Something about that smell as well. It sticks and stinks things up for a very long time. Vent it with as much air volume as you can.
Oh no… I was burning Maple. It had a nice sweet smell. Made me hungry.
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Nice job David!
I was working on a wedding gift for my sons best friend.
6 hour photo burn on top of a nice box, i had to leave and lock my shop so i wouldn’t babysit it the entire time.
turned out very nice.
I was doing other stuff as well and would only check on it every so often.
I shot a new video of the laser engraver. This video is a 7 month update on some of the changes I’ve made to the laser.
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It’s been a while since I’ve updated this.
Another thread on this forum had me messing with my laser some more trying to cut 3mm plywood. The poor little 3.3w laser was just not up to snuff for the thicker material. I did some research and ordered a more powerful laser this morning. Oddly enough, the laser cost almost as much as this entire machine did when I got it on sale.
More details to come as the parts get in and I wire them up.
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Looking forward to seeing it!
Well… today was an utter failure. I ordered the NEJE 30w laser with the PWM controller… and I received a NEJE 30w laser with the IAB controller.
My laser engraver is a cheap chinese one and the controller isn’t quite a full-fledged eleksmaker Mana SE board… meaning it only has the 2 pin connector on it and not the 3pin connector.
So I returned the part to Amazon and ordered the NEJE 30w that comes with ‘everything’ including power supply and both boards. Cost more, but there should be no excuses for me to not have what I need to make it work when it comes in now.
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Now with more lasers!
It took forever but the new kit finally arrived. Within a few minutes I had a test setup up and running to validate my controller can power it off of the PWM. It worked great! A few more minutes and I had it mounted to the gantry.
Did a few test fires through CNC.js and threw a quick design at it. I still have some playing to do with the feeds and speeds. The part that cut off cleanly was because I ran that part of the program twice. The first time through I did 2 passes at 100 mm/min and 100% power. I thought that was a bit too slow, so I bumped it up to 2 passes at 200 mm/min and 100%. That looks to be too fast. It looks like I need to shoot somewhere in the middle.
I will need to spend some time to make a final cable for it. The pinouts on the controller are opposite what the cable for the laser is, so I need to cut it and reconnect with the pins swapped. I don’t have the tool to push the pins out and I don’t want to ruin the connector. I also need to finish plumbing in the air assist. I have all the parts, I just need to bend an aluminum tube for the jet to come out of.
Anyways. This was my quick test burn. I need to adjust the design a little for the little hanger too.
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Success. 200mm/min, 100% power, 3 passes.
The faster speed makes a cleaner cut on the top and bottom. More passes helps it with the last little bit to get through. The slower 100mm/min speed made it through in more places on 2 passes, but it left more charing around the edge of the cut.
I also rigged up the air assist. Did do a bit of light sanding with 220 grit just to clean it up a little.
This is just one. I need to cut about 10 more for stocking stuffers for Saturday. We’ll see how consistent this setup gets through the rest of them.
Once I’m done with these, I want to try some of those 3d puzzles you can cut yourself.
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I would love to be able to make wooden puzzles. How do you print a good picture on wood?
Oh. Not sure about that. I was talking about the ones that slide together to make things like dinosaurs and stuff.
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Here were some slip-fit dinosaur puzzles cut with a IIRC 3.5W Banggood laser out of corrugated cardboard from a few years ago. The machine those were cut on is long gone but the laser info is just as good as ever…
– David
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I personally feel that using Lightburn allowed me to step up my game with photo engravings on various materials – chipboard, craft sticks, foam, ceramic tile, glass, etc. – using nothing more than a 2.5W diode laser. I documented my progress with photo prep and various materials, borrowing heavily from the work of @Bulldog on the LB forum, in this thread…
Good looking photos on wood can be tricky, of course, because of the grain pattern on different species. Following @Bulldog’s lead, I played a little with dithered images on painted, white-washed, and plain wood samples and it definitely can be used to good effect IMO.
I want to be able to make something like this (they know how to make puzzles better than websites):
I have no idea how that would be even close to possible.
That would be interesting. You could print the painting onto paper and then use a thinned glue to glue it to 1/16" plywood. That should be thin enough for a fairly fast laser to cut through in a single pass.
If you went too slow, I think it’d burn too much of the paper on the top of the wood.
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Does Masonite (hard board) laser cut well? It seems that would reduce the possibility of splinters.
The thinner plywood doesn’t seem to splinter when cut with the laser. It seems to leave a pretty smooth edge. A light pass against some high grit sand paper would knock it off.
I’m using hardieboard under the part I’m cutting so that I don’t burn my workbench. It hasn’t seemed to burn through just yet. I could try to actually cut it and see how that goes later today.
Cool, but to my knowledge, Hardieboard is a cement-containing material. Hardboard (one brand name = Masonite) is a fibrous material - like what pegboards are commonly made of.
Not to get too crazy, but you could use a dye sublimation transfer to the wood to get the image on. Kinda like an iron-on.
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