The laser cutter, chiller, pumps and fans should all be on to perform this test. If you notice that your laser cutter appears to have lost power or it is not cutting correctly in one particular corner of the work bed then the machine may have moved out of alignment, this simple test can be used to check if your machine needs realigning. Red Dot Laser: Mounted on the air assist cone, is a visible beam indicator. Lens: Mounted inside the laser head, focuses the beam onto the workpiece.Īir Assist Cone: Funnels air around the laser beam and onto the workpiece. Mirror 3: Mounted on the laser head, the third mirror the laser hits. Mirror 2: Mounted on the left of the gantry, the second mirror the laser hits. Mirror 1: In the rear left hand side of the machine, the first mirror the laser hits. Laser Head: the assembly that moves left to right on the gantry. Gantry: The large metal box section that moves front to back in the machine. Tube Mount: The two adjustable brackets that hold the laser tube in place. Laser Tube: The large glass tube housed under the rear lid of the laser. This document will use the following terminology to talk about the various parts of the laser cutter. Vertical alignment: Making sure the cuts are perpendicular to the material. Aligning the tube: Making sure the beam is heading into the mirrors correctly. Aligning the mirrors: Making sure the mirrors are angled correctly. The process can be considered in four separate parts, Checking the alignment: Working out of the laser needs to be aligned or not. The first time you approach this it can be a very daunting and challenging task so it is recommended that you read through this procedure and attempt some of the steps before it is required. This guide will walk you through the process of aligning the mirrors to ensure maximum cutting performance. Over time these mirrors may move slightly causing the machine to lose cutting power. This means the laser tube remains static at the back of the machine and the laser beam is directed to the cutting head by a series of mirrors. The machines from Just Add Sharks use a flying optic configuration for the laser cutting. Only use laser-safe materials which do not contain chlorides and formaldehydes.Always vent material smoke or vapour to a suitable external outlet or filter system.Do not circumvent the safety cut-out switch or operate the machine with access doors open. Never open access panels without disconnecting power.So pulled the trigger and started ordering parts.Click here to download this document as a PDF Precautions So after I had gone through a few different iterations, I was comfortable with the design. This should correspond with optimizing the size of components to a common metric, I’m using aluminium slotted profile for the build, which are typically sold in 1 metre length so having components that were say 510mm would be more wasteful than say 490mm, so that was something to be aware of. I wanted to make the cutting bed area as large as possible for the overall footprint of the machine, and that footprint could be no wider than a door frame, since a single door was the only way in or out of my shed. The design considerations were mainly motivated by 2 things - size and price. I started by modelling the assemblies in CAD - I used Rhino because that’s what I was fastest with at the time, but if I was doing it again I’d use Fusion 360 for it’s parametric features. I thought it would be valuable to share an overview of my experience and explain my reasoning and methodologies, so even if you’re not specifically interested in building a complete laser cutter from scratch, you’ll hopefully be able to take something away from this.
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