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DIY Laser cutter/engraver design advice

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MetalMagus:
Hello,
I am thinking of doing the same thing some time in the future. I "lurk" in several laser groups on FB and most use the Ruida controllers in combination with lightburn.

I came across the site below for a DIY laser build. It has downloadable plans and could be modified for a true home built affair without buying any hardware from them.

http://www.lasersaur.com/

regards

Sean

picclock:
@MetalMagus
I've looked at several diy designs on the internet including the lasersaur one, but I have never been impressed. In my mind I keep seeing all the wrong engineering decisions. Look at the lasersaur. The way in which he uses aluminium section is like he has shares in the company, quite absurd. The y axis is driven by a belt reduction shaft which connects to two toothed belt pulleys which drive each end of the X axis rail. On mine I will drive the X rail with two stepper motors connected in parallel to a stepper driver, so much simpler and more elegant. I would mention the X axis motion but I grow weary. Check out the video

I used to lecture at a technology college and half of the students would try to copy this stuff off the internet and present it as there own work. All rather sad.

@BillTodd
I forgot to add I bought the laser (Reci W1) and mirrors from aliexpress. Brexit has altered things for them as they now collect the VAT for the UK (or it appears that way). So when you order stuff and pay for it 20% VAT is added**. Lasers have 0% import duty (Customs and Excise), so having paid my costs (£209.78) it should just turn up  :coffee:, one day.

Best Regards

picclock 

** Apparently this only applies to goods of value up to £135. In my case for the laser (£146) I will probably have to pay VAT on top (~£29), and knowing carriers, a transaction fee on top of that.   

MetalMagus:
I quite like the look of the guiderail sets from Cloud Ray. But they still use a drive shaft and a single stepper drive.

https://www.cloudraylaser.com/collections/guide-rail-set

One day I may get around to building one of my own

cheers

Sean

picclock:
FxFrameExpert may help if you are designing extrusion assemblies. It will even calculate beam deflection so you do not have to overengineer your designs, and best of all its FREE.

http://maytec.com.de/index.php?id=21&L=1

No association with the company.

My Ruida 6445 controller arrived, but without software, manual or info. Cloudray sent me the links.

The manual for Ruida RDC6445G via link:
http://cloudray.oss-us-west-1.aliyuncs.com/Controller/Ruida/RDC6445G/User%27s%20Manual%20of%20RDC6445G%20V1.0.pdf

RDworks software.
http://cloudray.oss-us-west-1.aliyuncs.com/Controller/Ruida/RDWorksV8Setup8.01.48-20200418.rar

These are the V slot guides I am using.

Best regards

picclock

WeldingRod:
My 3D printer design also used the drive shaft method.  You can see it just above my cats head.  It gives very positive synchronized timing on the two parallel rails, with a mechanical adjustment if you want it.  Dual steppers depends on you not accidentally bumping it for timing!

You should consider how the various bits are constrained also.  Ideally you want one end of the cross bar constrained differently than the other.   You dont want anything that binds up if the two parallel rails arent quite parallel.  I have pictures if you are interested in how I did it...

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

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