The Craftmans Shop > New from Old

60W Chinese Laser Engraver Modification

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nrml:
Nice job (as always). If accidental disconnects  are critical, have you thought of  making little brackets to hold the plugs in their sockets? Some of the electrical equipment we use in the operating theatre have little plastic brackets that wrap around the plug and are fixed by a couple of screws to the chassis of the piece of equipment. They prevent accidental disconnects when things get moved around. They should be very easy to 3D print.

awemawson:
Thanks NRML for the kind words.

The laser needs water cooling, and now I've sorted out the power out sockets (incidentally labelled power in on the machine  :bang:) the time has come to sort out my water system.

They supply an immersible pond pump and suggest using a bucket, which is what I've been doing, but that has a few disadvantages:

A) I'd like to use anti-freeze as the machine is next to the roller shutter, but not in an open bucket when my dogs come to visit me playing in the workshop - anti-freeze is poisonous.

B) I just know that I'm going to kick it over at some time, because I do that sort of thing (unintentionally  :palm:)

C) An open bucket attracts 'stuff' - this one fills up with dead spiders, some of which float, and others sink  :scratch:

Now there are commercial coolers available with enclosed tanks, flow alarms and temperature alarms. All very good but they are really rather expensive for what is essentially just a coil of pipe with a fan blowing over it, so I've resisted up until now.

awemawson:
However one popped up on eBay at half the normal price, so suddenly the equation started to balance  :ddb:

As it was a one off 'buy it now' it seemed rude not to so I placed an order, and Angie, our local 'My Hermes' lady struggled in with a large box this morning  :clap:

Obviously the first thing a real mad modder needs to do is pull it apart and see how it ticks  :lol:

It's actually quite nicely made

awemawson:
A nominal 10 litre plastic reservoir tank with embedded temperature sensor that feeds a panel display. Outlet from the tank goes to a 24v pump that circulates water through the laser tube, and back via the flow sensor and cooling pipes.

Note  that there is no 'active' cooling, (compressor / evaporator or Peltier element)  the heat is just dispersed to atmosphere by a fan

In built is an alarm that is triggered by either over temperature or low water flow, a very handy feature

awemawson:
So putting it back together I removed the crude bucket affair, installed the cooler, and filled it from my stash of pre-diluted anti-freeze (*). Connected up the plumbing and set it to work.

It is too tall to go on the shelf under the machine, and long term I intend to mount it on the side so as the machine is moved on it's castors you don't have to fuss around with pipes and cables, but for now it just sits on the floor.

I had contemplated making one but frankly the bits would have cost much the same as I paid by the time it was boxed and working.

A very useful side effect of the way that the engraving machine sequences up, is that as it goes though it's start up routine water flow isn't instant as some has drained back to the tank, so the alarm sounds for a second or two confirming that it still works !

(*) When I de-commissioned my 100 kW induction furnace when I moved 8 years ago I kept something of the order of 300 litres of pre-diluted ethylene-glycol coolant as not only was it going to be needed in the future, it was not easy to dispose of anyway being a poison - still not re-commissioned the induction furnace  :bang:

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