Even bigger laser - rebuild and commissioning

[Sean-anotherone]

The "even bigger laser" remains a doorstop and would be a useful addition to the DoES portfolio.

Discrete tasks in order would be :

a) location and orientation to be determined / agreed b) bulk relocation & reassembly c) re-commission the machine, including replacing control electronics as necessary (tbc)

[ghost]

Also, just let me know if there's anything I can do to help :)

(Keith from The Leather Satchel Co.)

[Sean-anotherone]

Someone who can make the phone calls during the 9-5 window of opportunity needs to grasp the nettle on this and get a few more quotes

[JackiePease]

I seem to have missed adding Jan Egerton's response "We use HPC lasers and they are based in saddleworth and will service and are reasonable. They have a good customer service over the phone". We've dealt with them before - might be worth getting a quote.

[johnmckerrell]

@DoESsean can you take a look at this and see if you can work out the next step, get prices for regassing the laser tube.

[Sean-anotherone]

bump

[magman2112]

Time for an update after quite a bit more research.

First, I did some research on the existing Universal Laser UL-50 unit.

Laserrefill.com stated on their website that the UL Series lasers should be good for 20,000-30,000 hours of use. But the key thing is that the CO2 gas in the tube can leak past the seals, so whether you are using the laser of not, the gas eventually leaks out. This is also temperature dependant, so in cold weather, it can leak more.

I looked for alternate refill services, but these were mostly in the US. Normal websites tend not to list refill prices, but I did find some on eBay. One user (olafscaley) was chargingh $950 for a refill, but with postage and Import charges this eventually worked out at £1080.86. Another user on eBay had an apparently cheaper refill. at $950 (laser-tech), but with postage this worked out at £1068.18, plus any additional import duties.

I did find one user on eBay selling new UL50 lasers, at $2900 each, but with carriage this worked out to £2307.78 - and again, there would be import duties to add to this.

Next I spoke to Cad-Cam Technology, the original manufacturer of the whole laser machine. They told me that Universal Laser are now no longer reprocessing the UL-50 laser, but a refill from them would have been in the region of £2500. Also, Cad-Cam Technology is now under new ownership, with the laser sales now under Summer, a Belgian company. They did give an alternate contact though - for Anglian Management Services, this company manages the education sales, which is where I believe our original laser came from.

I had a good conversation with David Barkham of Anglia Management Services (07872 944605). He stated that his company is the educational supplier for these laser cutters. He also stated that Universal Laser discontinued support for the UL-50 lasers from February this year so a replacement would be needed from now on. The replacement is the ULR range, from Universal Laser, but an equivalent ULR50 laser would be in the region of £5500.

The last conversation I had was with Paul Mason of Millenium Laser. Paul again stated that there are some concerns over the long term reliability of the UL Series lasers from Universal Laser. He can still do a regass of these lasers, but this would cost £1450 and he would only give us a 6 months warranty on this refill.

We also discussed a possible replacement, using a glass high voltage DC laser, like those used in Gerald and Sophia. Millenium Laser also sell these - a 60W tube with Power Supply would cost £945, though they do give a 2 year warranty on these tubes that the power won't drop more than 15% - these tubes are also capable of 70-75W operation from new. This tube is 1m long, so should fit Monty, and would also need a chiller and associated plumbing as well as us building any required bracketry to install the tube.

A third option would be a replacement RF laser, which Paulk sells, but I didn't ask about this option as Paul already mentioned that this would cost more than a refill of the old tube.

I also asked if there was any value in the old UL-50 laser. Paul said it was of no value to him, as well as other people in the industry, though he suggested that we could possibly list it on eBay were we might get a £100 or more for the unit. We would have to list is as needing a refill or spares or repair.

So given all of this new data - it looks like the old Universal Laser UL-50 RF laser is going to be a non-starter and we should investigate replacing this with a High Voltage DC glass tube laser and ancilliaries.

[KarlDunkerley]

Would the existing chiller be able to handle both machines and save some pennies? On Thursday, 6 August 2020, 18:21:38 BST, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

Time for an update after quite a bit more research.

First, I did some research on the existing Universal Laser UL-50 unit.

Laserrefill.com stated on their website that the UL Series lasers should be good for 20,000-30,000 hours of use. But the key thing is that the CO2 gas in the tube can leak past the seals, so whether you are using the laser of not, the gas eventually leaks out. This is also temperature dependant, so in cold weather, it can leak more.

I looked for alternate refill services, but these were mostly in the US. Normal websites tend not to list refill prices, but I did find some on eBay. One user (olafscaley) was chargingh $950 for a refill, but with postage and Import charges this eventually worked out at £1080.86. Another user on eBay had an apparently cheaper refill. at $950 (laser-tech), but with postage this worked out at £1068.18, plus any additional import duties.

I did find one user on eBay selling new UL50 lasers, at $2900 each, but with carriage this worked out to £2307.78 - and again, there would be import duties to add to this.

Next I spoke to Cad-Cam Technology, the original manufacturer of the whole laser machine. They told me that Universal Laser are now no longer reprocessing the UL-50 laser, but a refill from them would have been in the region of £2500. Also, Cad-Cam Technology is now under new ownership, with the laser sales now under Summer, a Belgian company. They did give an alternate contact though - for Anglian Management Services, this company manages the education sales, which is where I believe our original laser came from.

I had a good conversation with David Barkham of Anglia Management Services (07872 944605). He stated that his company is the educational supplier for these laser cutters. He also stated that Universal Laser discontinued support for the UL-50 lasers from February this year so a replacement would be needed from now on. The replacement is the ULR range, from Universal Laser, but an equivalent ULR50 laser would be in the region of £5500.

The last conversation I had was with Paul Mason of Millenium Laser. Paul again stated that there are some concerns over the long term reliability of the UL Series lasers from Universal Laser. He can still do a regass of these lasers, but this would cost £1450 and he would only give us a 6 months warranty on this refill.

We also discussed a possible replacement, using a glass high voltage DC laser, like those used in Gerald and Sophia. Millenium Laser also sell these - a 60W tube with Power Supply would cost £945, though they do give a 2 year warranty on these tubes that the power won't drop more than 15% - these tubes are also capable of 70-75W operation from new. This tube is 1m long, so should fit Monty, and would also need a chiller and associated plumbing as well as us building any required bracketry to install the tube.

A third option would be a replacement RF laser, which Paulk sells, but I didn't ask about this option as Paul already mentioned that this would cost more than a refill of the old tube.

I also asked if there was any value in the old UL-50 laser. Paul said it was of no value to him, as well as other people in the industry, though he suggested that we could possibly list it on eBay were we might get a £100 or more for the unit. We would have to list is as needing a refill or spares or repair.

So given all of this new data - it looks like the old Universal Laser UL-50 RF laser is going to be a non-starter and we should investigate replacing this with a High Voltage DC glass tube laser and ancilliaries.

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[Sean-anotherone]

We thought about this earlier - probably, but as Mike pointed out it would be a single point of failure that would take out both machines. Sea On Thursday, 6 August 2020, 19:24:38 BST, KarlDunkerley notifications@github.com wrote:

Would the existing chiller be able to handle both machines and save some pennies? On Thursday, 6 August 2020, 18:21:38 BST, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

Time for an update after quite a bit more research.

First, I did some research on the existing Universal Laser UL-50 unit.

Laserrefill.com stated on their website that the UL Series lasers should be good for 20,000-30,000 hours of use. But the key thing is that the CO2 gas in the tube can leak past the seals, so whether you are using the laser of not, the gas eventually leaks out. This is also temperature dependant, so in cold weather, it can leak more.

I looked for alternate refill services, but these were mostly in the US. Normal websites tend not to list refill prices, but I did find some on eBay. One user (olafscaley) was chargingh $950 for a refill, but with postage and Import charges this eventually worked out at £1080.86. Another user on eBay had an apparently cheaper refill. at $950 (laser-tech), but with postage this worked out at £1068.18, plus any additional import duties.

I did find one user on eBay selling new UL50 lasers, at $2900 each, but with carriage this worked out to £2307.78 - and again, there would be import duties to add to this.

Next I spoke to Cad-Cam Technology, the original manufacturer of the whole laser machine. They told me that Universal Laser are now no longer reprocessing the UL-50 laser, but a refill from them would have been in the region of £2500. Also, Cad-Cam Technology is now under new ownership, with the laser sales now under Summer, a Belgian company. They did give an alternate contact though - for Anglian Management Services, this company manages the education sales, which is where I believe our original laser came from.

I had a good conversation with David Barkham of Anglia Management Services (07872 944605). He stated that his company is the educational supplier for these laser cutters. He also stated that Universal Laser discontinued support for the UL-50 lasers from February this year so a replacement would be needed from now on. The replacement is the ULR range, from Universal Laser, but an equivalent ULR50 laser would be in the region of £5500.

The last conversation I had was with Paul Mason of Millenium Laser. Paul again stated that there are some concerns over the long term reliability of the UL Series lasers from Universal Laser. He can still do a regass of these lasers, but this would cost £1450 and he would only give us a 6 months warranty on this refill.

We also discussed a possible replacement, using a glass high voltage DC laser, like those used in Gerald and Sophia. Millenium Laser also sell these - a 60W tube with Power Supply would cost £945, though they do give a 2 year warranty on these tubes that the power won't drop more than 15% - these tubes are also capable of 70-75W operation from new. This tube is 1m long, so should fit Monty, and would also need a chiller and associated plumbing as well as us building any required bracketry to install the tube.

A third option would be a replacement RF laser, which Paulk sells, but I didn't ask about this option as Paul already mentioned that this would cost more than a refill of the old tube.

I also asked if there was any value in the old UL-50 laser. Paul said it was of no value to him, as well as other people in the industry, though he suggested that we could possibly list it on eBay were we might get a £100 or more for the unit. We would have to list is as needing a refill or spares or repair.

So given all of this new data - it looks like the old Universal Laser UL-50 RF laser is going to be a non-starter and we should investigate replacing this with a High Voltage DC glass tube laser and ancilliaries.

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[magman2112]

On the Maker night call last Thursday, we agreed that it is not economic to proceed with the re-gassing of the the old RF laser tube from Monty.

The next step is to investigate and cost up the parts needed to use a DC High Voltage tube, as used in Gerald and Sophia. We agreed to aim for an 80W tube, so that we can better cut 6mm material.

Here is an initial shopping list:-

• Laser tube
• Laser tube mounts
• Laser HT Power Supply
• Chiller
• Flow Sensor
• HT cabling from PSU to Laser Tube
• Silicone tubing from chiller to tube
• Through panel couplers to route water tubes out of laser cutter
• Miscellaneous cabling

One preference I expressed was to use a similar tube to that fitted to Gerald - which was obtained from HPC Laser in Halifax. this tube is listed on their web shop at £450 + VAT I expect. This is an 80W (95W peak) tube. The main issue with this will be that it is 1600mm long, so we would have to do a lot of work to fit this in Monty, so may not be the best option after all. I could find no details of the guarantee period on the HPC web site either.

I also had a look at Smoke and Mirrors, but the largest tube they appear to sell is the Yongli 1200-G, a 65W (80W peak) tube, which I believe is the type of tube currently fitted to Sophia. This tube is listed for £300 and appears to include VAT and comes with a 3 month guarantee.

I did find an interesting shop from a Google search though - https://www.cloudraylaser.com/

This site lists a large number of differrent tubes as well as power supplies, chillers, tube mounts, etc. so could possiblky be used as almost a one stop shop. As it is abroad though, we will have to pay not inconsiderable shipping and import duty. For example, I found an 75W (90W max) tube that is only 1100mm long for $272. This same tube is listed on their ebay shop for £381.99 including free shipping.

Something to discuss on our next Maker Night call perhaps - especially the tube to go for.

[KarlDunkerley]

If it helps I still have my spare 50 watter if that gets it up and running cheaply and can then use it to earn funds to pay for a bigger tube given that money may be tight right now.

Karl On Thursday, 13 August 2020, 17:40:28 BST, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

On the Maker night call last Thursday, we agreed that it is not economic to proceed with the re-gassing of the the old RF laser tube from Monty.

The next step is to investigate and cost up the parts needed to use a DC High Voltage tube, as used in Gerald and Sophia. We agreed to aim for an 80W tube, so that we can better cut 6mm material.

Here is an initial shopping list:-

• Laser tube
• Laser tube mounts
• Laser HT Power Supply
• Chiller
• Flow Sensor
• HT cabling from PSU to Laser Tube
• Silicone tubing from chiller to tube
• Through panel couplers to route water tubes out of laser cutter
• Miscellaneous cabling

One preference I expressed was to use a similar tube to that fitted to Gerald - which was obtained from HPC Laser in Halifax. this tube is listed on their web shop at £450 + VAT I expect. This is an 80W (95W peak) tube. The main issue with this will be that it is 1600mm long, so we would have to do a lot of work to fit this in Monty, so may not be the best option after all. I could find no details of the guarantee period on the HPC web site either.

I also had a look at Smoke and Mirrors, but the largest tube they appear to sell is the Yongli 1200-G, a 65W (80W peak) tube, which I believe is the type of tube currently fitted to Sophia. This tube is listed for £300 and appears to include VAT and comes with a 3 month guarantee.

I did find an interesting shop from a Google search though - https://www.cloudraylaser.com/

This site lists a large number of differrent tubes as well as power supplies, chillers, tube mounts, etc. so could possiblky be used as almost a one stop shop. As it is abroad though, we will have to pay not inconsiderable shipping and import duty. For example, I found an 75W (90W max) tube that is only 1100mm long for $272. This same tube is listed on their ebay shop for £381.99 including free shipping.

Something to discuss on our next Maker Night call perhaps - especially the tube to go for.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[Sean-anotherone]

A good analysis from Mike, however a bit of caution from me...  I think the "line" of the tube falls in the part of the cover that is angled - this leads me to recommend that some careful measuring is necessary before committing.  Alternatively, we could weld up a "pocket" for the back end of the tube to fit into by modding the LH top cover.  Important to get this step right as the end cap is at several kilovolts and we don;t want to either zap operators or trip the circuit if it arcs. A bigger modification would be needed to fit a Gerald sized tube, but that would give some redundancy?  As there would be an additional mirror in the path this would also allow for a beam combiner to be included along the way (or we could rob the existing one from the front of the RF laser?)

We could always take the offer of the 50W tube from Karl, attempt a repair on the supply that was arcing (it might just need a relacquer?) and use that to provide better confidence in the machine before committing the big bucks?  ( I think the machine is great, but we can't prove that)

We do know for certain that all the rest is fully functional - albeit that the servos need a bit more tuning, so at next opportunity I suggest deinstalling the RF laser and associated gubbins, to enable better measurement of the existing space.  Rather like Gerald, the machine only has a lid interlock and an e-stop.  It could do with homing sensors.

Sean On Thursday, 13 August 2020, 17:53:57 BST, KarlDunkerley notifications@github.com wrote:

If it helps I still have my spare 50 watter if that gets it up and running cheaply and can then use it to earn funds to pay for a bigger tube given that money may be tight right now.

Karl On Thursday, 13 August 2020, 17:40:28 BST, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

On the Maker night call last Thursday, we agreed that it is not economic to proceed with the re-gassing of the the old RF laser tube from Monty.

The next step is to investigate and cost up the parts needed to use a DC High Voltage tube, as used in Gerald and Sophia. We agreed to aim for an 80W tube, so that we can better cut 6mm material.

Here is an initial shopping list:-

• Laser tube
• Laser tube mounts
• Laser HT Power Supply
• Chiller
• Flow Sensor
• HT cabling from PSU to Laser Tube
• Silicone tubing from chiller to tube
• Through panel couplers to route water tubes out of laser cutter
• Miscellaneous cabling

One preference I expressed was to use a similar tube to that fitted to Gerald - which was obtained from HPC Laser in Halifax. this tube is listed on their web shop at £450 + VAT I expect. This is an 80W (95W peak) tube. The main issue with this will be that it is 1600mm long, so we would have to do a lot of work to fit this in Monty, so may not be the best option after all. I could find no details of the guarantee period on the HPC web site either.

I also had a look at Smoke and Mirrors, but the largest tube they appear to sell is the Yongli 1200-G, a 65W (80W peak) tube, which I believe is the type of tube currently fitted to Sophia. This tube is listed for £300 and appears to include VAT and comes with a 3 month guarantee.

I did find an interesting shop from a Google search though - https://www.cloudraylaser.com/

This site lists a large number of differrent tubes as well as power supplies, chillers, tube mounts, etc. so could possiblky be used as almost a one stop shop. As it is abroad though, we will have to pay not inconsiderable shipping and import duty. For example, I found an 75W (90W max) tube that is only 1100mm long for $272. This same tube is listed on their ebay shop for £381.99 including free shipping.

Something to discuss on our next Maker Night call perhaps - especially the tube to go for.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

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[magman2112]

I've been working on some costings for a reasonably complete package for Monty.

I priced up the RECI W1 tube for this estimate. Primarily as it has a 10,000 hour life and 18 month guarantee listed, but it is also very short at 1050mm for a 75-90W tube. This is a more expensive tube than some similar 70-80W tubes, but this tube is also very short for this power - then there is the added bonus of the long life.

One issue which I haven't found an answer for so far is how much import duty we are likely to pay when we get these parts, but I would guess at 10-12%, plus a handling charge.

I have looked at prices from Cloudray as a single supplier - but their shipping costs are high, at $360, - so I have also looked at buying the same or similar parts from eBay as well.

I have attached a spreadsheet with my initial workings, but the bottom line comes out at £1100 direct from Cloudbay or approx £880 from multiple sources (there are some small parts missing from this total, about $60 worth on the Cloudray shopping list). So I guess the multiple sources option wins out here - especially as one of the item (the chiller) was sourced in Europe, so no VAT or Import duty. These prices include VAT and estimated import duty and handling charges.

Monty Rebuild Cost 18AUG2020.xlsx

Interested in thoughts and comments on this estimate.

[magman2112]

Oops, slight booboo.

It appears the eBay RECI tube is the T1, not the W1. This is still a high quality tube, but not quite as good as the W1 - 8000hrs life, 366 days warranty and 1100mm long. Other suppliers of the W1 tube on eBay want over £500 though.

[magman2112]

With the decision being taken in the recent Directors meeting to proceed with replacing the tube on Gerald, I have built a shopping list for the parts whic is attached below.

Monty Rebuild Cost 25AUG2020.xlsx

I will work with @DoESsean on Thursday to get these orders raised. Including estimated Import Duty and VAT the total is now at £740 for this upgrade, so shopping around made considerable savings. It will be interesting to see what the actual import duty and fees will work out to eventually.

[Sean-anotherone]

Great stuff.  Can make a start on some preliminary work this Thursday.    Can I suggest adding 6ft of nice bright leds to that list, as the interior lighting is a bit ropey.

Sean

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 12:32, Mike Gormannotifications@github.com wrote:

With the decision being taken in the recent Directors meeting to proceed with replacing the tube on Gerald, I have built a shopping list for the parts whic is attached below.

Monty Rebuild Cost 25AUG2020.xlsx

I will work with @DoESsean on Thursday to get these orders raised. Including estimated Import Duty and VAT the total is now at £740 for this upgrade, so shopping around made considerable savings. It will be interesting to see what the actual import duty and fees will work out to eventually.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[magman2112]

With the laser tube being ordered by @JackiePease today and all of the other pieces on their way, we should have all of the new parts with us in the next couple of weeks.

[Sean-anotherone]

We should use this Thurs to agree some designs fro the few odd bits that meed to be made/modified, and a prioritised list for order of installation and testing. I also think a local RCD will be necessary on the incoming supply, as we have water over power. even one of these (this is just audio, something that trips to isolation would be better) Firechief Flood Alarm Base with Probe (FC4056PB) | Zoro UK

£10.59

|

Firechief Flood Alarm Base with Probe (FC4056PB)	Zoro UK

Firechief - Flood Alarm Base with Probe (FC4056PB) available at www.zoro.co.uk - UK's Leading Supplier of DIY To... |

|

|

Or  : 2 metre Water Detecting Rope Control Panel|KP|

£121.99

|

2 metre Water Detecting Rope Control Panel	KP

2 metre KP Water Detecting Rope with Control Panel for use in monitoring large areas for Water Leaks & early sig... |

|

|

Or one of these, hacked to trip a relay that is fitted above the wet parts.  ( actually, inverted so as to not engage a relay when wet, so it fails safe) Water Leakage Alarm Detector 120dB Water Leak Sensors Flood Alert Overflow Al Fs | eBay

£4.01

|

Water Leakage Alarm Detector 120dB Water Leak Sensors Flood Alert Overfl...

Automatic operation. No buttons, no programming, just place it where you want to check water leakage;. Made of d... |

|

|

On Sunday, 13 September 2020, 21:52:15 BST, Mike Gorman <notifications@github.com> wrote:  

With the laser tube being ordered by @JackiePease today and all of the other pieces on their way, we should have all of the new parts with us in the next couple of weeks.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[Sean-anotherone]

Spent a bit of time working on Tony this week:

Power board out, refurbished and HV psu installed

Power board refitted and all the existing stuff reconnected, with ferrules throughout (@magman2112 would be proud)

Next jobs:

Clear some space around tyhe machine - access will be needed behind and to both ends.

Set up the chiller and water flow switch (on the return pipe so it trips in event of a leak). Do the associated plumbing and run pipes to the tube area. Connects to "machine" MCB on the power board

Connect the lid interlock to the new PSU.

Connect the cohesion board to the PSU control input and investigate any settings in the firmware that need to be changed.

Fit the water-deflector sheet (a sheet of visor pp over the power board in case there is a water leak)

Install tube, fill coolant

align mirrors and beam combiner (need to run 5V to the red dot laser too)

fit covers back on

Set up lightburn on a suitable PC, connected by USB, and also connect one of the new laser room network cables to the cohesion board to allow network control.

Check all interlocks and the estop, etc.

train the first few users.

👍

[Sean-anotherone]

I understand there are some folks ready to assist with bringing Tony online, so I will try to give enough info below to enable some of the outstanding tasks to progress.

First task is the plumbing and hookup for the cooler:

1. The cooler unit needs to be positioned - this might fit on the frame behind the machine, that would be preferred, or it might need to be situated on the floor behind.

2. Routing for the water pipes needs to be determined - how they get inside the machine and their route internally. Flow switch needs fitting, too, probably on the cooler.

3. The wiring for the cooler interlock (connector on real of cooler) needs working out and some cable fitting to the plug (it has been supplied). This needs to connect to one of the safety inputs on the HV supply, and depending on whether it is a contact or an active high/low output, it might be good to wire in series with the flow switch that has been bought to provide added protection. The flow switch needs fitting on the return line to the cooler, so it trips if a pipe comes off.

4. Holes drilled/cut for the pipes, grommets or glands installed to prevent chafing/cutting and the pipes run. Leave the pipes long for now.

Another Task is the work at the RH end of the machine

1. fit some foam around the compressor to stop it floating about.
2. The enclosure for the interface panel is made, but it needs a plate fitting over the old opening in the RH top cover and the control fitting to that plate.
3. Need a usb lead fitting and routing so it can plug into the laptop - the plan for the laptioop is that it will sit on the wooden shelf that rests on the extract duct.
4. Further servo-tuning is required. This might be best left for last.
5. Install and route the cable for the video camera - this goes inside the bed area, probably on the quikframe in the middle of the lid, and plugs into the laptop
6. test fit the top cover, but leave it loose (but secured) for now, to allow for (4)

A short task

1. Prepare and solder on a cable for the lid interlock microswitches (there are 2 in series at the back left corner) and route this to the leftmost block of terminals on the power board (where the ribbon cable from the HV psu terminates). This needs to be heatshrunk etc. as it needs to be robust / rugged. Main safety circuit.
2. Check and set the lid interlock - the sensitivity to opening needs to be set, and the spring tension adjusted to it switches on & off cleanly, plus the mechanical shutter needs checking / oiling / adjusting as necessary.

Water protection for the power board

1. take a sheet (might need 2?) of polypropylene left from the visor work and fit it such that any leakage from the laser is deflected over the electricals and onto the floor. Foam tape, backed up with a strip of metal with nuts & bolts should suffice.

Install and align the new laser tube

There is a small beam combiner that was rescued from the RF laser, it would be good to fit this in the main beam path, but it will need manual alignment / shimming and mounts making only after the tube is in and alignment is good, or alternatively, take the beam combiner out of it's current box and make a simple adjustable mount for it. The power requirement needs checking too - I think it's 5V but this needs confirming and the polarity determining etc.

I am of course happy to discuss any/all the above, as I'm sure Mike will be.

Sean

[Sean-anotherone]

I installed most of the plumbing yesterday - the chiller supply and the flow meter. Currently there is just a small loop inside the machine for leak testing, which it did not.

I'll open a separate thread for the purchase of some RO water, which would be good to use as this tube has a long life.

[magman2112]

@Sean-anotherone mentioned that to have a chance of having a Class 1 laser classification for Tony, then a key switch must be used to enable operation of the machine.

I have ordered a reasonable quality one from Amazon, which should be delivered today, we can then fit this on Thursday hopefully when we are next in DoES. The switch fits in a 22mm hole, so will likely easily replace the broken toggle switch in the front panel.

[Sean-anotherone]

@magman2112 ad I had another good session on this machine yesterday, and is is now closer than ever. Once the alignment is complete, the handoff for general use is about an hour away (just some interlock tests and fitting covers)

There are "wishlist" items, like homing and limit switches, and the red-dot pointer, but all the main hardware is now fully completed..

The one outstanding job is the first-time beam alignment.

There is an inconvenience in the firmware that results in the laser test-fire pulse being of 10 seconds duration (i.e. sets fire to the target), and I've posted in the cohesion forums to see if there is any way to change this, a reply awaited.

The back-up solution is a call-to-arms for one of out IOT/arduino/ESP experts :

There is a spare 6-way connector for the laser psu that can be easily configured as an interlock by-pass and alignment tool, but it needs an arduino (or anything that can run on 5V) setting up to produce a 20kHz @5V PWM train of variable duration or variable duty (around 15mS at 50% is my opening guess), with some way to set the duration or duty as the tube ages (a pot would be fine).

One press on a button needs to give one buzz of PWM at the set duration/duty, then wait for another press.

I'd rig this in a small box with the fire button on top and a cable long enough to plug in to the supply and be conveniently located for pressing during alignment. This is the second choice to a firmware change, but I thought it would be good to get a willing volunteer now in case the forums yield no luck.

Sean

[magman2112]

@Sean-anotherone and i had a successful night last night and managed to get Tony cutting.

The alignment was a long winded affair, as this is the first major alignment including all of our modifications, along with the existing mirrors and lenses. Given that there are 4 levels of adjustment on the tube alone which adds to the 4 adjustments possible on each mirror, it took us many hours to get the alignment anything close to useful. We finished around 11:30pm, but with some useful results.

With the initial alignment completed, the first cuts showed the power and precision of the new machine. We successfully cut 3mm plywood at a speed of 40mm/sec at 70% power, this is 2-3 times the speed of Gerald. We are likely to set maximum power to 80% for now, to promote longevity for the tube, this is currently set in firmware and we will see how this works out.

There are still a few issues to be resolved with Tony before it is available for full use though.

The calibration of the axes is off to a degree, a 50mm x 50 mm square measured at 51mm x 56mm. This is adjustable in the firmware for the controller though, so this will be an easy fix, we just ran out of time this time around.

We need to work out the correct focus for different materials, as well as making a gauge for users to easily set this. Focus is set manually by moving the lens, so a gauge will almost certainly be required. I expect we will set this up for 3mm, 4mm and 6mm at first.

The air assist is not switching on under software control at the moment, so the wiring needs to be checked to fix this.

We also need to adjust some firmware constraints we used for the initial setup, to speed up some of the axis movements, as well as tuning the servo motor tuning, as at least one off the servos is “singing” at the moment.

Working out how to use the software and writing some wiki articles to help new users is also a high priority. I suspect we will need to work with multiple people to come up with some good practices for this.

We may also need to get at least home limit switches installed to make the software easier to work with, but this isn’t our highest priority at the moment.

Altogether, very good progress and we now basically have a 3rd laser cutter working, with just a few caveats to permit more general use.

[KarlDunkerley]

You guys have done sterling work. Can't wait to get my mitts on it. Thank you for this. On Friday, 11 December 2020, 15:55:59 GMT, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

@Sean-anotherone and i had a successful night last night and managed to get Tony cutting.

The alignment was a long winded affair, as this is the first major alignment including all of our modifications, along with the existing mirrors and lenses. Given that there are 4 levels of adjustment on the tube alone which adds to the 4 adjustments possible on each mirror, it took us many hours to get the alignment anything close to useful. We finished around 11:30pm, but with some useful results.

With the initial alignment completed, the first cuts showed the power and precision of the new machine. We successfully cut 3mm plywood at a speed of 40mm/sec at 70% power, this is 2-3 times the speed of Gerald. We are likely to set maximum power to 80% for now, to promote longevity for the tube, this is currently set in firmware and we will see how this works out.

There are still a few issues to be resolved with Tony before it is available for full use though.

The calibration of the axes is off to a degree, a 50mm x 50 mm square measured at 51mm x 56mm. This is adjustable in the firmware for the controller though, so this will be an easy fix, we just ran out of time this time around.

We need to work out the correct focus for different materials, as well as making a gauge for users to easily set this. Focus is set manually by moving the lens, so a gauge will almost certainly be required. I expect we will set this up for 3mm, 4mm and 6mm at first.

The air assist is not switching on under software control at the moment, so the wiring needs to be checked to fix this.

We also need to adjust some firmware constraints we used for the initial setup, to speed up some of the axis movements, as well as tuning the servo motor tuning, as at least one off the servos is “singing” at the moment.

Working out how to use the software and writing some wiki articles to help new users is also a high priority. I suspect we will need to work with multiple people to come up with some good practices for this.

We may also need to get at least home limit switches installed to make the software easier to work with, but this isn’t our highest priority at the moment.

Altogether, very good progress and we now basically have a 3rd laser cutter working, with just a few caveats to permit more general use.

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[magman2112]

Good progress again on Thursday night.

The air-assist is now working correctly, though @Sean-anotherone did waste an hour trying to diagnose the wiring till 8 remembered that I had disable some configuration items which I had though unnecessary. A quick update of the configuration and the air-assist is now working as it should.

The air assist is noticeably noisier than that on Gerald and Sophia, but we have also noticed that it gives a much cleaner cut on plywood than the other lasers and the air-assist is only on when the laser is cutting. This is one of the many peculiarities we will have to work with on Tony, as we get used to working with the new setup.

We also calibrated the X and Y axis for dimensions, which is accurate to within 0.1 of a millimetre now.

Next, we did some initial tests on focus. It would appear that 14mm is the optimum for 3mm thick material, this should also work for thinner stock as well. We did some test cuts on 6mm MDF, this cut well at 15mm/70% with a 14mm focus, but we need to do a few more tests, as I suspect the optimum focus distance might be 12 or 13mm for thicker material. Basically, because the focusing lense has a short focal length, the depth of field may play a bit more in finding the optimum focus with the best focus likely needing to be 1 or 2mm into the material. Sean cut a piece of 3mm acrylic to 14mm to use as a template for setting the focus in normal operation.

The initial limits on the machine have now also been removed, so machine movements are now a lot quicker. I expect we will have to do a little more research on the motors and motor drivers to find the optimum settings for these speeds, but what we have now are good to start user operations with.

The main outstanding issue is now installing limit switches, so that we can set a home position for the laser head, plus some tuning of the servo drives to remove the “singing”.

I plan to start working with folks to get them used to working with Tony, so that we can get people’s initial thoughts as well as finding if the machine is fit for general use at the moment. In particular, I want people other than Sean and I to start using the machine so that we can capture their experiences for the initial wiki documentation for Tony.

[Sean-anotherone]

I think it's worth adding that the machine was cutting 3mm ply at 30mm/s and power 70 - i.e. about double the speed seen on Gerald! The lightburn software is installed and licensed, it is very intuitive but if any of the laser power-users want to draft the operating wiki that would be a big help.... The remaining jobs are : improve the servo tuning (this will need some time and effort and a bit of research first, it works well as it is but could be better)fit homing sensors / limit sensors (inductive or hall effect - need to be specified, purchased and bracketry made to fit them.  There may be some recommendations on the cohesion forums)replace the RH top cover I think that's all. ! Sean

On Friday, 18 December 2020, 16:22:07 GMT, Mike Gorman <notifications@github.com> wrote:  

Good progress again on Thursday night.

The air-assist is now working correctly, though @Sean-anotherone did waste an hour trying to diagnose the wiring till 8 remembered that I had disable some configuration items which I had though unnecessary. A quick update of the configuration and the air-assist is now working as it should.

The air assist is noticeably noisier than that on Gerald and Sophia, but we have also noticed that it gives a much cleaner cut on plywood than the other lasers and the air-assist is only on when the laser is cutting. This is one of the many peculiarities we will have to work with on Tony, as we get used to working with the new setup.

We also calibrated the X and Y axis for dimensions, which is accurate to within 0.1 of a millimetre now.

Next, we did some initial tests on focus. It would appear that 14mm is the optimum for 3mm thick material, this should also work for thinner stock as well. We did some test cuts on 6mm MDF, this cut well at 15mm/70% with a 14mm focus, but we need to do a few more tests, as I suspect the optimum focus distance might be 12 or 13mm for thicker material. Basically, because the focusing lense has a short focal length, the depth of field may play a bit more in finding the optimum focus with the best focus likely needing to be 1 or 2mm into the material. Sean cut a piece of 3mm acrylic to 14mm to use as a template for setting the focus in normal operation.

The initial limits on the machine have now also been removed, so machine movements are now a lot quicker. I expect we will have to do a little more research on the motors and motor drivers to find the optimum settings for these speeds, but what we have now are good to start user operations with.

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[magman2112]

Working with the machine on Saturday with @JackiePease and AJ, we worked out some cutting speeds for paper, but also noticed that lines were not cutting completely to the corners. AJ found some forum comments from the Lightburn forum which pointed to some issues with the minimum power settings in the controller configuration files. After some testing, we set this minimum to 0.06 (6%) and cutting was significantly improved.

We also noticed some unevenness in curved lines that will need further investigation. This is likely to be either a servo tuning issue or possibly the carriage bearings may need adjustment, as we were using high speeds to cut paper, which highlighted the issue. Luckily, this is repeatable, which will help with the diagnosis.

Next, we found that when jogging the carriage position with the lid down, that the laser is being switched on during the movement. This was also happening when testing the image size using the Frame button in Lightburn with the lid down. Manual jog and shuttle from the controller front panel did not switch the laser on though, which would seem to point to it being a Lightburn issue, but we will need to investigate further regardless.

I have been looking at Hall effect sensors for the limit/home switches. I found some relatively inexpensive ones on eBay from UK suppliers, I will pick a couple up a couple of these so we can work on a home switch in the near future.

[magman2112]

A point of interest, with most of the bills now in, the cost of the new laser tube and ancillaries for Tony now stands at £585.64. We were not charged import duty on a couple of the items, particularly the laser tube, which has worked out very well for us.

with all the major items covered, we only have limit switches and possibly a few bearings as possible expenses to complete the rebuild.

[amcewen]

I've got one of these hall effect switches if it's any use/interest?

[Sean-anotherone]

Looks good, two would be better but the axes don't need to be identical On Sunday, 20 December 2020, 20:38:23 GMT, Adrian McEwen notifications@github.com wrote:

I've got one of these hall effect switches if it's any use/interest?

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[magman2112]

This was one of the sensors I almost bought today from Rapid Electronics. The Farnell ones are actually cheaper but they don’t have stock till July next year, so I think I will still get these from Rapid. These should also be light enough to mount on the carriage, which I now think will be necessary for some of the limit switches

[Sean-anotherone]

Easier to mount the magnet on the carriage and fit these to the chassis - otherwise got to thread a cable through 2 snakes. I think xref should be the left side and yref the far end, to keep both of them out of the way.  I recall that the software allows the ref to be somewhere that isn't 0,0 On Sunday, 20 December 2020, 21:20:45 GMT, Mike Gorman notifications@github.com wrote:

This was one of the sensors I almost bought today from Rapid Electronics. The Farnell ones are actually cheaper but they don’t have stock till July next year, so I think I will still get these from Rapid. These should also be light enough to mount on the carriage, which I now think will be necessary for some of the limit switches

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[amcewen]

I thought I had more than one, but digging out the Farnell invoice to check that only lists one. I'll check when I'm next in and leave it somewhere for you

[magman2112]

Thanks Adrian.

Sean, if we were just going to use the switches for the home position only, we could likely get away with mounting them on the chassis. In the long run though, I think we should aim for limit switches on all the axes, which means that limit switches on the front to back movement will need to be mounted on the carriage. I suspect that these Hall effect switches will be light enough to not cause any issues if mounted on the carriage, it’s just routing the cables which will be a bit more work as you mentioned. The left and right limit switches can still be mounted on the chassis though.

I’ve also looked at picking up some countersunk magnets to go with the sensors, to make them easier to mount.

[magman2112]

I was doing some web searches for the lasing during moving issue, I found a comment on the Lightburn forums that is something we need to test.

https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/laser-not-turning-off-between-cuts-burning-during-travel-moves/8528

To paraphrase, the GRBL controller needs to be switched into Laser mode, by typing $32=1 at the console. If this fixes the issue, it is a nice easy fix.

[Sean-anotherone]

I looked at this today - our cohesion controller is currently on smoothieware, but is switching to GRBL is necessary...... Sean

On Wednesday, 30 December 2020, 10:59:42 GMT, Mike Gorman <notifications@github.com> wrote:  

I was doing some web searches for the lasing during moving issue, I found a comment on the Lightburn forums that is something we need to test.

https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/laser-not-turning-off-between-cuts-burning-during-travel-moves/8528

To paraphrase, the GRBL controller needs to be switched into Laser mode, by typing $32=1 at the console. If this fixes the issue, it is a nice easy fix.

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[Sean-anotherone]

Found this : https://embeddedtronicsblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/grbl-lpc-c3d-laserboard-firmware-builds/

Sean

On Wednesday, 30 December 2020, 10:59:42 GMT, Mike Gorman <notifications@github.com> wrote:  

I was doing some web searches for the lasing during moving issue, I found a comment on the Lightburn forums that is something we need to test.

https://forum.lightburnsoftware.com/t/laser-not-turning-off-between-cuts-burning-during-travel-moves/8528

To paraphrase, the GRBL controller needs to be switched into Laser mode, by typing $32=1 at the console. If this fixes the issue, it is a nice easy fix.

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[magman2112]

Time for an update.

over the last couple of weeks, @Sean-anotherone and I have made quite a few adjustments to Tony to improve its performance.

The firmware has been upgraded to a more powerful version of Smoothieware, now with clustering. This requires a small configuration change in Lightburn to work with this version of firmware. The major change is in the performance in engraving, which is purportedly 4 time faster in this version of the firmware. Initial tests are showing good performance, but we need people to test this further and give us some feedback.

The issue with the laser turning on during movements was traced to the minimum power setting that we had set in the controller configuration at 6%, to give better performance on corner cutting. As the lasing during movement is more critical, we have reverted this setting back to 0%. Again, further testing is needed to see if this setting needs to be tweaked slightly.

Sean found a configuration setting in Lightburn that significantly improved the cutting of curves. It was actually set to it’s minimum level, now it is at its maximum. Tweaking is an option here to see what difference this makes to the speed of cuts - so more testing needed.

Last Thursday, Sean adjusted the servo motor tuning. With the current settings, there is much less “singing” of the servo’s and overshoot on engraving has effectively been eliminated. We also found some play in the carriage bearings, which was adjusted and improved.

With all of these changes, Tony is now in a good state for people to start using this laser cutter in anger. Further tuning is no doubt likely to be needed, but we need more use of the machine to build up our knowledge - and this is for all users in DoES.

Outstanding items are:-

• The installation of limit switches - which we have an initial design and plan for.
• Obtain some new bearings for some parts of the machine, especially the x-axis carriage
• A few couplings need tightening (especially the x-axis drive wheels at the back of the machine)
• Identify, obtain and fit better lighting for illuminating the bed.
• Fit the camera to enable the Lightburn camera feature.

The main outstanding item though is to write some user instructions on how to use Tony and the new Lightburn software. Ideally this should be done by people other than Sean and I, as we suspect we have too much familiarity with the machine. I will raise this as a separate issue to highlight it.

[KarlDunkerley]

Ooooh can't wait!

On Saturday, 27 February 2021, 14:19:33 GMT, Mike Gorman <notifications@github.com> wrote:  

Time for an update.

over the last couple of weeks, @Sean-anotherone and I have made quite a few adjustments to Tony to improve its performance.

The firmware has been upgraded to a more powerful version of Smoothieware, now with clustering. This requires a small configuration change in Lightburn to work with this version of firmware. The major change is in the performance in engraving, which is purportedly 4 time faster in this version of the firmware. Initial tests are showing good performance, but we need people to test this further and give us some feedback.

The issue with the laser turning on during movements was traced to the minimum power setting that we had set in the controller configuration at 6%, to give better performance on corner cutting. As the lasing during movement is more critical, we have reverted this setting back to 0%. Again, further testing is needed to see if this setting needs to be tweaked slightly.

Sean found a configuration setting in Lightburn that significantly improved the cutting of curves. It was actually set to it’s minimum level, now it is at its maximum. Tweaking is an option here to see what difference this makes to the speed of cuts - so more testing needed.

Last Thursday, Sean adjusted the servo motor tuning. With the current settings, there is much less “singing” of the servo’s and overshoot on engraving has effectively been eliminated. We also found some play in the carriage bearings, which was adjusted and improved.

With all of these changes, Tony is now in a good state for people to start using this laser cutter in anger. Further tuning is no doubt likely to be needed, but we need more use of the machine to build up our knowledge - and this is for all users in DoES.

Outstanding items are:-

• The installation of limit switches - which we have an initial design and plan for.
• Obtain some new bearings for some parts of the machine, especially the x-axis carriage
• A few couplings need tightening (especially the x-axis drive wheels at the back of the machine)
• Identify, obtain and fit better lighting for illuminating the bed.
• Fit the camera to enable the Lightburn camera feature.

The main outstanding item though is to write some user instructions on how to use Tony and the new Lightburn software. Ideally this should be done by people other than Sean and I, as we suspect we have too much familiarity with the machine. I will raise this as a separate issue to highlight it.

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[magman2112]

Last Thursday, @Sean-anotherone and I fitted some new LED lighting, that Sean found. This has significantly improved the lighting for Tony, so that is one more issue ticked off the list.

we have also got a basic plan for the installation of the limit switches, which will require some brackets to be made, but it is progress anyway.

[magman2112]

A quick update on some of the outstanding tasks for Tony.

@Sean-anotherone has made a couple of the brackets required to install the limit switches and I have built the wiring harness to be fitted to the moving rail. We will hopefully get the remaining brackets made in the next few weeks, then enable the limit switches and homing on the controller. We have already obtained the Hall effect sensors and magnets needed for these limit switches.

For the Lightburn camera, I found 3D print files for a holder for the camera we originally bought (the files are on the Lightburn site itself). I have now printed these out on my resin printer and we will look to see what else is needed to enable this facility on Tony.

[magman2112]

@Sean-anotherone and I completed the installation of the limit switches on Thursday 17th June but the still homing didn’t work correctly, as we thought the magnets weren’t strong enough.

I picked up some more magnets from Amazon yesterday and we found that there were still problems with some of the Hall effect sensors. We then found that the Hall effect sensors were sensitive to the pole direction of the magnet. We found that the original magnets were 2 different poles, 3 of the sensors didn’t work because of this.

One of the sets of new magnets had the correct pole direction, so all of the magnets now trigger the sensors correctly. The hall sensors now trigger approx 25mm from the magnet, which gives us some leaway for high speed approaches to the limits.

We found that people have been hitting the limits in the last week, as 2 of the magnet arms for the sensors were bent, one was actually bent backwards showing the force it had been hit with. Tony now generates a fault condition if the limits are hit, this can be cleared by completing a home command - either from Lightburn or from the front control panel.

With the homing sensors now working and some loose guides and wheels adjusted, Tony is almost 100% completed. Sean and I plan another full alignment pass next week, plus we are going to look at fitting the digital camera and its mount. After this, we just need to fit the right hand cover and build for Tony will be complete.

[magman2112]

@Sean-anotherone and I completed a full alignment of the laser tube and mirrors on Tony, which significantly improved the cutting of the laser across the whole of the bed.

All of the covers were then installed, which is effectively the final task in commissioning this laser cutter. There are still a few tuning tasks to be undertaken and the Lightburn camera to be attached to the PC, but these can be broken out as separate issues.

so finally closing this issue.

[Sean-anotherone]

WooHoo!:)

On Friday, 30 July 2021, 09:37:04 BST, Mike Gorman ***@***.***> wrote:  

@Sean-anotherone and I completed a full alignment of the laser tube and mirrors on Tony, which significantly improved the cutting of the laser across the whole of the bed.

All of the covers were then installed, which is effectively the final task in commissioning this laser cutter. There are still a few tuning tasks to be undertaken and the Lightburn camera to be attached to the PC, but these can be broken out as separate issues.

so finally closing this issue.

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[arthurrowland]

Well done laser team! Milestone!