Get Air assist!

I got my laser a couple of months ago, and am slowly building up the bits as I can afford them.
In managed to get the air assist installed - I just used the compressor I already had - 24L stanley one, and bought a regulator and fittings on Amazon - And WOW. The difference is night and day.
It’s like… instead of drawing with a sharpie, you are drawing with a sharp pencil

So… if you don’t have Air assist, move it to the top of your list

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I did a test with air assist and without air assist :astonished:
it was amazing! just wow! if you do not have one get one.

OKAY THEN! I don’t know when it will be here though.

Depending on the laser you have, the next nice feature is to control the air assist via LightBurn. Then you can easily have layers with and without air assist in the same project (for engraving, air assist is sometimes not recommended). Here is a guide for Sculpfun lasers and most others that use a similar layout to the MKS DLC board: Relay Control - Diode Laser Wiki

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Can you show/give example of layers? Hoping it is what I think it is.

grafik
This is how it looks like. I enable the air assist only on cutting layers, and the engraving layers are done without. LightBurn handles it, I don’t touch the pump. It only works if you connected a relay to the respective pins and use a firmware that supports the M7 or M8 commands (like grbl for most diode lasers).

Hey Colin,

Youve semi asked a question ive been scouring the internet for, i have the Ortur laser master 2 pro s2, which is what i think you also have.

1 are you using the official air assist nossle that came with it.

And

2 please tell me all the additional stuff you got on amazon to attach your big yellow stanley air compressor to it!!

I have the exact same one I belive and want to actually use is for something other than a dust collection tool, would rather use this than mess around buying new pumps that dont work etc.

So if i could please rob the info on all of your items you bought and maybe a couple of pictures on how you set ot up that would be amazing.

Sorry for being cheeky :smile:

Chris

I’m pretty impressed with the clean results of air assist but, somewhat underwhelmed with the air pump. A single Dell server case fan can probably process air more efficiently and more psi than the shakeweight. I intend to eventually pipe it into my air compressor and see if I’m even more impressed.

No need, Took me a while to work it out!

So, I used the nozzle that came with the Ortur.

I also bought a new Braided hose for the compressor, because the orange plastic one that came with it was naff.
I bought this regulator: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074W7C6FV/
Glad I went for the one with the water trap as it’s started to get kinda humid!
That was straightforward into the regulator, and I then got a barbed-type coupler to connect to the output of the regulator straight into the hose (The black on that came with the Ortur). In retrospect, I should have got a ‘reducer’ aswell, as the pipe was a pig to get on there.

I don’t know if it was needed, but I put plumbers tape on all the threaded things aswell.

Do remember though, that stanley air compressor is LOUD - 98db, so wear ear protection!

Cheers mate, ive literally just pulled it all out 10 mins ago, was going to try the built in regulator thats on it and try to jubilee the orange cable to the black stuff that came with the Ortur! Through the mini regulator that came with in and into the ortur nossel, did you see what it can go down to psi wise just with the built in reg?Had enough of 25 pass cuts only for it not to go through 4mm ply lol

I set it up with what i had to hand, wow the difference is amazing.

Compressor set to 15psi > orange cable > blower that came with the Compressor with the 1/8th inch connector inserted instead of the blower nossel > black ortur pipe > ortur mini regulator > black pipe > ortur air assist nossel.

Wow you werent lying about the pencil lines, it cuts through 4mm ply in 2 to 3 passes with zero burning around the edges at about 0.3mm… i was struggling to get through in about 30 passes before.

Packet of rizlas for size comparison and a pendant ive just made for the mrs :grin:

Thats looks awesome!
Really glad you’ve had positive results, and I’m genuinely impressed that you used the air blower gun as a ‘reducer’ to step down the pipe size - That wouldn’t have even crossed my mind!

I do recommend the other regulator though - You can mount it on the edge of the workbench, and it makes adjusting your pressure (And turning it off between jobs) waaay easier. The doenside to the ortur one is that you don’t know how much air is being pushed through it without crouching by the compressor

I have the Xtool D1 and the Xtool air assist and I love the air assist. Can Lightburn somehow control my air assist or must it be controlled through the laser controller itself?

This will depend if xTool has made the air assist accessible through gcode. LightBurn typically use M8 to enable air-assist but can be changed to M7.

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No. The air assist is just on or off at an inline switch. I didn’t know if Lightburn could control smart switches that are on the same network. Sort of the way Amazon Echo or Google Assistant does.

No. There’s no externally accessible API or similar interface that would allow for this.

It’s possible there’s some hidden pins or pads on the D1 motherboard that could expose air assist on/off information that could then be used to trigger a relay or something but I’m not familiar with the board.

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Thanks. That’s something for me to look into.

On this note - Who is using what as an air supply. I was looking for a small ‘OILESS’ cost effective compressor/ air pump.

Pat

Hailea ACO 328 excellent pumps , its being used on a 100 watt laser with a controller card built for my controller the LX4S from VMS Technologies. I just toggle it via M8.