Can anyone recommend a beam combiner?

I would like to move my red pointer laser off of the lens assy and use a beam combiner so that the laser beam and the pointer are always on target. Can any body suggest a beam combiner set up? Europe preferred for shipping, but happy to buy from the USA if not.

Cheers

David

Cloudray has one, or you can get an SPT TR series tube with teh built in red dot.

I’d found one I used on ebay which came off of some test equipment and designed a mount for the red dot laser and combiner. If you can figure out OpenSCAD, this might be a start for you -

Thanks guys, I like the look of the cloudray one, that would fit my system perfectly. Although it would need to go after the first mirror, I don’t see any problems with that other than I won’t get the benefit of the red spot on the first mirror, but I never have to adjust that one anyway. Anyone see any reason not to fit it after the first mirror?

Cheers

David

I’ll be fitting a cloudray in the next week or so, if that’s fast enough I can let you know my experience :wink:

DavidF, the beam combiner is meant to go in place of the #1 mirror.

Hi, maybe this may be of some help.

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Not the same machine type but the principles are the same…

The Cloudray one goes between the tube and the first mirror, but I see no reason why it couldn’t go between first and second as long as it doesn’t interfere with travel. I haven’t got mine set up yet, so I can’t say what impact it might have on the mirror alignment process, or its own alignment come to that.

My bad, copied the link from the wrong one. They have one of each style.

I ran across American Photonics about a week ago watching their video on combiners and was surprised at their prices. Seemed very good.

I think the idea of it going between the tube and mirror #1 is that it usually means it’s away from the smoke and debris area. Beam combiner lens seem to be a bit more fragile than your typical mirror treatments.

I like the idea of replacing the first mirror with this setup, but at twice the price I might go with the in line option. Gary, I’ll be very interested to see how your install goes. I guess it might take a month for the kit to get to me from China anyway…

Cheers

David

Will do, my install will mean removing part of the steelwork at mirror one where the combiner goes. I’m replacing mirror 2 to be a beefier mount and replacing the runner on the X together with a new laser head so it has potential to be a bit of a game :grin::crazy_face::crazy_face:

But, will let you know for sure

Gary

Sounds like a fun project! best of luck.
Well I decided to go ahead with the inline combiner rather than the one that replaces mirror one. With shipping and import taxes total was $78. Lets hope it works ok…

Cheers

David

I’m actually going to combine my existing first mirror mount with my beam combiner much like the alternative E series one shown by Dave V. I had already planned this before knowing such a thing existed. However, I’m using a second mirror mount in place of the typical first mount option, so it might not be as easy to combine them in to one unit if you have a different style.

I got tired of tweaking the mirror positions after they slide around in slotted holes. I measured what was needed to make a freecad model and 3d printed mounts with non-slotted holes. I used the LightOject mirror mounts and parts of the cloud ray combiner

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seems you could have made a mount for the red laser onto the combiner/mirror mount and simplified the red laser mounting. But I’m guessing there’s enough room to get the beam past that red laser mount and hit all your other mirrors so good enough right?

Did you upload the design and files to Thingiverse? I’m a FreeCAD fan/user too so +10 for that too. :slight_smile:

The cloud ray set came with a red laser and mount. So if you look at the mirror #1 mount, it has the red laser and combiner mounts pushed into slots. I don’t know what to do with the design. I’m not sure if all k40 chassis are the same. I would have to share the freecad file, I think. I should make it parametric in that case. I may have to learn to do a spreadsheet.

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It looks like 3 separate pieces(combiner, mirror and laser holder) and I can’t see how they are held into the 3D printed mount. I just figured it was hollow or something so that screws from beneath could hold things in place. That’s why I asked about posting the files so I could look at either the FreeCAD design or the STL files and see how you did that.

As for FreeCAD parameterization with Spreadsheet, it’s easy. click the spreadsheet workbench, create the sheet then I use 2 cells for each parameter. A is for names I can read, B is for the value. Then you right click on the item in columb B and select alias and type in the label you want to use in your design.
example: Laser holder OD , 5.0
alias is laserOD

Then where you’d type a number in FreeCAD GUI you can see a little eyeball or thing to the right in the input field. When you click that you start typing Spreadsheet.laserOD/2 for a radius entry.

I would not worry about changing yoru design now, if someone knows FreeCAD they can easily update the design as needed. And your K40 looks alot like my K40.