Madmike8's Smartrap Build

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madmike8
Woo Hoo... Parts in from Regpye!

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Now, I can get mine back up and running! I will have to print a mount for the new hotend tonight.

Thanks Regpye!!!

You are welcome. Have fun.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

I feel, I need to give an update...

I've been under the weather as of late. The Docs changed my meds which caused my heart rate to drop 40-50 bpm... So, then I was woozy headed for couple weeks. Then they changed it again which had other sever side effects... While dizzy headed, I stepped wrong and tore a ligament in my foot... Doh! Now on my third set of medication and something to help with pain, I'm back on the upswing... Yeah! So, needless to say I haven't gotten much done on either of my printers. I had the Smartrap tore down for a rewire and to install Regpye's Hotend and Geared Extruder. I got the Extruder installed and the wiring done. Now I just need to get the hotend mounted. I printed out the new hotend holder on the Ordbot. but that's about the time I injured myself. So everything has been on hold.

Hopefully, I can get back to things very soon, as being idle and surfing forums made me realize I want to try and build a Laser engraver... Shhh... don't tell the wife... Maybe I have Adult A-D-D... lol...

Speaking of don't tell the wife... If I don't find the charger for her camera which I misplaced... I'm pretty sure unspeakable things will happen to me... Doh!

Good to here your on the mend Mike.

Laser engraver or engraver / cutter? (matter of watts). I'v been thinking of one of those my own self but I want an 80 or 120 watt unit - to do more stuff. I also really want to build a Gingery lathe. Figure all the smaller parts could be 3D printed and used as "lost PLA" investment castings. Of course, it would need CNC mods.

Oh, and I had myself one of those there wifes once or twice. I currently have no worries in that department.

Mark

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2014 03:46PM by markstephen.

Engraver/barely cutter... I'm thinking 3W 445nm diode to get me going... I gotta make sure I don't shoot out my eyes first... So, probably be in some type of box...

If it works well, and think I need bigger may try one of those CO2 tube types down the road...

OK, on the subject of the low wattage lasers, I'v also been kicking around the idea of a Smartrap style SLA printer. With the advancement in resins along with lower cost, it might be worth a shot. 50 mw or so blue laser, 150 mm petri dish, lifting Z, PLA printed parts. Would be able to use the cheap 34 mm steppers. Could be interesting.

Firmware / RAMPS laser control? Any ideas?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2014 05:13PM by markstephen.

Well, count me interested... Sounds like fun...

Do you mean something that will be attached to our smartrap and make it a laser engraver/cutter?

That would be awesome! I'll be watching this! Even a low power lasers enough to cut stickers will keep my smartrap busy.

You can get a 40w ridiculously cheap <$500. But, if you wanna do it MacGyver style, you can crack open a spare CD drive and use that or get one on Adafruit.

Golden, by chance do you own one of the cheap Chinese 40Ws? Reviews? suggestions?

I'll probably still build a diode one... Just because I like to tinker around... But maybe I can swing one of those on my birthday or Christmas...

That's interesting, goldenmongoose. But $500 is far from cheap from where I come from

I wonder what can the laser in the CD drive cut. Have you tried it? Please share some more info. I'm thinking of giving it a try.

I've got a 60W from [www.rabbitlaserusa.com]. It's not one of the ultra cheap ones, cost about $7000. The $500 ones have a smaller table and prone to over heating. The low wattage CD drive/diode DIY ones will do some lite engraving and paper cutting. They look like fun, but I've never tried it.

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madmike8
Engraver/barely cutter... I'm thinking 3W 445nm diode to get me going... I gotta make sure I don't shoot out my eyes first... So, probably be in some type of box...

If it works well, and think I need bigger may try one of those CO2 tube types down the road...

I have a CO2 laser cutter, I bought it nine years ago when they where pretty expensive.
They haven't changed much except for the price.
You might want to rethink using a CO2 on a SmartRap, the tube I have is 80 watt and is over four feet long.
It is powered at 27K volts.and is water cooled. The cooler is the size of a bar fridge.
Best to go with diodes for sure, they are pretty cheap, small, low voltage, safer as well.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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markstephen
OK, on the subject of the low wattage lasers, I'v also been kicking around the idea of a Smartrap style SLA printer. With the advancement in resins along with lower cost, it might be worth a shot. 50 mw or so blue laser, 150 mm petri dish, lifting Z, PLA printed parts. Would be able to use the cheap 34 mm steppers. Could be interesting.

Firmware / RAMPS laser control? Any ideas?

Now that I think is achievable.
Wont be anything like a SmartRap though, maybe a SmartCut instead ha..ha..

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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goldenmongoose
I've got a 60W from [www.rabbitlaserusa.com]. It's not one of the ultra cheap ones, cost about $7000. The $500 ones have a smaller table and prone to over heating. The low wattage CD drive/diode DIY ones will do some lite engraving and paper cutting. They look like fun, but I've never tried it.

How do you find that laser Kyle? Is it a newer model? Mine being nine years old was fairly new at the time so the price was much higher, five times higher.
It was one of the best machines I ever bought, used it nearly every week, sometime more.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

Well mine has paid for itself many times over. Definately the most useful fabrication tool we have. It's like doing math on a calculator vs. long division. I use mine a couple hours a day at least. After a couple years of heavy use the 40w laser burnt out so I replaced it with a 60w. CO2 lasers are basically just fancy light bulbs. Pretty easy to use, minus the acrylic catching on fire every once in a while.

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regpye

I have a CO2 laser cutter, I bought it nine years ago when they where pretty expensive.
They haven't changed much except for the price.
You might want to rethink using a CO2 on a SmartRap, the tube I have is 80 watt and is over four feet long.
It is powered at 27K volts.and is water cooled. The cooler is the size of a bar fridge.
Best to go with diodes for sure, they are pretty cheap, small, low voltage, safer as well.

LOL Regpye, I wasn't thinking of trying to mount one on my Smartrap... I'm wary of bright lights that can blind you being not enclosed.

I've got a 457mm x 457mm x 152mm metal box I'm thinking about building a small 3W 9mm 445nm laser diode in to. It will only move in the X Y axis, but I plan to have some manual Z adjustability to account for limited material thickness.

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madmike8

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regpye

I have a CO2 laser cutter, I bought it nine years ago when they where pretty expensive.
They haven't changed much except for the price.
You might want to rethink using a CO2 on a SmartRap, the tube I have is 80 watt and is over four feet long.
It is powered at 27K volts.and is water cooled. The cooler is the size of a bar fridge.
Best to go with diodes for sure, they are pretty cheap, small, low voltage, safer as well.

LOL Regpye, I wasn't thinking of trying to mount one on my Smartrap... I'm wary of bright lights that can blind you being not enclosed.

I've got a 457mm x 457mm x 152mm metal box I'm thinking about building a small 3W 9mm 445nm laser diode in to. It will only move in the X Y axis, but I plan to have some manual Z adjustability to account for limited material thickness.

I would be interested in doing for fun too. I don't need to build one, but it would make a good project to play around with.
infrared lasers are not too expensive, and they give better results than the blue lasers, but don't look as cool because infrared is invisible.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

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goldenmongoose
Well mine has paid for itself many times over. Definately the most useful fabrication tool we have. It's like doing math on a calculator vs. long division. I use mine a couple hours a day at least. After a couple years of heavy use the 40w laser burnt out so I replaced it with a 60w. CO2 lasers are basically just fancy light bulbs. Pretty easy to use, minus the acrylic catching on fire every once in a while.

Mine has also paid for itself many times over and mine was pretty expensive when I bought it.
Have you tried doing laser engraving on some stainless steel? It works pretty good on stainless I found.
Well not quite fancy light bulbs,
They are specially made glass tubes, one inside the other. The outer tube carries cooling water to keep the inner tube cool. The inner tube is almost a vacuum, but has a mixture of CO2 gas and helium gas inside.
The ends of the inner tube have special mirrors that are made from silicon crystal and are coated with pure gold for the mirror surface. The back end mirror is a full mirror while the front end mirror is a partial mirror so that the laser light developed inside the tube can bounce back and forth up and down the tube. Some laser light exits from the front mirror and is what used for the laser machine.The mirrors have to be optically aligned and perfectly square so that the light only travels within the inner tube and doesn't verge outward into the outer tube.
Also there are the anode and cathodes electrodes added within the inner tube. These have a pulsed 27K volt applied to them to get the laser production, it has a blue glow, but the usable infrared light that comes out of the end of the tube cannot be seen and is dangerous.
I have a big box full of worn out tubes and I didn't throw them away because maybe one day I can find a use for them. At over four foot long they take up a lot of room.

I think light bulbs are a bit simpler than all of that.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2014 10:37PM by regpye.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

I don't do much engraving, mainly acrylic cutting for display cases and assorted templates/stencils. I guess it's easier to think of them as fancy light bulbs than it is to retain all that information.

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goldenmongoose
I don't do much engraving, mainly acrylic cutting for display cases and assorted templates/stencils. I guess it's easier to think of them as fancy light bulbs than it is to retain all that information.

Me too, engraving takes too long unless you are using vector.
I mainly cut acrylic and MDF parts for various projects. I also do a lot of sign work as well.
Get the odd job to do that makes it interesting, like engraving name badges and things like that. Mostly I guess I would use 6-10mm thick acrylics for the material, made a lot of Genie MajikMaker with that material.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

Interesting,

I wonder how good RAMPS will be for this. Or would GRBL be a better choiche?
What do you need for the CO2 laser? PWM?

If it is X, Y, PWM and 4 endstops then GRBL might be a nice way to go.

I'm going to keep an eye on this topic. :-D

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BackEMF
Interesting,

I wonder how good RAMPS will be for this. Or would GRBL be a better choiche?
What do you need for the CO2 laser? PWM?

If it is X, Y, PWM and 4 endstops then GRBL might be a nice way to go.

I'm going to keep an eye on this topic. :-D

Yes X and Y and PWM if engraving, or X and Y and E for just cutting, both can be the same and just control the PWM.
Could still use the Z for focus, mine needs to be manually focused before each job if I change material thickness.
Could also use auto bed leveling too, now I am getting interested, I hadn't thought about this so deep before.
You also need a very high voltage power supply that can be controlled by PWM. That is very high voltage and low amperage.
A water cooling system is needed too for CO2 lasers, and I mean a lot of water or a chiller.
My system like most uses special mirrors that are silicon crystal with gold plate on one surface and also a special lens set that is also made from silicone. Glass is opaque to infrared light, so glass cannot be used, would get very hot and shatter as well.

I still think that a laser diode would be the easiest to do, CO2 is just too big and needs too many things that are hard and expensive to get easy.
Somewhere in all my stuff I have a high powered infrared diode that I bought from Farrnell that I haven;t used yet, I remember it was only $95 and was 2W
That would never do what my 80W laser can do, but for a small machine that didn't break the bank it would still be a useful machine for engraving wood, cutting cardboard and making PCBs. and maybe cut acrylic too if not too thick and cut slow enough.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

I'm thinking of doing a RAMPS or GRBL retrofit on a CO2 box thought the big scary laser keeps me from getting my hands on the beast.
I first need to read up on the watercooling...what end is the cold-in and what end is the hot-out etc.

I'm not sure if it is 40 60 or 80Watt i think 40 ... Someone else has plans to make a big ass lasershow from this beast though i have the feeling it is infra red LOL

If X Y and PWM are all it takes then GRBL might be the better choice? Smaller more rugged code and it fits on a Arduino Uno, though can Pronterface send GRBL compatible code?

Or do I need Repsnapper or any other software for it? I meen, it is only 2D so i will then need something that can work with SVG files to make GCODE.
And then there is the Cutting vs Engraving aspect...

BTW i see this is a bit off topic in madmikes build pages.. Should we move this to another area?

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BackEMF
I'm thinking of doing a RAMPS or GRBL retrofit on a CO2 box thought the big scary laser keeps me from getting my hands on the beast.
I first need to read up on the watercooling...what end is the cold-in and what end is the hot-out etc.

I'm not sure if it is 40 60 or 80Watt i think 40 ... Someone else has plans to make a big ass lasershow from this beast though i have the feeling it is infra red LOL

If X Y and PWM are all it takes then GRBL might be the better choice? Smaller more rugged code and it fits on a Arduino Uno, though can Pronterface send GRBL compatible code?

Or do I need Repsnapper or any other software for it? I meen, it is only 2D so i will then need something that can work with SVG files to make GCODE.
And then there is the Cutting vs Engraving aspect...

BTW i see this is a bit off topic in madmikes build pages.. Should we move this to another area?

The difference between cutting and engraving is that cutting uses vector files and is fast. Engraving uses bitmap files and is Slow.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

I don't mind... I'm the one that brought it up... Lol

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MelT
Do you mean something that will be attached to our smartrap and make it a laser engraver/cutter?

That would be awesome! I'll be watching this! Even a low power lasers enough to cut stickers will keep my smartrap busy.

Well I have started to build a laser now, just to play with. I will probably use the laser I already have to make some parts for this one.
I intend to use RAMPS to run it, use a blue laser diode and the case I will make using extruded aluminium and plastic corner fittings.
A few more nights no sleeping and I should have some ideas to start printing for the parts.
Guess I will have to use a SmartRap to do some prints so I can still put something in this thread ha..ha..

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

Now you're making me jealous again.

Is that laser another exotic part that will be hard to find?

I do not have a broken CD drive that I can salvage for parts. Maybe I will drop by the surplus store to get one and use the laser inside. Looks like light enough to mount at the end of the X end of the smartrap.

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MelT
Now you're making me jealous again.

Is that laser another exotic part that will be hard to find?

I do not have a broken CD drive that I can salvage for parts. Maybe I will drop by the surplus store to get one and use the laser inside. Looks like light enough to mount at the end of the X end of the smartrap.

Modifying a SmartRap with a diode wouldn't be very hard to do.
The control could come from RAMPS and the power supply is simple and cheap to make.
The diode can be salvaged.
Need a good heatsink for the diode and some SAFETY GOGGLES (cheap on ebay, I just ordered 5 pairs for less than $20)
You would only be able to engrave say wood, paper, cloth etc. and MAYBE cut some paper at most.
If you went to a more powerful diode and paid a bit of money (around $90) you can do a bit more.
Software is also available for free, I am collecting it now, so I will be able to help you out if you want to do this.

My printer is making parts now ha..ha.. hope it will all fit together nicely.

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[regpye.com.au]
"Experience is the mother of all knowledge." --Leonardo da Vinci

a laser cutter mod for smartrap would just be fabolouse!!!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2014 09:37AM by trezi.

I've been thinking,(yea, I know... dangerous!), but I see no reason why one couldn't just mount a 2+ watt laser on the Smartrap just like I am with a second hotend and run with it. Use the Z probing for setting focal length of the fixed lens. The ideal thing would be to use some spare output on the RAMPS for controlling the laser, but someone much better at programming would need to figure that out in Marlin.

Mark

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From FreeCAD To The Real World- Demo video using FreeCAD and featuring the Smartrap 3D Printer