After a little breath and polish they look nice and clear.
It is the first part to arrive for my 15 WATT laser upgrade to my Creality CR-10S 3D Printer.
I am also waiting for the 2. laser module, that I have ordered from Greece. The 1. one I ordered at 8/3 has been stranded in Greece since 10/3. It was sent by airmail, so it is probably sitting in an airfreight container somewhere. No telling, when it gets here.
Number 2 should be on the road with GLS hopefully with delivery in 8-9 days.
The electronics of the Printer is in pieces as I am preparing to build a cabinet, so I can use it for ABS, ASA, and other difficult materials, like nylon and so forth. It will sport an exhaustfan mostly for laserwork and a Halogen lamp with a controller for the ambient temperature. Nedeed for the materials.
I am also adding a dryer on top as those materials sucks moisture. I have a 230v heatbed and a BLTouch on the way.
I am still figuring out the electronics that mostly will be in the base of the cabinet, except for the controls for the exhaust, lamp and dryer, as they are sitting on the top.
I will also get a Raspberry PI 3 b+ to run Octoprint with.
The only real bummer, is that I have caught the Flu, so now I am really stuck at home.
For now it is a mild one and I really hope that it will stay that way.
The Flu is still a mild one, but the muscle pains are getting a little worse in the neck and shoulders. It doesen’t take much to get a headache or if I am not careful a migraine.
I am getting some shopping help today, so I don’t have to get outside and risk infecting others.
I will also do some wire rearrangements to give me more freedom of component placement in the compartment and will probably solder heavy duty wires directly to the power out pcb instead of using the bananaplug sockets.
Laser Engraver/Cutter Warning!
I was testing how well differently tinted orange pieces of transparent 3 mm acrylic is at blocking the laser beam. Orange as that should be good at stopping a blue laser.
I thought that I was very careful.
I was wearing the professional safety glasses shown above, the laser was pointed away from me hitting a wall 2 m distant. I put the piece into the beam and checked how much light reached the wall.
The first 2 pieces went well and I found the tint with the best protection.
Then I tried the fluorescent orange piece…………!
That turned out to be very reflective. So much that it was more than the certified glasses is designed for.
You know that dark field that slowly fades away when you accidentally have looked into the sun?
Unfortunately I now permanently have a hint of that in my left eye and it is a little more prominent in my right eye. The eyesight of my right eye is also slightly degraded and on top of that I am way more sensitive to sharp lights now.
I also tried it with the glasses that came with the laser…………! Not very encouraging.
Lets just say that I would never trust the cheapo Ebay crap! I can only recommend to get certified glasses that fits the laser wave length that you use. I am pretty much convinced that if I had used the cheapo glasses the damages would have been more severe.
If you are getting any kind of DIY laser module, be very careful with it. A blue diode laser like I have gotten, can ruin your eyes faster than you can blink. It will damage the receptors in the back of the eye and it is not repairable. Reflected light can also be very harmful.
The kind of damage and magnitude depends on the power and laser wave length, so I very much recommend that you read up on it.
I can only recommend the use of an enclosure with any kind of laser module.
I cringe every time I see a blue diode laser used in a living room without any kind of cover.
For eye protection I have just ordered 8 sheets of 3 mm transparent orange acrylic cut to size. Each side of the cabinet will be a double door. The color I have chosen is close to stopping a direct beam from the diode laser that I have and is even better at stopping reflected light from it.
I have also gotten 2 x 2mm clear acrylic sheets that will be the permanent doors for when I am 3d printing. For laser use I will put on the orange sheets with the same kind of magnetic strips used for putting an extra pane in front of a window.
Yeah they are.
I did not at the time. From what I understood from reading a bunch of different laser safety papers before the laser arrived, was that damage from this type of laser to the eye is unrepairable.
That coupled with the fact that the symptoms have been unchanged and I very quickly got used to it, Got me thinking that I would just compensate for it when I get new glasses.
My eyes have steadilly grown worse in the last 30 years, so this just seems like a slightly bigger step than normal in that direction.
Back then I was looking at how to prevent damage in the first place. Now I wanted to make an educated reply to you and have discovered that there could be something to do about it afterall. Therefore I will have them checked out. I just have to find someone who nows about this stuff.
The danish searches I have done so far, only turns up information about operations that can be performed with lasers, nothing about repairing damage done by laser.
I know about one group that may be able to point me in the right direction, so I will try to contact them.
As long as it is not suddenly gets worse then I can live with it and in any case the ods for if it will get better or worse with any treatment will be a large part of the deciding factor.
I do know that I will not do any experimenting with the laser until I have the enclosure in place.
I got the plates for that yeasterday and just need to get some other projects out of the way first, then I can get onto the 3Dprinter/laser project.
I ordered the wrong sheets for the enclosure. They should have been transparent orange, but I got opaque ones instead.
I have no use for them and they have been cut to size, so I can’t return them. 125$ out the window! Blargh!
I have ordered the correct set and they are already on the way.
Lesson to learn? Doublecheck that you are putting the correct items in the basket.
I had to remove the drawers from the file cabinet and the rails for the 2 top drawers, then I drew guidelines for holes in the top of the cabinet. Eyeballing it I drilled the holes from the top with a 5mm drillbit and then drove a 6mm Log bolt up each so they where sticking out about 1-1,5 mm on top.
Then I carefully aligned the rafters one at the time and pressed down hard. The 5mm drillbit was then used to drill holes to accommodate the Log bolts in the rafters using the pinpricks as guides.
Now it was time to fasten the rafters. I started with the ones in each end and worked my way in to the middle. It was a struggle to do the two furthest in.
Okay! I need some access to the electronics in the base of the cabinet. What do I have to cover the hole?
I have made it into a reflex to check out the leftovers, in the Fiber/MDF/Plywood cutting section of my local construction market and sometimes also their scrap bin. I had the perfect 3mm plywood piece. It just needed a little sanding on each long end and now it slides right in between the printer feet’s.
My artist came out and began to draw the outline of the access hole on top of the bottom plate, using the cover piece as a guide and then drew another rectangle inside, that was 10mm smaller on each edge.
Put the printer on top of the bottom plate to determine, where to put the holes for the Log bolts anchoring the plate to the file cabinet. (No more pictures).
What! Nooo! F**k It! Ohh Craap!
I had hit a snag. I had failed to take into consideration, the need for space for getting the filament into the filament sensor for the system. It loads into the side of the printer. I had planned the box to be 55x80cm and that only leaves a 1-3cm gap to go from vertical to horizontal, so it is to narrow.
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!!! Full! Stop! D**m! And all the places where I could get new wider 12mm Plywood plates, cut are Covid-19 closed until at least 4/1-2021 and now it is 27/12-2020! Grumble, grumble, huff, huff. Blast it all!!!
Serious Derailment!!!
But Hey! I have a couple of 6mm 80x119cm plywood sheets, a couple of 19mm 14x95cm pieces and several 3mm 4,5x90,5 pieces. I can use those! Yyyeeesss! I am Back In Business!
I actually bought the 80x119 sheets for this project, but decided that they where to warped, so I got the 12mm 55x80cm pieces instead. I think I can get the 6mm to work with the 19- and 3mm reinforcements.
I am back on track again! Yes!
Now I just need to turn my nightcrawling around, so I have some time to machinework with the pieces until no later than 16:00.
Ohh Yeah. The Cocid-19 shutdown has been extended to 17/1-2021, so I am very happy that I am back on track.
I put on the 19mm reenforcement pieces and now my use of Norwegian Propeller wood for the main supports became very apparent. They are slightly curved and the tops are not horizontal. I have them so that they slope inwards. It wouldn’t be a problem with the planned 12mm plywood, but you can clearly see the curve with the 6mm plywood. I will return to that.
I mounted the 6mm plate and used the printer and electronics lid to determine where to put holes for electronics access. I then drilled 10mm holes starting with a lot of holes closely spaced on 2 sides but that really messed up the bottom ply layers. Lots of stuff to put holes in your skin. Very baaad! For the rest of them I only drilled out the corners. I was planning on using an electrical Jigsaw but it was 2 a clock in the night so I decided to use a handsaw instead. Then I used a Rasp for heavy excess removal, then a fine file for shaping and sandpaper for the final touches.
I have put in 4 pieces of the earlier mentioned 3mm plywood strips with a roughly 1cm overlap on the inner edges of the 19mm reenforcement pieces and now the curve is almost gone and it feels very stable. I will shimmie up the 3D printer and vibration dampers to horizontal before I fasten them.
I have started on the top plate by cutting out the circle for the bathroom exhaust fan. Again 10mm holes and then a chisel to knock out the center piece and then the rasp, file and sandpaper treatment.
I have also cut an electronics mount plate from the most straight 6mm ply leftover.
I have begun working on the electronics and have unfortunately killed the 130$ Lab power supply for the Laser addon. I pulled it apart to get a better airflow and have added wire extensions at some places.
When I wanted to ad the extension to the wire from the transformer to the on/off switch. I thought that it was broken as I could only see 2 wires going into the shrink tube.
I snipped of the soldered on wire and it was obvious, that there was only 2 wires coming out of that section.
When messing around trying figure out the best way to remove the lacquer, I suddenly sat with a 4cm wire piece! Sxxt! That is not good!
Okay. I tried carefully slicing trough the tape covering the windings and then with the same care, cutting open the heat protective tubing around the last wire. When I got to the metal thingie around the windings it was game over.
I tried to put an extension on the one I had left and put it all together and fired it up. It came alive and I could adjust all that I wanted but no power output.
I ordered this one instead with shipping for 105$ locally and it will get here in the next 2 days.
I chose this one as the Laser needs an output that goes up to 12V 3A DC.
Lesson learned? Well, the new one will be left in the casing!
It is however not a complete loss as I have salvaged some components from it. Some of them will still be used, like the heat protection tubes that will come in very handy, when I mount my Bimetal 185°C cut off switches to the heat bed, the heater for the dryer and inside the top of the cabinet.
The plan is that if any of those switches reach 185°C, the power will be shut off for the entire system and only come back on when pushing a button. If my tests are going as expected I will also need to push that button on startup to get everything to fire up.
My thinking is that it will lessen the risk, for a heat runaway that could end with fire.
Also to be used are the power button, cooling fan and the most difficult parts to scrounge, 4 brackets from the transformer. At first I just removed them because I wanted to get the lacquered wire used for the windings. Boy what a fight to get those 4 screws and nuts off. The first 1 1/2 turn was easy enough, but then they just stuck. It seems like the transformer had been liberally dipped in lacquer. I had to burn it off and it was still a fight with me holding the screw with a water pipe plier. They may have squeked but off they came!
I gave up on the winding wires, as the lacquer also kept together the metal pieces of the transformer.
The brackets are perfect for holding the heating element of the drier.
The electronics are coming along nicely, but I ran out of 230V rated on/off buttons, so I am waiting for those to arrive.
I think that I am done designing the spool holder and the drier box going around it on top of the cabinet. tomorrow it is time for cutting out the materials.
A test assembly of the in cabinet section. The red/chrome part is a valve, so I can fine adjust the pressure. I intend to drill 2 holes in the endcap and hotglue the 2 hoses into it. For the other end I plan on designing something 3D printable adjustable, probably with ball mounts like on some camera tripods.
I’ve made some mount plates for the PSU and the printer mainboard. The white box is a 230V thermal regulator that I will attempt to use with a halogen lamp, to control the ambient temperature inside the cabinet.
The gray and black box houses the controllers for the fumes exhaust fan, the drier fan and the heating element in the drier. The shafts sticking up are the pots on 2 230V 500W light dimmers that controls the fans. Missing here are the 3 on/off switches for the functions.
Here the lid is flipped over showing the 2 dimmers in situ and a spare for show. The temp regulator for the drier is now in front of the PSU. The drier heater is actually a 230V heater for the printer heat bed that I bought by mistake. The holes needed for the CR-10S heat bed is not in it.
I got help installing the SD Card reader extension on the mainboard, as I broke the Micro SD Card reader the 6th time I used it.
I have cut out the plates for the drier box sides. 2x 360x400x2mm acrylic and 2x 360x400x6mm plywood. I will wait with the top plate until I have assembled the sides, so I will know the correct measurements.
I used this setup to attempt to get straight cuts. There is just enough room for the saw to move back and forth. It worked much better than I expected.
I started to fit the couplings and meter to the regulator on the sides where they would fit with my mounting intentions. (With my luck it was wrong, it was sending out air when I closed it off. I could for the life of me not understand it. That is until I saw the very clear IN and OUT markings.) I fixed that.
Then I assembled most of the in cabinet section with sealing tape leaving only the endcap and the lower bend, as I still need to work with the cap and are undecided about where exactly to mount it and in what direction. The distance between the 2 bends is perfect to fit through the 6mm baseplate of the cabinet. The fittings are ½” with a ½ to ¼ adaptor for the air coupling
Lastly I cut of 2 meters of the airhose and put in the proper fitting for each piece. I will cut the excess of the hose clamps to lessen the risk of injury.
