I bought a 40W CO² laser from ebay but wasn’t satisfied with for many reason, one of them was the bed, stock bed cannot be lowered even manually. I was also looking for a new laser head with air-assist when I found this power table/bed.
LightObject.com sell a lot of parts for laser and CNC and today I will talk about this nice product through a step-by-step assembly, here is all delivered parts:
Let’s start the assembly with the lower frame and the four threaded-rod, simply insert the bearing in the frame:
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Insert the four axis:
Remove the bearing and the upper lock nut:
Turn all the four nut:
Pre-install the belt and the stepper:
Fasten the stepper with the two screw:
Install the belt-tensioner, with light tension as long as the assembly isn’t done:
Install the bed (and the lock nut):
We removed the bearing from threaded rod, now it’s time to install them in the upper frame by gently pushing them in the blind hole, if it’s hard to insert try another bearing/blind-hole combinaison, never use a hammer !
The upper frame can now take place, don’t forget the previously removed lock nut. Simply insert the threaded rod in the bearing:
Fasten the upper frame with screw:
Almost done, you can now adjust the belt tensioner:
Flip the power-table upside down:
The lock nut is in contact with the upper frame and the bed lay on the four lock nut, it’s now time to lock them all:
And it’s done !
A pleasant hour long is required for the assembly but if you don’t take photography it’s done in less a half-hour !
Here is my power-table in place in my K40 CO² laser (I painted it white because the stock blue color give me cancer !)
Way to go. Quite civilized of you to do this.
I wished I had seen this sooner, before I put mine together.
I wished you would have talked about the wiring. Trying to figure out if the wiring as the wires I received on mine do not match the schematics.
Your right I should talk about the wiring, I’m gonna update the article or write a new one about the controller (smoothieboard).
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Oh one more question – where do the wires come out at and is there a switch of some sort you can mount where the other controls are located?
It’s a stepper motor, in my cas there is 4 wires, they are connected to the smoothieboard, I’m using the software (smoothieboard web interface) to drive the power-table. I planed to add joystick/buttons to manually control the axis.
I was building my own but Lightpbject stocks the z table again so I ordered, much nicer than my design.
Many thanks for the step by step instructions, very clear. I have tested the Z axis control on the Element 5 DSP upgrade (with stepper driver m415b microstepper) and I think this will be a great upgrade.
Thomas…I bought the Mini 2 Phase 2A driver to allow me to make table go up and down. I saw a video somewhere and a guy was just using a 2 button switch with the driver to make the table go up and down. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how he wired it up. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated. David
Do you have the datasheet or at least the pinout of your driver ? I think you need a bit of logic between.
Here is the video I was speaking of. I don’t even need the limit switches. Can you help?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr007MpBRgQ
Ok but what’s behind the vertical plate ? I think there is something like a smoothieboard, everything is wired on the smoothieboard and switches are triggering commands:
http://smoothieware.org/switch
But you can do it without smoothieboard with some logic like a small microcontroler or even simpler with a couple of logic gate and a clock
Tom: When you do an update on assemblying this Z table for the K40, you might want to mention how it is mounted in the K40. I noticed there are 5 threaded holes in the bottom plate after I had my Z table assembled which one took me about 10 minutes. What you might suggest is that before starting assembling the Table to place the bottom plate in the K40 and use a pencil or scratch awl to make the positions of those threaded holes in the base of the K40. That way hole can be drilled in the base of the K40 and screws can be inserted through those holes and screwed into the threaded holes in the base plate. I would imagine a number of people have been wondering how to mount the Z-Table in the K40 after they had it assembled. The other option would be to use Double sided foam tape, but from my experience with using it, it would be a bear to remove the table if you had to do some repair work to it. Now that I have the Table assembled, I will remove the base plate and then mark the hole locations in the base of the K40, so I can screw it in place.
Sorry for late answer, to be honest with you my Z-Table juste lay down in the K40 because I’m looking for a complete redesign of the mechanics, the bottom metal is so fine and as the rest not well aligned with the laser/mechanics. The K40 is a nice introduction to the laser cutting world but only for modder, because you can get a laser tube and power supply and also steppers for almost nothing, except the case the rest goes directly to the garbage, I painted the case in white and I’m looking to integrate a complet BOSCH framed aluminium structure to get everything aligned (best as possible to make only few minor alignments).
I want to increase working surface up to 500x300mm to handle stock material plate from RS.
Hi Tom: Sorry, I’ve emailed light object but don’t get any replies. I wonder if you could let me know how low the Z table goes? I know there is approx 70mm travel in total. Basically I need to engrave on boxes approximately 50mm high, with the standard 50.8mm focal lens I’m not sure this will go low enough for optimal engraving.
All these post are a couple years old. I am just starting to use the K40. are there any groups out there and any updates on this table? Any help I would be great full. Bill
You’re right ! Long time without update, I moved overseas and bring the K40 with me, he stayed a long time in a room and now he is outside waiting for me to restore and enhance it, to be honest the K40 working area is small, the K40 cutting capability is low, but with few improvements you can easily improve it, this table/bed is a great example because you can set the focus where you want, it will reduce the working area a bit but it worth it when starting with the K40. The best improvement is the air-assist because it blow fumes away and also fused/burned matter away. There is lot of blog and articles (see hackaday) about K40, most of them with large working area, almost all components where replaced, nothing common with K40 in the end but all starts with K40 anyway