The Tangerine Tiger Series with Russ Sadler
In this Series, Russ has purchased a new 500 x 300mm, 50W laser machine from eBay with a view to modifying and upgrading it. In fact, he rips out the glass laser tube and high voltage power supply and replaces them with an RF laser source and PSU from Cloudray. Find out how upgrading a Chinese laser machine can improve the performance and accuracy, far beyond that of a standard machine.
In this series you will also learn how the expensive RF laser source compares to a glass CO2 laser tube. So prepare to get your hands dirty!
If you are considering purchasing a CO2 laser machine with an RF laser source from one of the big boy suppliers, I would suggest you check out this series before making a decision!
Contents
(Editor) Russ is upgrading a Chinese laser machine by carrying out some destructive work on his Tangerine Tiger before starting the rebuild to bring it to the same standard as his modified China Blue machine by replacing the belt drive system. First he cuts a side access hole for the stepper motor. Then he replaces the stepper motor bracket and 2nd mirror assembly with an all-in-one assembly that includes a rack and pinion replacement for the drive system. Next up is removal of the cable chain and fitting of the lightweight laser head.

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Transcript For Upgrading a Chinese Laser Machine
Catching up with China Blue
Use the search function at the top of the page to find specific sections of interest.
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
00:14
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
00:27
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
02:03
[Applause]
02:06
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
02:13
and just temporarily stick that in there
02:17
[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
05:23
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
06:02
bearing block is only held on with
06:04
two screws this gantry i mean it feels
06:07
secure enough
06:07
don’t get me wrong as i said this is a
06:09
relatively well-built machine
06:11
here’s the bracket that i made for the
06:13
china blue machine
06:16
now i’m pretty confident this will not
06:18
fit on here because
06:19
first of all as you can see the pulley
06:20
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
06:29
heights are like i think the heights are
06:31
going to be okay
06:32
that sits on there and this
06:36
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
06:57
remember that’s why i’ve got this hole
06:59
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
07:35
so we’ll have this sensor off now i can
07:38
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
08:05
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
08:13
i can slide it around forward
08:16
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
09:00
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
09:49
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
10:18
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
10:36
so that they can attempt to create the
10:37
rust spec machine for themselves
10:40
so i’m making it easy for them by giving
10:42
them all the drawings
10:43
and physical parts so that they can play
10:46
with them
10:47
i’ve already had quite a few inquiries
10:48
about when is the rust spec machine
10:50
going to be available from cloud ray
10:52
i can’t answer that question but what i
10:55
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
11:01
make it completely clear to you guys
11:04
i do all this work for cloud ray for
11:06
free
11:07
it’s not for free because i get the
11:10
major enjoyment out of it
11:11
this is great pleasure for me the
11:13
engineering solving the problem that’s
11:14
how i see this i’ve had the pleasure
11:17
and i’m quite happy to give it away but
11:19
of course
11:20
i’m giving it away to a guy in china
11:24
who has got morals he’s a great
11:26
businessman he’s an entrepreneur
11:28
but he has morals and he sees me
11:32
as a bit of a research and development
11:34
arm so
11:35
he’s giving me this kit okay this is two
11:39
thousand pounds worth of kit here
11:41
which is sent to me to modify a machine
11:45
so stand back from this situation and
11:47
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
12:02
so there’s an idea just an idea of
12:05
the total value of this package it’s
12:07
somewhat less than thirty or forty
12:08
thousand dollars that you might have to
12:10
pay for a
12:12
proper machine
12:15
we’re gonna see how close we can get to
12:17
the proper machine
12:18
with this venture
12:21
so i think that clears things up i
12:24
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