Cantilevered Laser Engraver

I could put some relief valve M5 threaded holes in it just in case it is too much air & plug as needed. I will test it with a make shift tinfoil funnel on it before printing the 5+ hour print. A little off topic, but I am still dialing in my Zyltech Gear 3d printer. I am not used to a bowden extruder & will probably switch a direct drive on it at some point.

There will be almost no airflow out of that funnel.

I am back to same problem with this board as previous board. I ran one burn test yesterday that was about 25 minutes & went well. Turned the machine off & unplugged it for a few hours & came back later to run another test and now this board has same problem as I was experiencing with other board & only thing I did was unplug it & plug it back in. I did not notice any static electricity in my shed. I have been connecting it to a windows laptop, so maybe I will try using the pi connected to it to with the v1pi & see if that buys me anything. I do have a couple of arduino unos with cnc shields I could test it with next if that doesn’t work. I also have a skr 1.3 board with a blown mosfet on the hotend which would not be needed for a laser, although that board would run Marlin & might have other problems I have not noticed as I think static did get that board.

I might go ahead an order one of those oscilliscopes next week to test these boards. Of course it will probably be March before getting it.

Got image rastering working.

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Here are some photos of some work I did today
Line art[Lake Tahoe Topo Map]
Google Photos

And
Raster Image
Google Photos

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After reading Static charge (?) causes spontaneous restart of my RAMBo - LowRider CNC / Troubleshooting - V1 Engineering Forum, I am wondering if I should add a ground wire to my controller board. I am using a brick 12v P/S that only has 2 wires to the wall plug. Didn’t seem like I had a static problem though & if I used a battery P/S when using this portable there is no ground connection. Any thoughts on this?

Looks like my Oscilloscope I ordered on 12/13 will be here today. China has gotten a lot better with their shipping times. Think they came into a different port this time. Anything going thru the New England states around NY seems to be extremely delayed. 6 parts I ordered in September went beyond their 90 day guaranteed delivery date. Guess those parts will eventually get here, but went ahead & ordered the parts I need from Amazon to populate the boards Mike designed. I am also going to swap the P/S I was using on that laser engraver & will use the P/S I had on my MPCNC from several years back. That should take that variable out of the equation & seems like that is a good suspect.

I got some part from China off the slow boat (for my outdoor lights project) and a sweatshirt mailed usps from Pennsylvania about the same time is still MIA.

I ordered some computer parts on eBay last month. They shipped from New Hampshire on Dec 17th with a estimated arrival date of the 22nd and they arrived in a sorting station in Florida on the 27th. I’m thinking maybe sometime this spring they’ll arrive in Oregon, unless they go overseas from Florida…

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Since I know absolutely nothing about oscilloscopes, I did a search on youtube for some tutorials & found a few that reference what looks like the scope I got. I found this one in particular to have a lot of detail. KYE Tech “DSO Shell” Oscilloscope: A Detailed Video “User Manual” - YouTube

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Good find Dave, I learnt some new things about these scopes…

Glad I could help. I am finally starting to wire up the board you designed. What gauge wire are you using for the 12v connection? I was wondering whether to solder 2 wires directly to it or add a 2 pin header for it. Looking back in my thread, it appears this should only draw .2amps at the most.

Would this wire be sufficient for the Power supply. I got a confirmation that it measures 21 gauge. http://www.zyltech.com/new-zyltech-1m-40-pin-male-female/ This way I could solder a 2 pin male header & use the female connection on the board & male connection on the P/S.

I’m not sure of the gauge I used but it was the thickest I could squeeze into a dupont connector and it was most probably under rated for the task :slight_smile: If the stepper drivers were tuned for maximum torque from the motors then you might expect 2 Amps per motor…but I think I used smaller stepper motors and didn’t bother tuning for maximum torque as it wasn’t going to be needed for this application… so I used figure of eight red/black ~24SWG…I THINK! So your 21 gauge will be a better choice.
You would probably need to drill a new hole if you wanted to fit a terminal block as the pitch is currently for a pin header @1.27mm

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Ok, thanks for the info. I have only measured 0.2amp max, so probably will not be over 0.5a. I will probably cut the 1 meter length wire down some as I does not need to be that long. Alternately, I a wire from an unused China hotend should be big enough for this connection. I tested that for fit yesterday. I got 67 solder joints done yesterday & should get the other 25 or so today. I am going to use a different P/S this time that worked on my MPCNC to take that variable out of the equation. I also noticed while soldering the resistors that the hole spacing could have been a little wider since I could not get my 2 resistors to lay flat. Had you noticed that?

No…I can’t say I did. The spacing was the standard for 1/8th Watt axial resistors but not all resistors were created equal!

. Maybe you used 1/4 watt?

It does not really show on the bag the resistors came in, but based on your photo they probably are 1/4 watt. Thanks for the clarification.

Here is my first custom board all soldered up. I have not tested it yet, but solder joints look good enough to me.

I am starting to get interested in trying my hand at Surface mount soldering & came across this practice kit. What else would I need besides a small solder tip & good magnifying glasses? Would I need some sort of hot air gun? I have a good circuit board holder. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001189711627.html

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You can put your multimeter on the ohm meter setting, and they usually have a beep mode where it just beeps if there is continuity. Before attaching all the chips, it is a good idea to use that to make sure there aren’t any shorts between pins that you don’t expect. It looks good from the pictures though. Fine tips on your meter leads is a great way to spend $10.

I enjoy soldering and I have tried to make it easy for me to do all kinds of soldering that I can at home, without spending $500 on gear.

This is the solder station I have. It is currently unavailable, but you really don’t need something fancy: Zeny® 3in1 SMD DC Power Supply Hot Air Iron Gun Rework Soldering Station Welder 853D . Here are the extra tips I have: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007YU2EQ2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. The most important is temperature control. Then I’d say the fact that it is a wand and not some larger self contained thing is really helpful. I almost never use the hot air. It has a good chance of ruining the neighboring parts. This was about $100 when I bought it. I use the stand from my old iron. I haven’t ever used this blue one.

The solder is really important too. This spool will last a decade, but the solder is nice and the diameter is small, which really helps put just the right amount of solder down: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004L4VHJE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A solder sucker is useful for rework when you are doing through hole soldering: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002KRAAG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Solder wick and flux are also essential for rework and surface stuff especially. Then to clean up the flux, you need isopropal alcohol.

Solder paste can be useful for smd too. But I find the tiny solder is easy enough that I rarely use it.

Some flush trim cutters are really useful too. If you need to take out one of those rows of 10 pins, it is easier to cut them first down to 2-3 pin chunks and desolder them separately.

I was really surprised when I got magnification for my eyes to find out that my hands are actually much more controlled than I thought. Once I had a magnifying glass, my hand-eye coordination went way up. My old work literally had a magnifying glass and I was much better using that than I am using the magnifying goggles I have now.

A set of tweezers that can pick up the tiny parts and are offset so you can hold them at an angle help with tiny parts.

If you are designing your own boards, make the pads for resistors and capacitors too big. Putting a 0805 pad down for a 0603 resistor is fine, and gives you more room for error.

I’ve never tried the method where you use an oven.

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Thanks for the detailed info. I have this pretty good soldering station I bought a couple of years ago. They have gone up in price since i bought it. 21-10115 - Tenma - Soldering Station, 110 VAC, 896 °F (newark.com)
I also have a 1.6mm, 2mm & 3mm chisel point soldering tips. I probably should get a smaller tip. I have been starting to think about switching to a lead free or silver solder. After watching the fictional series Halt and Catch Fire on Netflix where one guy started to have some health issues from so many years of soldering. Even though that was a fictional series & I would not be doing much soldering, this seems like a good thing to switch from if possible. I have a pretty good size roll of silver solder, but it is too thick a diameter for this work. Here is a 2020 video I found comparing 3 solder types which seems informative. What are your thoughts on these alternative solders?
Lead solder vs lead-free solder vs silver solder - YouTube