You just bought a K40 chinese laser cutter ? Unfortunately it’s merely impossible to cut anything with the stock laser head because of the fume spreading the laser beam and stain the less reducing the power.
Here is the solution, LightObject.com made this nice laser head:
Delivered without the lens because stock lens doesn’t fit with. This new laser head is made for 18mm lens, stock mirror can be reused (same size).
Here are all the parts, assembly is easy and fast:
I also ordered a standard 18mm lens:
Overview of all the parts:
As said, assembly is easy and fast:
Combined with the power-table I can now cut almost anything ! No more dirty lens !
Hello thank you for the videos, they do help. I just bought one of these and I want to up grade it as much as I can. the air assist new head is coming and so is a laser pointer. I want to ask you now that you have had the full assembly for some time, was the cost of the power table worth it? I also have some wood shavin brushes i will be engraving my logo on it and can this machine print several objects at once? What is the ultimate software you ended up with that was functional? Thanks for your time and reply. Kris
Hello, thanks for your comment, the power table looks fine and professional, unfortunately the working area is reduced. Overseas shipping is expensive because of customs but still worth it. But this Z-table is temporary because I want swap the stock XY arrangement to Core XY and a wobble-free Z-axis with larger working area. But this takes a lot of time and I need a z-table during this time, from far LightObject’s z-table is the best. Focus distance is the most important factor. If you want to engrave it’s best to make focus on the surface to have the smallest dot but for cutting it’s best to make focus above the surface, for a 3mm thick material I focused at 1.5mm (mid-thickness).
Check my galvo project I designed all parts with FreeCAD and make a virtual assembly to check if everything fit, then I exported all individual parts into DXF files, I used QCAD to make a panel with all individual DXF files, QCAD provide a CAM plugin to export GCODE. I’m using a smoothieboard controller, I customized the CAM plugin to produce a compatible syntax. I’m still using the smoothieboard web interface but I plan to make a QT app.
I also used only QCAD to make a quick shape.