Laser

[Sycamore67]

A couple of months ago, I bought a laser engraver/cutter.  It is the Ortur Laser Master 3 10 watt.  It has been a struggle getting it going as I had a number of troubles but all are resolved now.

This is a project I downloaded for free and then cut out from 1/8 Baltic birch.

[kmmcrafts]

I'll bet that made a little smoke, 

Turned out nice, did you have any smoke staining on the piece to sand off? it looks really clean cut.. and maybe that would be the benefit to a open frame machine.. My Co2 laser is in a enclosure with exhaust ports to suck out the smoke. I get quite a lot of smoke staining around the cut areas.. but it sands off quite easy without taking details of engraving away. 

Did this cut in a single pass or did you have to make a few passes to cut all the way through? I'd love to have a machine that could do a larger work area.. mine only has a work area of 8 x 12 inch so I cannot do much more than small ornaments or coasters etc..  The down side I see with these is needing some sort of smoke extractor or filter to clean the air.. otherwise it doesn't take long for your shop to sell like a forest fire, LOL Probably be pretty easy to set up a cook stove range exhaust hood to suck those fumes out of the building. 

 

[Sycamore67]

I am planning on building an enclosure for it wth inline exhaust fan.  

It was cut with two passes and I will turn power down a little bit.  The working area is 400 mm by 400 mm or 15.7 inches square. You can buy an extension kit for it.

I am just starting to learn the best settings.  Each material is different.

[kmmcrafts]

Unless you worked in HVAC or understand airflow etc. It might take some trial and error to get a good ventilation system figured out. The easy part is you won't need a smoke machine to figure out what works best,  just run a project.  My laser was made with the enclosure but I've modified it enough that the exhaust port is really in the wrong spot, so that might be getting some sort of modification at some point. It at least sucks the smoke out but it also hovers write above the workpiece.. for me I need the exhaust to go out the bottom now as the factory one is out near the top at the back and the smoke flows right across the workpiece staining the workpiece slightly.. light sanding removes it but it could be better with a better exhaust. You'll also need some sort of air inlet so the air can flow easily. I think if I had one of these open frame lasers I'd just use some sort of range hood or similar.. as enclosing it can get too complicated to get the right flow.. at least for my small brain.

As for learning the settings.. as you use it more and more you'll find it to be just like scroll sawing.. you'll be on a roll cutting and find a dense spot in the wood where it may take an extra pass in that one spot.. I always end up not finding that out until I've already picked up the board and I can never get it back in the exact same spot to run another pass. I usually just take those to the scroll saw to finish the cut, many times it just a small 1/4" or so section that just doesn't cut clean through.

Have fun with it, They can be like anything else and become addicting.

[Sycamore67]

I am not too worried about the air flow and will put input and output at opposite corners.  If needed, I can add another input for the fresh air.  My guess is the fan I will use will be 50 cfm or better and the enclosure is about 12 cfm which would give around 4 or more air changes per minute.  I will get a variable inline fan so I can adjust the exhaust cfm.  

 

I do not have any issues locating the workpiece.  The trace function in Lightburn shows exactly where it will cut or engrave.

[kmmcrafts]

Nice that it runs on lightburn, mine doesn't and it's kind of a crapshoot to get it in the exact same spot. I pretty much use the same sized blanks and have thought about making up a straight edge corner fixed to the work table so I would be setting it in the exact same spot every time.. 

[Sycamore67]

Being "older" means learning a new somewhat complex software like Lightburn is not easy.  However, there are many YouTube videos that show how to do things.  So I sit with Lightburn on my laptop and YouTube on my tablet and go step by step. I can do most easy functions and able to create simple projects.  It was nice that Lightburn has a full function 30 day trial for free.  I am planning on buying it.

[kmmcrafts]

I use a free software called K40 Whisperer.. it's very simple but it's also very basic.. not many bells and whistles but then again I guess the simplicity of it is what makes it easy to use, LOL

That being said, my next machine I hope will be able to run Lightburn.. but who knows.. I may never get another one..