K40 Laser custom control panel - Digital + C3Dmini by plocher

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Another K40 digital panel replacement.
(Some K40's come with a potentiometer and a mA meter, others, like mine, come with a "digital" version which (I suppose) is supposed to be better, cheaper or more reliable. It isn't.)
You really need a mA meter on a K40 so you don't blow up your CO2 tube - the digital readout goes from 00.0 to 99.9 - with no units. It isn't "percent of full power", nor is it "mA" or anything except arbitrary. I needed an analog meter to determine what numbers matched the 15mA Max suggested for the K40's tube. (25.0 on the scale equates to 12 mA, and 30.0 is 15mA, at least on mine)
I was sick of the stock nano board (the one that requires a pirated version of Windows XP, a pirated version of CorelLaser and a pirated USB dongle) - even after throwing out the supplied software and using K40Whisperer (a great free program, BTW!), I wanted something better. I found it with Cohesion 3D's Mini - in a K40 upgrade friendly package. It is a smoothieboard clone, and is orders of magnitude faster than Whisperer, and is supported by the new kid on the block, Lightburn, a great layout, editing, and control software package. Aas a bonus, the C3Dmini can control lightobject's Z-table stepper with just a couple extra parts and a power supply!
Finally, I added an extra on/off switch for the power outlets, so I could turn on and off the add-on air compressor (new laser head/optics via lightobjects)
Unfortunately, I ended up with a hydra - meters and GLCD panel and an extra power switch all flailing about, causing trouble!
The end result is this design, which packs as much as possible into the old control panel's space, and does not require any case / sheet metal modifications.
The files are all the same thing, in AI, DXF and Lightburn formats.