02 – Catching Up With China Blue

00:00

welcome to another session with my

00:02

tangerine tiger

00:04

um today we’re going to push on and

00:07

do some more destructive work on the

00:08

machine before we start

00:10

working on it to build it back up again

00:12

there are quite a few things that we’ve

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got to

00:14

modify to bring this up to the same

00:17

standard as my

00:18

china blue over the other side of the

00:20

workshop there and so you know it’s

00:22

pretty straightforward stuff

00:24

some of it but the first thing i’m going

00:26

to do is

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one thing i really wish i’d have done

00:28

early on with my china blue machine

00:31

and let’s get access to everything i’m

00:34

going to put an

00:35

access panel in the side here there is a

00:39

natural divider across here i’ve

00:41

measured it and we’ve got to 295

00:45

millimeters

00:46

roughly and that’s where that piece of

00:49

metal is

00:49

inside and what i’m trying to do i’m

00:51

going to put

00:53

a door in here which i’m going to cut

00:56

out

01:02

and here’s the frame for the door

01:05

okay now the door itself is going to sit

01:08

on that line that i’ve marked there with

01:10

my tape

01:12

and the screws are going to be below

01:15

this panel that’s inside here

01:18

i’ve got to keep the screws below the

01:20

panel because there’s a cable chain that

01:22

runs along and i can’t have the screw

01:24

heads interfering with the cable chain

01:26

and i need these screws up here out of

01:28

the way as well of everything else

01:30

so there are natural obstructions in

01:33

here which define

01:34

where and how i should put this in it’s

01:37

less

01:38

important where this way although

01:41

when i lift this up and move the head

01:43

forward i’ve got to think about

01:45

where my cutting tool is going to go in

01:47

relation to the head

01:49

and the cable chain just to make sure

01:51

things don’t move

01:53

we’ll just tape it in place now i’m

01:55

putting in that i’m locking that in

01:56

place for two good reasons

01:58

first of all i’m going to mark

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

02:01

my aperture and secondly

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[Applause]

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now i didn’t waste the piece that came

02:07

out in the middle here

02:09

because now i’m going to put that in

02:10

there

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and just temporarily stick that in there

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[Music]

02:20

we’re going to use a proper drill to do

02:21

the next bit

02:36

now we’re going to start creating some

02:37

dust inside the machine i’m going to put

02:38

dust sheet over everything inside the

02:40

machine

02:41

just to protect all the rails and the uh

02:44

the mirrors and things like that

02:50

[Music]

02:59

[Music]

03:07

[Music]

03:08

this is a weld on there

03:18

[Music]

03:30

clean those corners if they’re the ones

03:33

that are going to show

03:40

these underneath here won’t show

03:51

just remove all the sharp edges and

03:53

burrs

03:57

a five mil hole through here

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

04:07

i don’t want to mess up my new machine

04:09

do i look at that

04:11

a little bit of isopropyl alcohol

04:19

restore it to full health back to

04:21

pristine condition

04:24

i’ve invalidated the warranty i’m afraid

04:27

and what warranty was that did i hear

04:28

you say

04:29

okay so here’s the plan we’ve got our

04:31

frame now

04:32

and i’ve remade a separate frame because

04:34

i wanted to cover up this little bit at

04:36

the bottom here which is a bit

04:37

uh a bit rubbish and the idea is i’ve

04:39

put four tapped holes

04:41

in the corners of this frame plastic is

04:43

not very strong

04:44

and not good for putting tapped holes in

04:46

but it’s really only to hold the screws

04:48

in and stop them falling out and we’ve

04:50

got plenty of access into here for

04:53

messing a room with the stepper motor at

04:55

last i can see what i’m doing in here i

04:57

can measure things

04:58

i can get access to things

05:03

just put a cover on there so we can also

05:06

see

05:06

safely into the machine well at least we

05:09

can see what we’re doing

05:10

now so i have to say that this bracket

05:13

is actually substantially stronger than

05:16

the one that i had on china blue machine

05:19

the principle’s still the same but they

05:20

seem as though they’ve made it of 16

05:22

gauge rather than

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18 gauge right so i’ve got the belt

05:25

disconnected now

05:26

but it’ll never go back together again

05:28

until i drill some holes in here

05:30

so that i can adjust the tensioners

05:34

sounds like a bad idea why is that

05:35

screwed in there

05:38

okay so we take that off

05:42

and we can see what’s in here now

05:48

that’s rather alarming news

05:52

yes you can see the bearing block there

05:54

there should be two screws here

05:56

and two screws there well the two screws

05:58

are there over the back

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

06:00

but there’s no two screws here so this

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bearing block is only held on with

06:04

two screws this gantry i mean it feels

06:07

secure enough

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don’t get me wrong as i said this is a

06:09

relatively well-built machine

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here’s the bracket that i made for the

06:13

china blue machine

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now i’m pretty confident this will not

06:18

fit on here because

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first of all as you can see the pulley

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won’t actually go through the hole it’s

06:22

a much

06:23

larger pulley on this machine than it

06:25

was on my other machine

06:27

so let’s just have a quick look what the

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heights are like i think the heights are

06:31

going to be okay

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that sits on there and this

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looks as though yeah that will sit on

06:40

there okay that looks perfect

06:42

so that height is correct i’ve got to go

06:44

and design a number two mirror bracket

06:46

that takes the mirror at the right

06:48

height and

06:49

allows this larger pulley to fit in here

06:52

and the bearings have still got to sit

06:55

in there

06:56

and allow everything to run clearly just

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remember that’s why i’ve got this hole

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in the side here so i can get around to

07:01

it

07:02

because there’s a nut in there which is

07:03

difficult to get to

07:13

so we drop the stepper motor down yeah

07:15

we’ve still really got to cut this

07:17

bracket off now

07:19

as there’s only two screws holding that

07:22

gantry on we’ve got this thing to come

07:25

off here

07:29

this sensor is in totally the wrong

07:31

direction as well it shouldn’t be facing

07:33

that way

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so we’ll have this sensor off now i can

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get to the

07:39

bearing screws we’ve got to disconnect

07:42

this cable chain

07:43

and now

07:48

we have a stepper motor bracket in my

07:50

hand

07:52

and i can just go and cut that off there

07:58

okay so i modified the motor bracket and

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

08:01

uh i gave it a little coat of paint just

08:03

to make sure that um

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i didn’t invalidate the warranty i’ve

08:06

put the screws back in but hey you can

08:08

see that this

08:09

this motor bracket can be mounted

08:12

anywhere look i can

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i can slide it around forward

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and backwards and wiggle it around

08:20

but even so the one thing i can’t do

08:23

is move it in and out and

08:27

unfortunately that’s the one thing that

08:29

i need to do

08:32

to get this prototype bracket on

08:37

now this is the great advantage of

08:39

having laser machines just now i can

08:40

actually make

08:41

a not a working prototype but a a 3d

08:46

usable model that enables me to check

08:48

that i’ve got everything in the right

08:49

place

08:50

it would appear to fit but the problem

08:53

is it could really do with being

08:56

out there somewhere a little bit further

08:58

out so that i’ve got room

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to get this plugged over the motor

09:03

because of the

09:05

bigger flange everything about it says

09:09

yeah there’s a bit of a problem so what

09:11

i’ve got to do now

09:13

look i’ve got about six millimeter

09:15

difference there

09:17

between where it was so i’ve got to

09:19

redesign

09:20

a motor bracket as well to shift the

09:23

stepper motor out

09:24

it won’t affect the casing here because

09:26

i’m not going to not going to increase

09:27

the size of the bracket

09:28

all i’m going to do is shift the motor

09:30

further away from the gantry

09:32

i’ve got to make a mark ii version of my

09:34

belt drive and

09:36

mirror two holder because mark one

09:40

which was suitable for my china blue

09:43

machine

09:44

is not suitable for this machine

09:48

now there’s quite a few people that have

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asked me can they have

09:52

this unit i think the answer is probably

09:56

no

09:57

because it’s so different than what i’ve

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

10:00

seen

10:01

being shipped today

10:04

this machine here i think is more

10:06

typical of the machines that you guys

10:08

might have this one’s got a very small

10:10

drive pinion on it

10:12

and this one has got a much larger drive

10:14

pinion on it and so i’ve had to do quite

10:16

a lot of modifications here

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to get this mechanism to fit into this

10:20

machine

10:21

not difficult but a complete redesign

10:25

i plan to send the mark one and the mark

10:28

ii along with the lightweight head and

10:32

the one piece tube holder with its

10:34

mirror to cloud

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so that they can attempt to create the

10:37

rust spec machine for themselves

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so i’m making it easy for them by giving

10:42

them all the drawings

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and physical parts so that they can play

10:46

with them

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i’ve already had quite a few inquiries

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about when is the rust spec machine

10:50

going to be available from cloud ray

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i can’t answer that question but what i

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can do is pass on your interest to cloud

10:57

ray

10:57

to encourage them to make sure it

10:59

happens sooner rather than later i’ll

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make it completely clear to you guys

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i do all this work for cloud ray for

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free

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it’s not for free because i get the

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major enjoyment out of it

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this is great pleasure for me the

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engineering solving the problem that’s

11:14

how i see this i’ve had the pleasure

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and i’m quite happy to give it away but

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of course

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i’m giving it away to a guy in china

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who has got morals he’s a great

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businessman he’s an entrepreneur

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but he has morals and he sees me

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as a bit of a research and development

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arm so

11:35

he’s giving me this kit okay this is two

11:39

thousand pounds worth of kit here

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which is sent to me to modify a machine

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so stand back from this situation and

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see who are the winners

11:48

me because i’m selfishly getting a

11:51

machine

11:52

which i bought the machine and was

11:54

gifted these parts the expensive bits

11:56

so i’ve got a thousand pounds worth of

11:58

machine and two and a half thousand

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

12:00

pounds worth of kit to fit into it

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so there’s an idea just an idea of

12:05

the total value of this package it’s

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somewhat less than thirty or forty

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thousand dollars that you might have to

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pay for a

12:12

proper machine

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we’re gonna see how close we can get to

12:17

the proper machine

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with this venture

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so i think that clears things up i

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bought the machine

12:25

i was gifted some of the stuff i give

12:27

lots of things in return

12:29

and the winners are me mr claude ray

12:33

and you who’s complaining

12:36

right well let’s get back on with the

12:38

job i’m going to be changing the timing

12:40

belt

12:41

in this machine yeah i said timing belt

12:45

because

12:45

that’s what these are these are designed

12:49

for transmitting in one direction

12:53

i’ve mentioned before that these were

12:55

never designed

12:56

for this application cnc machine

13:00

precision movement in opposing

13:03

directions

13:04

the problem with these belts

13:06

particularly this one

13:07

although there’s no stretch in that

13:08

direction the problem is

13:11

these teeth are a bit like a bouncy ball

13:14

when you bounce a ball on the ground it

13:17

absorbs the energy

13:19

and then gives it back to you well

13:21

that’s effectively what these teeth are

13:23

doing

13:24

they’re storing energy up from the

13:26

stepper motor which is doing this

13:28

and they’re at certain speeds they’re

13:31

producing a resonant frequency

13:33

which in a very small way although you

13:35

can’t see it is making this head

13:37

vibrate like this coupled to that as the

13:40

teeth travel around

13:42

the pulley at certain speeds as well

13:45

they will exaggerate this situation so

13:48

we’ve got two things here working

13:49

against us

13:50

when we’re trying to get smooth movement

13:52

out of this head

13:53

to overcome that problem which shows up

13:56

as a curtains problem

13:58

these are lines in the background that

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

14:00

actually represent

14:02

the teeth on the belt the teeth on the

14:04

belt

14:05

are actually causing the head to go stop

14:07

start stop start stop start stop start

14:09

and as the head stops the power which is

14:12

constant

14:13

burns deeper and then it runs quickly

14:16

and it burns shallower deeper shallower

14:19

deeper shallower

14:20

so that’s how these patterns develop on

14:22

here and it all comes back to a

14:24

combination of

14:25

the stepper motor which is a minor

14:27

player

14:28

or the belt which is the major player if

14:31

you

14:32

run round playing police

14:35

you can’t have a steppy motion

14:38

so we’ve got a plane pulley that end two

14:41

plane pulleys this end

14:42

and the belt only ever runs around the

14:44

flat side of the belt

14:46

on these pulleys and then what we’re

14:48

doing we’re driving on the outside of

14:50

the belt

14:52

with the stepper motor and the other

14:54

thing is

14:55

i’m changing the belt profile to a much

14:58

stiffer

14:59

belt profile so i don’t get this bouncy

15:02

ball

15:02

effect i’ve had this system working on

15:04

china blue for the last

15:05

nearly three years now and it’s still

15:08

working extremely well

15:10

and i have no hint of resonance now i

15:12

hope that you might be able to see there

15:14

the difference in the belt profile look

15:17

at the tooth look at the profile at the

15:18

bottom here the thickness of the tooth

15:21

the thickness of the tooth at the bottom

15:22

here is wide the thickness of the tooth

15:25

at the bottom there is

15:26

very very narrow so this is made from a

15:28

much stiffer material

15:29

called urethane polyurethane and as you

15:31

can maybe see there it’s got multiple

15:33

steel cores

15:34

in the center so there’s now not much

15:37

more i can do

15:38

at this end of the machine until i get a

15:40

proper

15:41

steel version of this so i’ve got to get

15:44

that away to the laser cutter now

15:46

that design and get them made

15:49

the problem with laser cutting is

15:51

there’s normally a minimum order charge

15:53

which could be anything from 100 to 200

15:55

pounds depending on which

15:56

which which vendor you use um

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

16:00

because i use this vendor quite a lot

16:01

for other things um

16:03

i will be able to get i don’t know i

16:05

might be able to get four or five of

16:06

these

16:07

for 100 pounds so that’s what i should

16:09

do i should get a small batch made so

16:12

you know for those few that are really

16:14

interested in trying this

16:16

i won’t sell it to you until you’ve

16:17

checked your machine i’ll give you key

16:18

dimensions

16:20

and if your machine satisfies the

16:22

requirements of those dimensions then

16:23

yes you can go ahead and buy one but

16:25

i don’t want to sell you some scrap

16:27

metal let’s start taking a look at the

16:29

other parts of the machine

16:31

one of the things that we do need to do

16:33

is to get the mass of this head down

16:36

so we know how we can do that with the

16:37

lightweight head there’s another

16:39

problem as well i mean we’ve got

16:42

extra weight down here and we’ve got

16:46

inertia here in the form of this chain

16:49

i mean this is however you look at it it

16:51

is a fairly free running

16:53

i agree with you but this still

16:56

represents

16:56

a load as you move the machine backwards

16:59

and forwards because this is something

17:00

that’s got to be dragged

17:02

all the time okay so

17:05

i can’t get the nozzle out let’s just

17:07

take this brace off here which stops the

17:09

head from

17:09

doing that and if you take it off and

17:11

start running fast

17:13

you’ll get wobbly lines on your scans

17:16

so that’s what this piece of material

17:18

here is for there’s still no arrangement

17:20

on here

17:22

for adjusting the head up and down oh

17:24

they’ve reduced the weight by putting m3

17:26

screws in as opposed to m4 screws

17:28

wow oh and i had several goes at it as

17:31

well

17:31

[Laughter]

17:33

okay so now we’ve got the head off

17:37

as i said one of the most useless pieces

17:39

of tut that they build into this machine

17:41

and i have to say that when i bought my

17:43

first machine i was excited at having

17:45

one

17:46

and that’s this red dot pointer it was

17:48

supposed to be the best thing since

17:50

sliced bread

17:51

uh no let’s put that in the box of bits

17:54

and pieces

17:58

because we shan’t need that again along

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

18:01

with that

18:03

and that

18:04

[Music]

18:08

now this thing here is useful for some

18:11

things

18:12

but not on this machine

18:15

so it’s going to come out

18:19

it might seem like a small amount but

18:21

it’s it’s a load it’s a flexing load

18:24

that’s taking place here it’s

18:25

continuously being bent

18:27

you don’t bend things for nothing it

18:29

costs energy

18:31

and it’s mass and what we’re looking for

18:34

this machine to be as fast as possible

18:36

so we’re looking for the smallest

18:37

possible mass that we can get

18:40

in this head

18:48

so we’ve only got one thing left in that

18:52

chain now

18:53

and that’s an airline i think i can do

18:56

something

18:57

to do with that problem basically i’m

19:00

trying to get rid of this heavy old

19:01

chain

19:03

now i’ve seen various people with curly

19:06

cables fixed up the back here

19:08

but but they flop around as they fly

19:11

backwards and forwards

19:13

i don’t want that to happen

19:16

let’s take the cable chain off

19:20

i think we’ll offer up the uh we’ll

19:22

offer up the lightweight head to start

19:23

with

19:24

or at least the the basic framework and

19:26

see

19:27

what we can do with this piece of pipe

19:29

because this represents a small problem

19:32

but it’s an important detail that we

19:34

need to deal with

19:35

more bits for the junk bin but we’ll

19:36

keep that bit because that’s the uh

19:38

that’s the bit to fix the belt on with

19:41

now that’s the miracle of

19:43

acrylic and laser cutting i can quickly

19:46

knock out what’s in my brain in a few

19:49

minutes

19:50

and hey we can try it so first of all we

19:53

need to put a couple of

19:54

m4 nuts in the back there then we put

19:57

our belt plate on

19:58

and fix it to the bearing don’t do the

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

20:01

screws up tight

20:05

because they need to jiggle into the

20:06

other holes okay now we’ve got all four

20:08

in we need to tighten them up because

20:12

we’ve got to find out whether this head

20:15

is nice and stiff

20:16

now another m4 nut in the back there and

20:19

one more

20:20

m4 nut in the back there and there we go

20:22

one more m4 by 12.

20:25

tighten everything up right so we just

20:28

lay that in there that will be screwed

20:30

in there but we’ll lay it in there for

20:31

the time being because it doesn’t really

20:33

matter for what we’re trying to achieve

20:37

i put the lens tube in and the butterfly

20:41

clamp

20:42

what we’re really interested in does the

20:44

back corner of that tube

20:46

hit this m4 screw head and the answer is

20:49

no which is brilliant

20:52

because that means i can put a really

20:54

strong fixing on there now

20:55

so we’ll just clamp that in there for

20:57

the moment

20:58

and then we’ll see i’m pretty impressed

21:02

with that

21:03

that is lovely that’s not going to jump

21:05

around that’s really going to work very

21:07

very well

21:08

that’s another major problem all i’ve

21:10

got to do is build this isn’t that’s not

21:11

a problem

21:12

so let’s just take a look at this other

21:14

problem here which is

21:15

this one and have i fixed it with this

21:19

fitting that i’ve put through here well

21:21

i think that

21:24

probably we’ve solved the problem look

21:28

now the only thing that’s going to

21:29

happen is when i push this to the back

21:32

right if i if i happen to be engraving

21:35

along the back there

21:41

it might be forward another 10

21:42

millimeters or so

21:44

but hey look

21:49

we’re not going to have this here anyway

21:51

i’m going to take that off

21:53

and probably mount that underneath the

21:55

gantry here because that’s the right

21:56

place to have light not at the back

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

22:10

there

22:22

well with a little bit of patience and

22:23

fiddling i think i’ll probably come up

22:25

with the solution

22:27

now the solution involves making some

22:30

special clamps like this now i’ve made

22:32

these at 10 millimeter

22:33

acrylic but hey they’re not really

22:35

strong enough but they do the job

22:37

to prove the point so i shall have to

22:40

get some probably some metal clamps made

22:42

but not like this um

22:46

and what we’re doing we’re actually got

22:49

the tube here

22:50

and we’re first of all we’re putting the

22:53

tube

22:53

into the clamp now that’s difficult

22:55

because it’s six millimeter tube going

22:57

into a three millimeter slot

22:58

but fortunately this tube is very soft

23:01

and it squashes with difficulty

23:08

but you can get it into the slot like

23:10

that and then

23:12

you can actually slip it

23:15

under the gantry

23:18

so the tube is now tucked underneath the

23:20

gantry not on top of the gantry

23:24

okay and here’s here it is coming out

23:26

just here

23:27

what you need to do now is to take a

23:29

look at this piece of tube

23:31

as i move it from end to end it doesn’t

23:34

touch

23:37

all it does is rotate 180 degrees

23:45

no load on that at all and the because

23:48

this is

23:49

your polyurethane tube it can take all

23:52

sorts of

23:52

um abuse

23:58

neat isn’t it

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

24:10

on a hot day like today that’s hard work

24:12

you can see one of my intermediate

24:13

solutions here which

24:14

didn’t really work now all i’ve got to

24:16

do is to find a way of mounting this

24:19

tube so that it comes down the front

24:21

here because the position of the tube is

24:23

pretty crit to get this to get this

24:25

shape that passes

24:27

over

24:30

the head like this

24:35

so we can cut it off and i could

24:38

try plugging it in the front there

24:50

i mean that does work as well

24:55

there’s a little bit of drag on this

24:56

corner now but

24:58

again the euro the polyurethane tube

25:01

will take that

25:06

[Music]

25:07

so that’s a pretty neat solution as well

25:10

it then means

25:11

i can plug that in the back so there we

25:14

go

25:15

another little problem solved taking all

25:17

the weight away from the head

25:18

there’s just the weight of the head now

25:22

and there’s enough pipe in there

25:30

well here we are at the end of a quite

25:32

busy day

25:34

we’ve done actually quite a lot today

25:37

and uh ripped the machine to pieces and

25:39

started putting it back together again

25:41

look this is the latest

25:42

addition the air vent in the front

25:45

hardly shows at all on the lid that’s a

25:47

job completed

25:49

the head is completed the lack of a

25:52

cable chain

25:54

that’s completed we’ve got the belt in

25:57

the wrong way round but that’s a job

25:58

that’s there and now we’re waiting about

Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine (Cont…)

26:00

a week

26:01

for uh the number two mirror holder and

26:03

flexible rack and pinion bracket that

26:05

i’ve got to bolt on the end there

26:07

might be able to get the tube fitted in

26:10

and ready might even be able to test it

26:13

but

26:13

i’ve got other things to do but yeah

26:15

we’ve made good headway in a day

26:17

we’ve designed several bits and pieces

26:20

so at that point

26:21

i think i’ll go and have a nice cool

26:23

shower and

26:24

i’ll see you in the next session