Equipment/HPC LS3060 Laser Cutter/LogBook

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Logbook

3/1/2011

  • Went to test if it was Z-datum/alignemnt problem previously (see below), now it seems that the Layz0r shuttle PC does not want to power up.
  • Laser turns on, along with cooling equipment, and Monitor is in standby. Changed cable for the PC to check if the fuse was blown, didn't work.


31/12/2010 Operator Ciarán

  • Tried to cut 4mm MDF using reccomended settings (speed 4, 100%). Laser cutter unable to cut through. Tried again with Speed=3, two passes and hit the "Z-Datum" button combo, but still laser unable to cut. Gave up.
  • After speaking to Sol about the problem it may been caused by my own inabilities to set the z-datum correctly.

30/12/2010 Operator Elliot

  • Tried to cut 4mm acrylic on my usual settings (speed 6, 100%). Cuts were uneven and often didn't break through. Retried with speed 4 and got a similar result. Could have been a Z-Axis issue as I'm still uncertain on how to align this - I just set the the top of my material to the '0' point on the rule. Previously I used to just press 'Z-Axis/Datum'.

15/12/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Installed the improved cooling system.
  • Flushed and replaced the deionised water.
  • Cutter working well, but most cuts now require -1 to speed, may need to check alignment, or a tube issue.

14/12/2010 Operator Ciarán

  • Started up laser, cut x3 small key rings from 4 mm MDF with Duncan. Not a problem worked perfectly.
  • Later noticed when Glenn was cutting a lot of MDF that water heating up, and there was no return water coming from chiller.
  • Topped up water in reservoir with distilled water to the line, so that Glenn could finish.
  • Russ turned up and had a look. Seems that the pump supplying water to chiller worked fine when plugged into it's own power. Plugging the chiller into separate power didn't seem to do anything.
  • Russ reckons there is a block.
  • Needs further looking at, probably best only to use the laser cutter for small jobs until it's sorted.

6/12/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Connected CoolBot to the cooling system, seems to be working as expected, documentation to follow.
  • Cleaned mirrors and lens due to high usage of mdf creating dirt etc.
  • Reports of slight reduction of cutting power in the bottom right of the bed, may be mirror alignment or bed levelling required.

4/12/2010 - 5/12/2010 Operator Elliot

  • Cut some Arduino enclosures with some 3mm Palglas (acrylic). The material cuts really well and provides great results.
  • Also tried to cut some 10mm Palglas. It did cut all the way through but I think that the thickness of the material impedes heat dissipation because there was a fair bit of melting. I may try a higher speed (was using 1) or multiple passes.

18/11/2010 Operator Elliot

  • Removed and replaced the lid to clean out some perspex offcuts that were hindering the operation of the hinge.
  • Cut some 3mm MDF with good results. The extractor and cooling system seem to be working well.

15/11/2010 Operator Solexious

  • The cooling system was added inline after the exaust water flow from the laser. This was found to cause the safety controls to kick in and disable the laser.
  • This was removed, and a separate pump added to the reservoir to keep the cooling of the water a separate system to the cutter pump.
  • The system cools the water as much as possible while on, so needs to be controlled manually. A micro-controlled system to show the temperature/water levels and regulate cooling is currently being made.

14/11/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Called into the space as the laser cutter software was crashing on compile. I found the machine settings were not those left by me the night before, and reset them. This fixed the issue. I have taken a back up of the now working setup, and also left a copy of this zip in the root of the C drive.

13/11/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Added a new extractor fan to the cutter, it is more powerful than the current fan, and any more upgrades will also have to increase the air flow into the cutter.
  • Due to Russ' fix for the x axis working so well I tested changing the acceleration and working speeds back to full. Meaning quicker job times. A complicated cut was preformed with 0% errors. Due to this the settings are now updated and uploaded to the machine.

23/10/2010 Operator Elliot

  • I cut some Palglas acrylic to make a kind of box. Palglas seems to be a reasonable, cheaper alternative to Perspex.

18/10/2010 Operator Russ

  • I etched my laptop (the complex piece in my previous log entry). X/Y alignment was perfect, no evidence of backlash.
  • However, etching performance (actual delivered power) seems to be less in the top right-hand corner of the piece. This could either be due to beam alignment, or due to the bed/piece not being level.

16/10/2010 Operator Solexious

  • After Russ fixed a problem with a drive shaft, I attempted to align the laser.
  • The drive shaft slipped and came apart, I removed swarf from inside, and using hex bolts has given a tighter grip.
  • These problems solved I aligned the beam and the laser power is now even across the entire bed

15/10/2010 Operator Russ

  • I tried to engrave a particularly complex piece. The laser software naturally decided to plot this in a weird way, cutting parts of each line in turn instead of the whole path at once.
  • This exposed a fairly severe backlash issue. Nothing joined up.
  • This appeared to be an issue with the drive shaft linking both belts of the X axis. The part doing the actual linking was extremely poorly machined.
  • I machined a new part on the lathe in 20mins, hastily installed it, and then had to leave for Hamburg leaving Billy to reassemble the laser cutter.

5/10/2010 Operator Russ

  • Mirror was replaced with the new one from HPC.

30/09/2010 Operator Russ

 
Exhibit 1: Melted Mirror
  • I was called to the space due to a report of the laser not working.
  • It turned out that the #2 mirror had melted. Likely because I left some residue on it while calibrating the beam (it's hard to see that mirror).
  • New mirror ordered from HPC (~£50)

23/09/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Cutter working well, no skipping of steps after Russ and I fixed an issue with the far right drive shaft.
  • The machine settings for speed of movement have been lowered to try to reduce drift during cutting.

19/09/2010 Operator Solexious

  • After a failed attempt due to a slipping belt (probably the cause of the issues on the 18th), a money box was cut and assembled using the Box-o-Tron as a base for the dxf file.
  • There is also a slight issue with focus of the laser, on 4mm acrylic settings of Speed 4 Power 100, at the side of the bed to the left it cuts perfectly, past 1/2 way to the right of the bed it fails to penetrate fully. A setting of Speed 5 Power 100 gives undesired blemishes from contact with the honey comb.

18/09/2010 Operator Meurig

  • George cut some 2mm acrylic to make an enclosure for a robot.
  • I created an XKCD plaque in copper using a two step (laser then chemical) process. These techniques will ultimatley be used to prototype PCBs. TBH, at this point the UV method is looking about as straightforward...
  • We etched Aden's HTC G1 with pedobear, using Cut power 20, corner power 10 and speed 100.
  • A Cthulu keyring was made on 2mm acrylic towards the end of the day. We did notice a few problems with this, namely at one point a hole came out non-circular, but also the etched layer didn't align correctly with the cut layer, out by about 2mm. No explanation for these at this point.
  • I tried making a PCB, but should have used single sided copper.

16/09/2010 Operator Solexious

  • Cut out the coin slot peices for the 4 in a row donations box
  • Small bumps formed on the side of the acrylic closest to the bed where the honeycomb was touching, will try to correct with +1 to speed setting.
  • Extraction is improved and unwanted smell is reduced with sheets of acrylic that are full bed size.
  • No other problems detected.

15/09/2010 Operator Russ

  • Cut some 1.5mm neoprene fairly successfully - needs high power and it's a bit smelly. (Settings in the book.)
  • Circle issue is fixed. It was a problem with the tension on the frontmost X drive belt.
  • Did some awesome etching onto black anodised aluminium - 450mm/sec, 90% power.
  • We also built an acrylic box designed in qcad.
  • Cut some hackspace keyrings, but noticed that the acrylic, when warm, warped upwards. Pause function worked as expected letting us tape down, but some ventilation sucking from below the bed would help a lot.

13/09/2010 Operator: samthetechie

Todo: Test CorelDraw X3 with 20mm circles on paper and compare to test using LaserCutter Software

12/09/2010 Operator: samthetechie

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