Another Mostly Printed CoreXY Laser Engraver

You don’t like my chicken scratches?! I keep a notebook nearby most of the time and I work in a field that can’t use cloud services and I work remote. So I often draw up and photograph things I need to send to coworkers this way. It took me a few tries to get it right. But I probably could have busted out the straight edge and graph paper.

I like the look of that. I would pay a premium for bright orange gt2 belts.

Didn’t say that. I just can’t do that anymore and make heads or tails of it afterwards… and yours are IMHO close to being on the brink :wink:

Actually, when I worked in industry in the mid-'70s, designing circuits for military equipment, I worked closely with a fantastic retired-AF technician (I had been a technician in the Navy…). A big group of us engineers and techs would eat together in the company cafeteria each day, and I was famous (infamous?) for scratching out rough circuit designs on paper napkins… which “my” tech would then take and build test prototypes and turn into detailed schematics (which later would be sent to drafting… everything was pencil and vellum back then). All I had to do is tell him what IC’s and critical components I wanted to use and explain the theory of ops and he would take it from there. He’d dive into the nitty-gritty detail (I always hated that part!) and tie up all the control and power pins so that the IC’s were enabled to do their job and then he’d do the actual breadboard construction… and call me when it was ready to test. He loved it and so did I… we worked well together. I think he later got his EE degree… we were both taking night classes about the same time. Some good times and a great memory!

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More progress…

Tux and I got the machine all belted up. Not perfect alignment but we talked it over and decided it was good enough to test…

Borrowed @mordiev’s belt clamps…

Picked up an Uno/CNCshieldV3 combo out of my stash… loaded it with Grbl 1.1h , with CoreXY enabled, of course… and added a Pi Zero W running Jeff’s v1pi image. Works a champ for this simple setup…

Took it for a spin and Tux likes it! That’s good enough for me… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

– David

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A little more progress…

Blocked the machine up on a crude wooden frame and installed a printed BB-bearing Z-axis as before. Created gcode for a big circle to test the extents of XY motion… boring I know, five times around and return to 0,0. There is a good bit of BB-bearing noise so it sounds a bit “gravel”-ly but otherwise actually seems quite smooth…

This machine is pretty small… I just used extrusion I had on hand. The circle in test above is 280mm diameter and I’ll lose even more when I mount the laser module. But I did order some extrusions… Amazon/Iverntech in 4-piece lots at 350mm, 400mm, and 500mm

and can enlarge it if/when I decide to make it a bit bigger. Three pieces of extrusion and new, longer belts would be all that’s required.

Next up, is to mount the Neje laser module and start engraving stuff.

Later. – David

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Basically, my machine seems to be working well. Cable management will always be my nemesis, however… and I’ll just have to piddle with it (or not) as I start using it. Looks crappy, I know… but that’s the way it is with my projects. It’s functional… not pretty :crazy_face:

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An update…

I’m not happy with the printed linear rail CoreXY machine as built. I messed with it for a few days without improvement and have now dismantled it and put the parts away. I was getting tired of messing with it TBH… but the dismantlement was a necessity anyway. I will be moving, in a few weeks, back to my place up in East Texas, and I need to start packing my stuff up.

I really liked the size of the machine and the ease of assembly… but the operation of the printed rails just wasn’t as smooth as I’d hoped. I did a few laser plots and photos initially that looked reasonably good but, on closer inspection, the line work just wasn’t as smooth as I get with other machines. So I started playing with the belt tension and pre-load on the linear rails and things only got worse… and I started getting missed steps. I thought of a few more things I might try but, as they would require time to mod and reprint, I decided to just pack it away and save it for another time, after the move.

On a personal note…

In October, 2019, I moved down to the San Antonio area to be closer to my daughter and her family. A good thing I did, the pandemic hit within a few months of moving here and thankfully I’ve had my kids to lean on during this past year… had I still been up in rural East Texas, by myself, I might well have freaked out. So I’m thankful and have no regrets moving down here. But the pandemic has also changed the SA job outlook for the kids as well… and having my ET place still available has offered us all a safe place to land. So, we’re all packing up to move back home.

I have to take frequent breaks from packing (I find it almost overwhelming, I’m so disorganized) so I will still be checking in on the forum activity. But I won’t be doing any building projects for a while. I did also finally get the so-called “20W” Neje laser I’d ordered from China so am happy to have it in my possession before having to leave. I’ll still have my rolling gantry machine set up for a while and just may have to find a few minutes to swap out the laser as see that it, at least, lights up. :wink:

Later. – David

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Sad to hear about the machine. It looked like a really fun project. But as you said you can either rebuild it or something else.

Good luck with the move. I don’t envy that. If I ever move It will probably take a small army to pack up all my junk. My wife and I are borderline hoarders. The worst thing a person like me can do is make sure I have plenty of storage space. I tend to fill it.

20 Watts! Wow. What do you plan to do with it?

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Thanks, Aaryn. I, too, am a hoarder… especially for electronics and tools. But, thankfully, it was the move down here, last October, that forced me to cull down most of my junk. So this time, I only have what’s with me in this small house to move back. I’ve managed reasonably well, with what I have now, to stay busy and build a few machines over the past year… so I think I’ve got enough to get by.

We all know now that the mis-leading 20W spec on these diode lasers is input power required… not the useful laser output power. It’s at most a 4.5W - 5W diode laser… certainly more than my 2.5W lasers, but nowhere near what the vendors would have you believe. Hopefully I’ll be able to find uses for it… it’s just something different to play around with. – David

It is a bummer you are moving again. But it is good that you will stay with your family. Stay safe.

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