vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Looks like he hasn't even logged in for over two years, safe bet that the answer is no.
STICKMAN'S LETS LEARN CNC THREAD
- Thread starter Stickman393
- Start date
Stickman393
Well-known member
IM BACK BITCHES!!!!!
The new setup is something I picked up recently. I've funneled a lot of time Into a 750mmX500mm machine, but that one is gonna take a bit more time to finish up.
I needed something usable and solid for the short term, so I bought an AnoleX 3030. Good little unit. I've got gripes though:
The PSU brick sucks. It wasnt even able to keep up with inrush on the spindle completely unloaded. Would lead to disconnects immediately after starting.
The way this thing handles probing is wonky too. I gotta figure out exactly what's happening, but since the whole machine is conductive I have to electrically isolate the body of the spindle from the rest of the machine. Otherwise, the probe connection closes as soon as I place my leads on the machine.
This little thing is decently solid though. The NEMA 17 motors do an OK job, moreso after I tuned the stepper drivers to run 'em at their full 1.5A rating.
Linear rails on each axis, very little slop. I'm thinking about maybe filling the extrusions with a few carbon fiber bars and resin, plus bolting on a piece of cold rolled steel to the back of the x axis. Would help stiffen this thing up a bit more.
I binned the original spindle too, pulled out my 600 watt model from my previous build. It can competently do 0.1mm passes with a 1/8" bit at 600mm/min.
Workholding is a struggle, though. Enclosures like to vibrate.
Best fucking advice I ever got though? Painters tape and super glue. Holy shit. Wow. Put painters tape on the bed and on your workpiece, spread super glue across the painters tape on the bed, squish it all together. Sold as a goddamned rock.
Attachments
Last edited:
Stickman393
Well-known member
Also: I've only used this thing to cut through some 1/2" plywood so far, but I recently picked up a laser engraver as well.
These things have gotten pretty cheap recently. The entire setup including the honeycomb board and air pump cost about 300 dollars. It's got a 10 watt output diode laser.
This gets around a lot of the difficulty with engraving and carving aluminum enclosures. The machine does not need to be nearly as rigid.
Important things to point out about laser engravers:
You're never going to engrave bare aluminum with a commercially available blue diode laser. Not gonna happen.
You can certainly *mark* aluminum. But you're going to need specialty laser marking paint or some dry moly lube to facilitate the process. Aluminum is reflective: it's not going to absorb the energy you're directing at it.
Also: ventilation. Super important. We're burning shit here. Nasty, poisonous fumes.
Lasers should be *perfect* for pre-painted enclosures, as they will burn off the powdercoat quite easily.
I'm currently struggling a little bit with mine: workpiece locating is a PITA. One of the primary advantages with lasers, though, is Lightburn. Seriously. I hear the developers of lightburn are making something for CNC routers, and I cannot wait.
Lightburn allows for webcam integration with accuracy within 1mm. That means you can stream a view of the workbench to your desktop and design directly on the surface of the enclosure. Pretty nifty.
I've got mine setup in the garage right now with a mini PC that I remote into. It's been going...eh...not great. That's primarily because of my wifi connection in the garage though. I've got a new adapter for the PC with a pair of high gain antennas to help with my connectivity issues.
In learning about lasers, there are three commercially available types:
Diode lasers. Cheapest. Typically on a gantry style syste. Anywhere from 5-80watt output. Big jump in cost between 10 to 20 watt. Typically operate in the visible spectrum, cannot directly engrave metals without a coating.
--sub category: infrared 1064nm diode lasers. Top out at 2 watts. About 2.5-3x as expensive as a 10watt laser, but can actually engrave bare aluminum. Slowly. *Very* slowly. So slowly that they're typically marketed for jewelry engraving. Not commercially viable, but certainly doable for DIY on 125b enclosures if you're OK with waiting.
CO2 lasers: dunno much about these. Typically gantry-based as far as I can tell. More expensive, and typically more powerful than diode lasers. Visible spectrum lasers, cannot typically engrave metal without a coating.
Fiber lasers: most expensive. Tend to be stationary with a "galvo" head (uses automated movable mirrors to direct the laser beam into the workpiece). *EXTREMELY* fast working. Tend to work in the 1064nm IR range and be more powerful than diode IR lasers. Some work in the visible range, some cheaper models are quite weak. The galvo head is both a blessing and a curse, as these tend to have the smallest workspace area of the bunch, and larger areas come with an increase in cost. There are some cheaper models that come with a trolley for extending one axis, but this slows down the operation considerably. Still, it might be the only way to pick one up that can do a bunch of different enclosures for under 3K.
--sub category: I've seen split fiber lasers with a gantry module connected to a power supply/laser generator via some cabling. These tend to be much more affordable (some under 1K) and far more powerful than the 2w IR diode laser modules. This seems ideal for DIY, as they pack about 10x the punch of the IR diode. Not as fast as a galvo model, but far more workspace area is opened up. Need to read more.
These things have gotten pretty cheap recently. The entire setup including the honeycomb board and air pump cost about 300 dollars. It's got a 10 watt output diode laser.
This gets around a lot of the difficulty with engraving and carving aluminum enclosures. The machine does not need to be nearly as rigid.
Important things to point out about laser engravers:
You're never going to engrave bare aluminum with a commercially available blue diode laser. Not gonna happen.
You can certainly *mark* aluminum. But you're going to need specialty laser marking paint or some dry moly lube to facilitate the process. Aluminum is reflective: it's not going to absorb the energy you're directing at it.
Also: ventilation. Super important. We're burning shit here. Nasty, poisonous fumes.
Lasers should be *perfect* for pre-painted enclosures, as they will burn off the powdercoat quite easily.
I'm currently struggling a little bit with mine: workpiece locating is a PITA. One of the primary advantages with lasers, though, is Lightburn. Seriously. I hear the developers of lightburn are making something for CNC routers, and I cannot wait.
Lightburn allows for webcam integration with accuracy within 1mm. That means you can stream a view of the workbench to your desktop and design directly on the surface of the enclosure. Pretty nifty.
I've got mine setup in the garage right now with a mini PC that I remote into. It's been going...eh...not great. That's primarily because of my wifi connection in the garage though. I've got a new adapter for the PC with a pair of high gain antennas to help with my connectivity issues.
In learning about lasers, there are three commercially available types:
Diode lasers. Cheapest. Typically on a gantry style syste. Anywhere from 5-80watt output. Big jump in cost between 10 to 20 watt. Typically operate in the visible spectrum, cannot directly engrave metals without a coating.
--sub category: infrared 1064nm diode lasers. Top out at 2 watts. About 2.5-3x as expensive as a 10watt laser, but can actually engrave bare aluminum. Slowly. *Very* slowly. So slowly that they're typically marketed for jewelry engraving. Not commercially viable, but certainly doable for DIY on 125b enclosures if you're OK with waiting.
CO2 lasers: dunno much about these. Typically gantry-based as far as I can tell. More expensive, and typically more powerful than diode lasers. Visible spectrum lasers, cannot typically engrave metal without a coating.
Fiber lasers: most expensive. Tend to be stationary with a "galvo" head (uses automated movable mirrors to direct the laser beam into the workpiece). *EXTREMELY* fast working. Tend to work in the 1064nm IR range and be more powerful than diode IR lasers. Some work in the visible range, some cheaper models are quite weak. The galvo head is both a blessing and a curse, as these tend to have the smallest workspace area of the bunch, and larger areas come with an increase in cost. There are some cheaper models that come with a trolley for extending one axis, but this slows down the operation considerably. Still, it might be the only way to pick one up that can do a bunch of different enclosures for under 3K.
--sub category: I've seen split fiber lasers with a gantry module connected to a power supply/laser generator via some cabling. These tend to be much more affordable (some under 1K) and far more powerful than the 2w IR diode laser modules. This seems ideal for DIY, as they pack about 10x the punch of the IR diode. Not as fast as a galvo model, but far more workspace area is opened up. Need to read more.
vigilante398
Authorized Vendor
Just a couple notes:
I typically deal with workpiece locating on a laser the same way I do with the CNC: jigs. These don't have to be super intricate, but if you're going to do something approximately the same size over and over again (like enclosures) you can mount/tape/glue a right angle piece to designate the corner so it goes in the same place every time. It doesn't have to be as secure as the CNC because nothing is going to touch the enclosure, just needs to land in the same spot , then you can keep a file as a template for that location.
I started with a 5W diode laser then moved to a 40W CO2 laser, and now I'm back to a 30W diode laser. CO2 is neat and can do some things that diodes can't (most notably cutting transparent materials like acrylic; the wavelength of a diode laser will typically pass right through it), but it comes with extra housekeeping like water cooling for the laser tube or, the worst part, mirror alignment. With a CO2 laser you will constantly be adjusting the mirrors to make sure they're aligned. Move the machine to a new room? Mirrors will come out of alignment. Move it a few inches on the bench? Mirrors will come out of alignment. Sneeze too hard next to it? Mirrors will come out of alignment. Proper mirror alignment makes it work the best, but poor alignment can stop it from working at all if your laser beam is hitting somewhere it isn't supposed to.
Anyway, that's all I've got. Welcome back, excited to see more of your adventures with neat machines.
Stickman393
Well-known member
Little preview of what I've got coming up.
I've found my workflow works best like this:
Start with CNCJS. Use my spark concepts hole probe to locate XYZ zero. CNCJS is neat, because it uses its own sort of modified gcode language that allows for the computer to automatically perform certain calculations on the fly. What that means is that you can use a single command to do a whole lotta stuff.
The problem? Well, it's development has slowed to a crawl in recent years, and it never implemented height mapping. Which, for the kind of engraving I do, is absolutely necessary.
So, I manually move the machine back to 0,0,0, and exit CNCJS. Then I open open CNC pilot.
From there, I heightmap, apply to gcode, and let er rip.
I've found my workflow works best like this:
Start with CNCJS. Use my spark concepts hole probe to locate XYZ zero. CNCJS is neat, because it uses its own sort of modified gcode language that allows for the computer to automatically perform certain calculations on the fly. What that means is that you can use a single command to do a whole lotta stuff.
The problem? Well, it's development has slowed to a crawl in recent years, and it never implemented height mapping. Which, for the kind of engraving I do, is absolutely necessary.
So, I manually move the machine back to 0,0,0, and exit CNCJS. Then I open open CNC pilot.
From there, I heightmap, apply to gcode, and let er rip.
