Still Shopping & Planning A Home For The LaserThe small orders I've placed should be coming in soon, although some are coming from China and that takes 1-3 weeks.
I've played Daily Email Tag with the eBay supplier that dropped my 48V power supply in a plastic bag and mailed it, destroying it in the process. We finally agreed that they'd send me a postage paid label that I can print to mail the power supply back to them and they'll refund my purchase price. What a time wasting hassle. It makes me appreciate good suppliers.
I added some more items to my LightObject.com wish list today, and I'll be placing my third order with them soon. I already had the 36V/24V power supply in my wishlist. I added a 24V to 5V buck converter to get the 5V I need for the digital thermometer and digital laser ammeter. Hopefully, this will be my last order with LightObject.com for this project, although I was thinking about cheap solar heating today and thought how nice the radiator and fans that I bought for the laser project would be for a solar heating project with a water antifreeze mix as the circulating fluid. Use a photovoltaic panel next to the solar thermal panel, and as long as the sun is shining, the water is being heated and the pump is circulating the water, and the fan is blowing air through the radiator to heat the house. The more heat that goes into the thermal panel, the more electricity that's generated by the PV panel, and the faster the pump and fans run. It's a simple control solution. No battery. No charge controller. Etc.
I spent some time this evening looking at the patio under the deck. I need to replace the floor of the deck (dufus contractors didn't use pressure treated lumber and the pine eventually rotted), and then I need to build a shallow sloping roof above the patio that's under the deck and wall in the open side of the 8' X 12' patio. The patio is just outside my walk-out basement workshop, and it's already enclosed by the house on three sides. Wall in the last side, and I'll have an 8' X 12' extension on my shop for smelly stuff like the 3D printers and the laser. The temperature should stay reasonable in there without any HVAC if I insulate the roof with 2" thick styrofoam sheet, and build an insulated wall to enclose the back of the patio. My laser is probably going to eat up 7' of the 12' wall, and I'll have a 3' wide door in there. The last 2' will be the 3D printer shelf on the other side of the door. But before I can enclose the patio, I need to build a simple lean-to yard closet on the chimney chaseway near the patio, so I have some place to store the lawn mower and the kayak that I'm currently storing on the patio! I'll also be able to get some shovels and post hole diggers and a weed eater out of the basement workshop to free up a little bit of much needed space.
I have a dedicated electrical circuit to an outside outlet on the patio, and there's a light on the patio. I'll need a lot more light out there if I use it as a workshop, but the lighting circuit won't have any problem with four to six 4' fluorescent shop lights. The 80W laser may use 800W of power, and the blower will probably use another 800W or so. That's starting to strain the single 120 VAC circuit. Hopefully, it's a 20A circuit and not a 15A circuit.
If I work out there a lot in the winter and I'm running the big laser exhaust blower, even if I'm circulating outside air through the laser instead of pumping 500 cfm of heated room air outside, I'll still need some heat in there. In that case, I'll get some radiant heaters, which are good for drafty areas where it's almost impossible to heat the air. Radiant heaters heat the objects (and people). My brother has a garage workshop with radiant heaters and they're amazing. They use electricity, which is a generally a lousy way to make heat. Electricity is one of the highest forms of energy and it can do all manner of amazing things, and heat is the lowest form of energy. Every energy conversion produces waste heat. It seems a shame to deliberately use electricity to produce heat, but the radiant heat works almost instantly. There's no need to run radiant heat for hours before using the shop to get it up to temperature, so that's a major offset to the efficiency issue and the high cost of electricity. I'll need to run power from another circuit for the heaters. But, one thing at a time.
I spent a couple of hours last night staring at a 3' X 5' granite surface plate. That's the size of the XY stage that I bought. That's a frickin' huge laser! I'm now thinking I'll chop the Y axis down to a bit over 2' and leave the X axis a little under 5'. The Y axis mod looks easy. I can cut a 2' X 4' piece of sheet stock if needed with room to spare.
Near Term Project Strategy And To Do ListAssemble the full size 3' X 5' XY table
Exercise the full size table with the stepper pulse generator to test the motors, micro stepping, and table alignment
Measure the true work area
Mark where to chop the Y axis for 24" of Y axis travel
Chop the Y axis
Reassemble the chopped table and test it again
Build the 24" X ??" laser bed
Finish designing the simple 4 stepper motor Z axis bed lift
Assemble the brackets, lead screws and Z axis motors
Design the frame to enclose the Z axis & laser bed and XY table
Design the rest of the frame to contain the exhaust and electronics
Design the module frame to enclose the laser tube, power supply and cooling system
Order the frame materials
Assemble the frame and install the stuff!
There are a lot of details not on this zoomed out timeline of the rest of the project, but I plan on designing it from the inside out. Remember, I don't have SolidWorks or Pro E. I'm even thinking of paying more and buying uncut aluminum extrusion, brackets and fasteners from McMaster-Carr. The advantages are, I could have it overnight for UPS ground shipping charges instead of waiting two weeks for Misumi, and I could chop the pieces to length and design as I go. That's usually a bad idea but I often do it anyway, because I can catch mistakes sooner and correct them as I go. Chopping the aluminum as I build is sort of the real world version of 3D parametric design software. If I can always think ahead, I should be OK. It'll all depend on how much more expensive the aluminum is from McMaster-Carr. I don't mind chopping it myself. It's not difficult with a power miter saw and a fine toothed carbide blade... even a good wood working blade.
I've been giving a lot of thought to the modular laser and cooling system that will mount to the back of the laser table assembly. The goal is to be able to drain the cooling system, remove six screws and unplug one Amp Mate-N-Lock connector and lift off the entire laser module for transport. It reassembles by pushing against a hard stop to precisely realign the entire module before bolting it back in place. A removable laser module makes the laser much easier to move by breaking it into two large assemblies. The XY table portion can then be as deep in the Y direction as possible (24"+) and the entire laser without the 10" deep laser module can still easily fit through the width of a residential door.
I started off wanting a true 1' X 2' working area, and now I'm building a laser with a working area that's 2' X 4.5'. I'll enjoy cutting 667 disks out of a 24" X 24" sheet of foam for one of the products I manufacture as a single job. Heck, I could throw down two 24" X 24" sheets and cut them both as a single job! I'm redesigning the fixture for another product to cut eight parts at once instead of one, for less laser time per part and less waste. These are tubes that are cut to length, and multiples allows them to share common end cuts. It'll also require a lot less manual operation of pre-cutting tube blanks and loading and unloading the laser, so I'll have more time to watch YouTube videos and read BuildLog.net.
The throughput with a new water cooled 80W laser should kick butt compared to the old 40W air cooled laser I've been using. Finally, I'll be able to make the occasional large reverse engraved and laser cut machine panel or sign, and my brother might want to laser engrave some of his wood working, so that extra large area will come in handy at times. At lunch today, my wife asked if I'd be able to make rubber stamps on the laser. I was already planning to surprise her with that, but I guess it's no surprise.
Every home should have a laser cutter.