on my machine, at first times there was sometimes some power surge (due to bad electric isolation of the frame, too close to the HV wire) that “fried” the stepper controllers, but not the control board.
so, the machine believed that the head was moving, when it was not. obviously, the material would burn if nobody takes care of shutting down the job.
even with engraving at “low power” that you would not expect to burn the material, if the head stops moving, the heat will finally be enough!!
more recently, the guy who uses my laser (he provides the workplace for it) was complaining that there was a lot of fumes and flames when the laser was cutting… he had searched about mirror alignment and so, without luck.
the fact was that the air tube was torn, thus providing no air assist. and the nozzle was all sooty and the air assist entry (silicon tube and plastic connector) were completely melted (from the heat of the “flame” at the cutting point). lucky us, it didn’t catch fire but i guess this was close.
those examples are sufficient to prove that anything can turn bad, even small problems that would be ok for a CNC will end badly on a laser.
WOW very fortunate to ave spotted that one, it just shows that you have to be vigilant more and more and never leave it unattended.
I am currently looking at a Raspberry Pi mod for my 3d printer and I am asking them whether they can build a mod into it and somehow adapt it to include the laser cnc etc. be interesting to see whether this can happen as it enables you to control the 3d printer via a web browser so I dont see why it can’t be adapted.
I already monitor via ip camera and I am only one flight of stairs away at the moment but even so it brings it hoe you cant mess about with these, I am assuming youre on a K40 or similar system where as i am on a diode.
My personal opinion is that the small blowers often used with the air assist are grossly inadequate.
Very true.
As they come from the factory they need to be rebuilt before they operate properly. I suffered with those little blowers until the latest one that came with a new laser failed within a few minutes. I took it apart and found the problem (loose screw) and also found the inside filled with shavings and crud. Gave it a good cleaning and lubbing and now it’s much more powerful (had to put a valve on it) and way quieter.
I was thinking of getting some honeycomb but I’m not sure what thickness and how it looks, do you have a picture you could provide please as I have looked on eBay and there are a lot of different types and i want to make sure i get the right one.
At the moment my 10 watt diode cnc laser is on a A3 frame on top of 2 mm stainless plate with a small bed of nails on which i put the item to be cut on but want something a little better for a more permanent site I am developing in my workshop. thanks