Ok so i know this Question is asked alot. But i need to ask im in southAfrika and would like to know what is the best way to do a air assist on my Orthur master 2 for cutting wood i need advise and i need a way to link a normal compressor with the proses and what is your thoughts on a fish pond air compressor . So all the help i can get will be appreciated. I don’t have a lot to spend so im on a budget.
Ill order it so i can get my airassis on so i can start cutting my wood i had 3 mm ply wood and do not cut through and i got mdf wood and nothing whats to cut through went through al the video’s on youtube and still no luck.
Hopefully it wil cut through after i add the compressor and piping.
I have a small compressor in the garage for nail gun & general “move the dust” use. I connected an inexpensive air control ($5 +/-) to my laser. The shop compressor connects to the air control. I’m able to control the air via a nob on the air control. Works great.
I use a small diaphragm compressor that I bought secondhand off eBay. It’s the sort used for an airbrush. Seems to be perfectly adequate when cutting both plywood and ‘real’ wood.
If you’re cutting lots of wood and thick wood that creates a lot of smoke, a “normal” air compressor may be what you require. I cut 1/8" wood and use a fish tank air supply which works really well. You don’t need much, it’s just to clear the area in front of the laser lens. I had a very small but high pressure air compressor (used for air brush) but it was TOO noisy, and overkill. Fish tank supply is quite inexpensive, $25 CAD.
I tried a bunch of different air sources on my laser and summarized them at the link below. Basically I found that if you have enough air, you have enough air and adding even more is not going to help you. For my setup it seems around 3 psi is plenty of air, that is with an over the lens air assist with a 2 mm nozzle.
If your nozzle is more leaky you may need more air.
The easiest two different ways I have found to provide a nozzle have been to use a football inflator nozzle mounted in a 3D printed holder or a veterinary needle used on cattle or horses mounted in the same holder hooked up to an aquarium air pump that provides at least 50 liters of air an hour. A metal nozzle has the added bonus in that is capable of directing more air into a precise location then a 3D printed nozzle. Which if printed with anything less then ABS or one of the Nylon amalgamated filaments you will find to be rather porous. I’ve tried a few of the 3D printed nozzles using PLA and PETG and have had them blown apart with the pressure of an aquarium pump.