, we’ve got to be able to draw a shape,

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a known shape on a piece of material. So that we can measure the outcome and feed that back to the machine so that it knows what reality is.

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You guys that have probably only ever used a K40 may not be familiar with all the great advantages of having a digital control system.

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We’ll go through that process shortly.

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But before we do that, it’s important to understand that we’ve got a completely different sort of lens and nozzle set up on this machine.

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Now that’s a 20mm lens that fits into this lens tube.

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Now, when you get this universal lens tube, it’s called universal for a good reason.

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It got some marks on the outside here. Some grooves and these grooves are designed to work with this, what they call, number three nozzle.

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Now this is a cutting nozzle because it’s got a small hole in the end and a fairly long,

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sharp point on it. So that it can focus the air assist that’s coming here, right down to the Kerf that we’re going to cut in the work.

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This is basically a cutting nozzle as opposed to this, which has got a great big hole in it, and acts as a an engraving nozzle.

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But let’s start off with a cutting nozzle. This mark here is for a two inch lens.

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So the focal point for this two inch lens will be about seven millimetres below the nozzle if we turn the lens tube upside down.

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There’s another thread in the other end. And that is a two and a half inch lens.

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So you put a two and a half inch lens there, and again the focal point will be about seven millimetres beyond the nozzle.

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We’ve still got this thread up the top here remember, and now that thread up the top there is actually suitable for a four inch lens.

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We shall find that this focal point will still be seven millimetres below this nozzle.

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There are many types of lens that you can buy in terms of focal distance, but two types of lens that you can buy.

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You can buy what they call a plano-convex lens, which basically means it’s curved on the top and flat on the bottom.

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Now there’s something else called a meniscus lens, which has got curved on the top, so it’s got a hollow face underneath.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

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Sometimes it’s quite difficult to tell them apart. Here’s the simple way of determining what sort of lens you’ve got.

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Hold the lens between your finger and thumb like that and hold it up to your eye and look in the flat, what you think is the flat surface of the lens.

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Now tip it so that you can see reflections in the background. If what you see in the background is like looking at a mirror,

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then this is a flat surface. If what you see in the background is all fuzzy,

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then this is a curved surface. There’s a bit of a myth around that there is a correct and an incorrect way to use a lens.

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There is a way that the lens is designed.

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The lens is designed with the curved side upwards so that parallel rays of light hit the curved surface of the lens first.

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That’s the way in which the lens has been designed. We’re going to put the curved side in first.

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In the bottom of this,

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there is a recess which the lens sits snugly into. To make sure it sits on the axis of the lens tube. Make sure you get your lens sitting in there.

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And there’s a nice little soft ring on the bottom here to make sure you don’t over compress the lens.

341
00:39:20,830 –> 00:39:28,780
There is a special lens tool that you can buy, or you can use something like a six inch steel rule, just something that will fit in those two slots.

342
00:39:28,780 –> 00:39:32,800
Generally, if you don’t bite your nails, you can use your fingernails.

343
00:39:32,800 –> 00:39:42,590
So I’ve just got my fingernail. In the slot, and I could feel when it’s hit the bottom and listen.

344
00:39:42,590 –> 00:39:48,260
It doesn’t shake or move around. That’s the important thing. So now we can plug this on here.

345
00:39:48,260 –> 00:39:51,810
There’s our lens assembly. So we’re all plugged in and ready to go.

346
00:39:51,810 –> 00:39:55,820
I know we’ve got nothing in the bottom of the machine yet, but it doesn’t really matter at the moment.

347
00:39:55,820 –> 00:40:01,670
I’m going to stick a white tile in the bottom there. I’ve got a little step gauge here, which I’ve made.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

348
00:40:01,670 –> 00:40:05,330
Just drop this down to five ,seven millimetres. And there we go.

349
00:40:05,330 –> 00:40:12,650
It’s as simple as that. We don’t need an adjustable table. OK, now this is a piece of software that goes with the Ruida controller.

350
00:40:12,650 –> 00:40:21,830
It’s free. You can get an alternative version called LightBurn, which is a much more fully featured version of this.

351
00:40:21,830 –> 00:40:29,390
It’s basically a rewrite that somebody has done of this RDWorks software with loads more features in it.

352
00:40:29,390 –> 00:40:32,870
But hey, this is free. LightBurn is not free.

353
00:40:32,870 –> 00:40:36,980
This software is very good at controlling all the settings on the machine.

354
00:40:36,980 –> 00:40:40,310
But what we’re going to do to start with is we’re just going to draw. And there we are.

355
00:40:40,310 –> 00:40:47,330
We’ve got a 100 millimetres square. Now, I can now come up here to this tab called work,

356
00:40:47,330 –> 00:40:56,450
where I can set a layer. We’ll set that to 200 and we’ll set the power down to…, we’ll leave it at 15 percent because we only want to draw.

357
00:40:56,450 –> 00:41:00,740
We do not want to cut through the material. So we just move ahead, somewhere there.

358
00:41:00,740 –> 00:41:07,580
And then we press this origin button where the head is going to start and it should go around there.

359
00:41:07,580 –> 00:41:14,540
We’re going to run this program from the PC. Let’s see what happens.

360
00:41:14,540 –> 00:41:19,460
Oh, look at that. So that’s our first something with the laser tube.

361
00:41:19,460 –> 00:41:28,490
Now it’s important that we measure this reasonably accurately. Because we’ve been mechanically messing around with this machine.

362
00:41:28,490 –> 00:41:37,230
We ought to check the diagonals: one hundred forty seven point seventy three, and this way?

363
00:41:37,230 –> 00:41:38,820
Looks to be exactly the same.

364
00:41:38,820 –> 00:41:47,460
Checking the diagonals checks the squareness of the mechanics of the machine. We’ve just established that this plastic box that we’ve got inside the machine.

365
00:41:47,460 –> 00:41:52,920
The controller, doesn’t really know what the real world is about.

366
00:41:52,920 –> 00:42:04,320
I’ve fiddled with the various parameters, if you if you remember. Which have allowed me to make the machine, CNC work, move around, set zeros.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

367
00:42:04,320 –> 00:42:10,020
It’s already had a certain amount of training, but there’s a lot of information that it doesn’t know.

368
00:42:10,020 –> 00:42:17,880
As we found out there’s what the real world sizes are. So we’re going to have to go in and fix that now and within this software,

369
00:42:17,880 –> 00:42:25,050
we can do that by going to file / vendor settings,

370
00:42:25,050 –> 00:42:30,540
and then it says, Aha, you’re not allowed in here. You need a password.

371
00:42:30,540 –> 00:42:40,230
Well, everybody knows the password. “RD8888” RD and four eight’s, one, two, three, four.

372
00:42:40,230 –> 00:42:44,820
OK. And then it allows me into these settings here.

373
00:42:44,820 –> 00:42:50,940
Now you’ve got to understand what vendor settings are. These are like the rules you set down for your kids.

374
00:42:50,940 –> 00:42:58,530
You will be in by 10 o’clock and if you’re not in by 10 o’clock, I’ll take your car away or you won’t be going out for the next six months.

375
00:42:58,530 –> 00:43:05,880
These are limits. These are not necessarily the values that we will be using in the machine.

376
00:43:05,880 –> 00:43:17,010
These are just safety values. Now, one of the things that we know that we’ve got to set up for the X is this step length.

377
00:43:17,010 –> 00:43:32,060
This can be very, very confusing, because we’re in the x axis and it says step length, brackets, microns and there is and I write this down.

378
00:43:32,060 –> 00:43:37,620
So that’s how we would read what’s in the vendor settings.

379
00:43:37,620 –> 00:43:40,980
10 microns per step of the stepper motor.

380
00:43:40,980 –> 00:43:51,000
Now it would seem logical that if we want to move from ninety nine point 25 up to 100, we want a little bit more physical dimension per step.

381
00:43:51,000 –> 00:43:55,320
I’m afraid that isn’t quite the logic that’s applied with stepper motors.

382
00:43:55,320 –> 00:44:04,630
If we take a 100 mm and we divide it by ten point one eight microns, and I’ve converted that to millimetres.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

383
00:44:04,630 –> 00:44:17,040
So that’s why the decimal point has shifted. We get an answer of 9823 steps to move ninety nine point twenty five mm.

384
00:44:17,040 –> 00:44:25,140
What we really need is more steps to get to 100 mm.

385
00:44:25,140 –> 00:44:30,150
Let’s go back and look at the maths again, because to get more steps,

386
00:44:30,150 –> 00:44:43,980
what I need is not a bigger number under that one hundred, but a smaller number, so a smaller steps per micron.

387
00:44:43,980 –> 00:44:48,970
Produces a correct result.

388
00:44:48,970 –> 00:44:55,800
So look, ninety nine point twenty five is where we are. Hundred is where we want to get to.

389
00:44:55,800 –> 00:45:06,280
So if we divide that and then we multiply that by the ten point eight micron, the ten point one eight microns.

390
00:45:06,280 –> 00:45:12,040
And the answer comes out to 10.103 microns per step.

391
00:45:12,040 –> 00:45:21,190
That’s what we really need. So let’s just see what our answer calculates out to when we do it with the computer.

392
00:45:21,190 –> 00:45:26,350
And you can see up here it says ten point one eight one three two.

393
00:45:26,350 –> 00:45:31,870
So if we say we want to recalculate the step length. That comes in to 10.104.

394
00:45:31,870 –> 00:45:36,640
I said 10.1036, but I didn’t work to the correct number of decimal places,

395
00:45:36,640 –> 00:45:46,060
when I put this number in here and now we’ve got to do the same thing with our Y dimension. It was 101.66.

396
00:45:46,060 –> 00:45:54,100
Now, using that logic, the number is going to get larger, not smaller, point six six.

397
00:45:54,100 –> 00:45:59,620
So when I say, OK, now, that number should get bigger, not smaller.

398
00:45:59,620 –> 00:46:03,810
So instead of nine point nine?

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

399
00:46:03,810 –> 00:46:12,950
It’s now ten point one, but it’s not instantly logical when you look at this information here. Now, we’ve got the correct data in there at the moment.

400
00:46:12,950 –> 00:46:17,170
And to be sure that we save it. What we need to do is write that back.

401
00:46:17,170 –> 00:46:19,310
We say write and now what it’s done,

402
00:46:19,310 –> 00:46:28,490
it’s sent that information back to the controller. Where it will be stored forever and we should get the correct dimensions forever.

403
00:46:28,490 –> 00:46:37,120
What else do we need to tell it? Well, here we need to tell it what the breadth,

404
00:46:37,120 –> 00:46:41,770
Y, in other words, how big is the field of movement?

405
00:46:41,770 –> 00:46:49,000
The real world number for this machine is X equals three hundred Y equals 200.

406
00:46:49,000 –> 00:46:57,790
But we’ve modified the head. So what we can do now is check what work area we can allow the head to move over.

407
00:46:57,790 –> 00:47:02,050
So if I reset the machine, it will go over to that corner.

408
00:47:02,050 –> 00:47:11,970
Zero zero. Now there is just the smallest little problem over that corner there.

409
00:47:11,970 –> 00:47:17,600
And if we look carefully, you’ll see that this knob here just touches there.

410
00:47:17,600 –> 00:47:23,840
So what we need to do, is to adjust this switch so that it catches this head just a little bit earlier.

411
00:47:23,840 –> 00:47:36,910
So now if we look closely here, we should see that it doesn’t hit when I press reset.

412
00:47:36,910 –> 00:47:42,610
There’s just the smallest gap there. OK, so that’s the absolute maximum that I can get.

413
00:47:42,610 –> 00:47:50,710
So we should be able to go across to the machine here and drive it in X. Until we’re just about to hit something at this end.

414
00:47:50,710 –> 00:48:02,220
I’m going to play safe and call that 325. So we go to X and we set the breadth of the machine to 325, reset.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

415
00:48:02,220 –> 00:48:09,390
We’ll check what Y is doing. Hit’s the stop.

416
00:48:09,390 –> 00:48:16,470
Comes off, the stop, and goes back on and set zero. So Y is perfectly OK, so now we’ll bring

417
00:48:16,470 –> 00:48:27,330
Y as far forward as we possibly can. And check what, check what’s going to hit first?

418
00:48:27,330 –> 00:48:38,580
It’s going to be this little knob here that hits first. Y we’re actually at two thirty two, so again to thirty five and we set the breath

419
00:48:38,580 –> 00:48:47,520
to 235. So we write that information back, so the comptroller knows exactly what the work area now is.

420
00:48:47,520 –> 00:48:52,830
This jump off speed is the speed that initially

421
00:48:52,830 –> 00:48:59,610
it starts off at. Now we’ve got this key jump off speed; 15mm’s a second – 20.

422
00:48:59,610 –> 00:49:05,440
So these are only limits remember, So we could have that set to 30?

423
00:49:05,440 –> 00:49:11,530
And it wouldn’t matter, because we shall be able to change it elsewhere. Acceleration.

424
00:49:11,530 –> 00:49:19,740
Well, I think the acceleration that we could allow this go up, at least 30000.

425
00:49:19,740 –> 00:49:25,740
The stepper motor might not be able to deal with it, but we shall soon find that out in a minute because I’ll show you exactly how we find that out.

426
00:49:25,740 –> 00:49:33,070
Maximum speed: 500. I’m going to set that to one thousand. A thousand millimetres, a second on a K40?WHAT!

427
00:49:33,070 –> 00:49:40,000
And then we’ll go to the Y-axis. Now, the Y-axis, we can’t drive the Y-axis quite as quickly so we can have jump off speeds.

428
00:49:40,000 –> 00:49:44,890
15 That’s okay. Maximum acceleration. Well is says 3000

429
00:49:44,890 –> 00:49:50,260
Yeah, we’re going to set that to ten thousand. We might even get to 20000.

430
00:49:50,260 –> 00:49:55,880
Twenty thousand. Maximum speed in Y?

431
00:49:55,880 –> 00:50:05,270
OK, let’s set it to a thousand What we’ve now set is basically stupidly huge safety limits.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

432
00:50:05,270 –> 00:50:09,770
But this is not how the machine works. The machine doesn’t work off these numbers.

433
00:50:09,770 –> 00:50:17,390
We have to go elsewhere to control the machine. So now we’re going over here to this thing called the user tab.

434
00:50:17,390 –> 00:50:26,430
And again, we have to read because the machine has also got this information stored in its memory.

435
00:50:26,430 –> 00:50:39,110
Cutting parameters, idle speed, but idle speed is the speed between cuts, idle acceleration = three thousand? Pfffft.

436
00:50:39,110 –> 00:50:46,990
Maybe. We’ll push that up to 10000?

437
00:50:46,990 –> 00:50:51,610
You see we’ve got different start speed here, this is what will actually happen.

438
00:50:51,610 –> 00:50:57,940
We will be starting at a speed of 10 millimetres a second. Idle delay nothing.

439
00:50:57,940 –> 00:51:05,410
Acceleration factor , we’ll just leave those as they are. Sweep parameters are all to do with scanning.

440
00:51:05,410 –> 00:51:07,900
So start speeds are slow. That doesn’t really matter.

441
00:51:07,900 –> 00:51:17,950
That’s, if you like, wheel spin 10 millimetres a second because you can’t start from nothing instantly, but it tries to. And then acceleration = 6000.

442
00:51:17,950 –> 00:51:27,490
No, we’re going to take that up to at least 20 and for the Y 15, because there’s more mass in Y that we’re trying to accelerate. Line speed.

443
00:51:27,490 –> 00:51:35,200
The shift speed 150 mm a second. Scan mode, common mode, facula..

444
00:51:35,200 –> 00:51:42,690
I’m not going to explain what those are at the moment because they’re just out of this world as far as you guys are concerned. Auxillary,

445
00:51:42,690 –> 00:51:44,980
what have we got here? Feed parameters.

446
00:51:44,980 –> 00:51:50,860
If you had, for instance, a belt feeder on this machine, this is where you change the speed of belt and various things.

447
00:51:50,860 –> 00:51:58,620
We haven’t got any belt feeder on here. Home parameters? Home speed 100mm a second.

448
00:51:58,620 –> 00:52:03,970
It’s not too bad for X and Y; 100mm a second.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

449
00:52:03,970 –> 00:52:10,540
Autohome X yes, Autohome Y Yes, we’ll draw a little test pattern on here.

450
00:52:10,540 –> 00:52:19,000
We do a little scanning pattern, all right? We’ll set the dimensions of that scan to 25 mm wide.

451
00:52:19,000 –> 00:52:25,210
We don’t need to go too deep. Ten millimetres deep will be good enough. And then we’ll come over to here and we’ll set the parameters.

452
00:52:25,210 –> 00:52:30,910
So we go to work. Let’s scan at typically 200mm a second to start with. Cut?

453
00:52:30,910 –> 00:52:34,930
No, we don’t want to cut, we want to scan. So there it is, scan. Blowing?

454
00:52:34,930 –> 00:52:40,600
No, we don’t really want to blow. We can turn the air assist off. This is, this is where we just guess on experience.

455
00:52:40,600 –> 00:52:50,560
I would say 20 percent power will be perfectly OK. X-swing, which means we’re going to scan, scan, scan, scan.

456
00:52:50,560 –> 00:52:57,080
And if we change it to unilateral, it means we go scan, return, scan, return, scan,

457
00:52:57,080 –> 00:53:02,980
and we only scan in one direction. OK, so we leave it at X-swing at the moment and here we’ve got our interval.

458
00:53:02,980 –> 00:53:10,720
I’m going to change that to point two. So if we just drive this to a position somewhere. It doesn’t matter where we drive it to.

459
00:53:10,720 –> 00:53:14,200
And to be honest, it doesn’t matter where the head is quite.

460
00:53:14,200 –> 00:53:20,290
But it’s still set to about seven millimetres at the moment. So it’ll be in about the right focus position.

461
00:53:20,290 –> 00:53:24,430
So we should press origin and that’s where our program should start.

462
00:53:24,430 –> 00:53:32,540
I’m going to send the program down to the machine rather than run it from the P.C.

463
00:53:32,540 –> 00:53:37,850
I’m going to say download, and it asked me the question, what do you want to download it as? Well,

464
00:53:37,850 –> 00:53:43,780
“Scan1” file download success file.

465
00:53:43,780 –> 00:53:49,980
And the one file that’s in there at the moment is “Scan1”. So we shall say enter.

466
00:53:49,980 –> 00:53:56,580
There it is, a picture of what we’re going to do. So all I’ve got to do is press this green button and it will keep running the program.

467
00:53:56,580 –> 00:54:00,930
See what results we get from the parameters that I’ve got set up.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

468
00:54:00,930 –> 00:54:12,000
It’s actually doing an excellent job. Now, I don’t know why it went to there.

469
00:54:12,000 –> 00:54:15,840
So let me move this and see what happens when I press the program again.

470
00:54:15,840 –> 00:54:21,990
Does it come back to this place here and start again? Yes, it does.

471
00:54:21,990 –> 00:54:31,960
So we’ve got some sort of anchor point set in there, we’ve, we’ve told it to go to the back position after it’s finished.

472
00:54:31,960 –> 00:54:40,840
So let’s go and find out where that is in our settings, because we don’t want that to happen, I would like it to stay where it finishes.

473
00:54:40,840 –> 00:54:46,750
Maybe you don’t. Maybe you want it to always park in the back corner. So let’s go to the User Tab to start with.

474
00:54:46,750 –> 00:54:52,150
Let’s see what we got. Other / Return parameter / Return position.

475
00:54:52,150 –> 00:54:56,320
And here we’ve got look; Return position – Homing position.

476
00:54:56,320 –> 00:55:00,970
Let’s see what options we’ve got here. Positioning point.

477
00:55:00,970 –> 00:55:05,150
Let’s try that. OK, let’s write that back.

478
00:55:05,150 –> 00:55:22,570
So I’m driving it to here, and here, and I’ll make that my origin. So I press the origin button and then we’ll run our program.

479
00:55:22,570 –> 00:55:28,840
Look at the way the smoke’s going out the back. Oh, there we go, look, now it’s stated exactly where we want it to stay.

480
00:55:28,840 –> 00:55:35,380
At the beginning of the program, and I should be able to press enter / enter,

481
00:55:35,380 –> 00:55:42,130
and it will allow me to make certain parameter changes here at the keyboard rather than go back to the P.C.

482
00:55:42,130 –> 00:55:49,930
And what I want to do is change the speed from two hundred, we will just come down onto the 200 mark, we’ll press enter,

483
00:55:49,930 –> 00:55:58,100
and that will enable me then to drop onto that first number and we’ll make that to four five hundred mm a second.

484
00:55:58,100 –> 00:56:06,650
Enter. I can’t see, right, but I presume that’s what it says there confirm. Enter.

Transcript for K40 Laser Upgrade – Finishing The Build And Laser Machine Setup (Cont…)

485
00:56:06,650 –> 00:56:15,910
If we drive this to a new position here and call the origin.

486
00:56:15,910 –> 00:56:26,210
Now, wait for it, run. Right!

487
00:56:26,210 –> 00:56:30,770
Did you say what happened there, it’s running fast, but it stopped,

488
00:56:30,770 –> 00:56:34,790
initially, it just couldn’t get going. Once it got going,

489
00:56:34,790 –> 00:56:40,060
it was fine. So this is where we’ve exceeded some limits.

490
00:56:40,060 –> 00:56:47,550
And this is where I can play for absolutely ages, but basically I’ve shown you where all the parameters are.

491
00:56:47,550 –> 00:56:54,150
So all we’ve got to do is find out now the best and the most efficient parameters that we can run this machine at.

492
00:56:54,150 –> 00:56:59,190
I think we’ll carry on with that in the next session because there’s a lot of things that we could play with,

493
00:56:59,190 –> 00:57:04,920
and I need to explain why and how we would use these parameters.