K8400 Laser Cutter by gigl

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Beeing Snoopy, I was able to turn my K8400 into a laser cutter, but 1st of all:
Laser light can be very dangerous for your eyes, so NEVER look at the laser without
the goggles, even though you are curios.
Attention: Plan another 7805 Voltage regulator to convert 15V to 5V for the laser ;)
This is what you need
protection glasses: http://www.ebay.de/itm/292144122667
1W UV Laser : http://www.ebay.de/itm/232355088751
The 3D Part given
app 50cm Cable
Soldering equipment
Micro-switch(toggle)
2 pin jump header + connector
m3x8 screw and nut
2x m3x10 screw
Build it
install a tape to protect the laser lens
Install an Additional Wire from the Printer Power Supply(Minus Port) up to the Hotend board
Print the Part, install the Laser and Mount it with screw and Nut.
Glue the toggle switch and jump header on either side of the plastic part
Implement the laser side schematic
Unmount the Hotend such you can access the bottom of the board and solder 2 cables to the 2 rightmost pins of the long connector. Black(rightmost)=Minus, White=Plus. This is FAN supply, mount the hotend again
Mount the Laser on the 2nd's extruder place with the 2 M3x10 screws
Implement the rest of the schematic
Operating it:
The Jumper is used to generally switch on/off the laser. Switch it off after laser cutting always
The Toggle switch is used to test-drive the laser. If its not pressed, its operated by the program.
Calibrate it
Wear Glasses
Remove the tape from the laser
move Z=100mm on the printer
Put Paper onto the print bed
Use one hand to test-drive the printer while the other hand adjusts the focus such as
the laser can acutally cut the paper
Use it
Write special style gcode programs(sample rect.gcode attached)
Wear Glasses
Enable Laser with Jumper
Print the File
Disable Laser
The attached image shows the result of the program. its a 30x30 square.
Safe you Eyes!