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K40 Laser

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Noitoen:
On my K40, I changed the cutting head to the other side of the rail and got a little more travel on the Y axis.

dodazzle:
HI guys, I picked up a used K40 laser a couple of weeks ago and I am reading as much as I can about it. I will most likely fire it up for the first time this weekend.

I have a question for Joules and a comment about rubber stamps for Russ.

First, for Joules, I find it interesting that you mention the Silhouette Cameo because I had been looking at it as well as the Cricut. What I am really after is a means of easily creating masking for some metal engraving. But the K40 laser popped up for $200 the night before the Superbowl. It was an hour away, so I took a small road trip in the morning before sitting for the rest of the day.  So you said "You can't cut vinyl mask with the laser", I was quite surprised to see this. Are you sure of that? Have you tried it? A friend of mine has an Epilog CO2 laser, maybe 80 watts. I know this is not exactly the same league, but I would be surprised if the K40 couldn't handle that. Always willing to learn though. So if you could expand on your experience with cutting vinyl, I would appreciate it.

Now, for Russ and rubber stamps. I have messed with rubber stamps for a long time now. I find that the simplest way to do this is to use photopolymer resin. You can find it on ebay for somewhat high price but if you find an industrial printer, you might be able to get a gallon or more of resin for the same price as you get a liter on eBay. All you need is a UV exposure unit. The cheapest way to go is a UV nails hardener you can get on Banggood or eBay for $30 or so. The whole process only involves printing your design in pure black on vellum, expose the resin through the vellum, and cleaning up with a brush under water. Quite simple and somewhat low tech.

Hope to get a reply from Joules and I'm always willing to go into more details about the rubber stamps if Russ is interested.

Cheers,

Jacques

dodazzle:

--- Quote from: Noitoen on January 26, 2020, 03:04:16 PM ---On my K40, I changed the cutting head to the other side of the rail and got a little more travel on the Y axis.

--- End quote ---

Noitoen, do you have a picture? I'm not sure I understand what you are describing. If it is what I think it is, you must have had to change the position of the mirror on the left too right?

Jacques

Joules:
Jacques, you DON’T cut vinyl with a laser as it liberates hydrogen chloride.

https://lasergods.com/can-i-cut-vinyl-pvc-in-a-laser/

This creates hydrochloric acid and will destroy the machine and your lungs.   Be very cautious of what materials you work with a laser, and be aware of what they may decompose into.  Hence the Cameo is still used for cutting vinyl and vinyl mask.   My friend recently bought a Cricut Maker and we are evaluating it against the Cameo.

If the metal you wish to etch can be placed inside the laser cabinet, spray paint the object and burn the paint away with the laser.   This produces an excellent cheap mask, if the object is round you would need one of the optional rotary axis that fit in a K40.

dodazzle:
Hi Joules, thanks for the clarification. I had heard about not cutting PVC with the laser,  but I did not make the association to the vinyl mask. My friend cut a few sheets for me a while ago on his laser. I should check with him to see if it affected his machine significantly.

I know about painting the metal and burning the paint, I have done that before on my friend's Epilog laser. The idea of cutting vinyl masks was for larger things.

I also want to use it to cut 3mm or so clear acrylic. I'm sure I'll find plenty of other ideas to use it.

Thanks again for the heads up!

Jacques

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