Laser Spindle Attachment. by GremlinRC

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Following on from my drag knife spindle attachement, I wanted a similar mechanism for attaching my laser (3.5W) to my spindle using a ring clamp. The spindle is an 80mm 2.2kW water cooled spindle and the ring attaches to the collar (narrower and black) at the bottom of the spindle.
I also needed a hood which serves two purposes. It helps direct the airflow from the cooling fan onto the cut/engrave point which helps clear any smoke and helps prevent burning along the edge of the cut. In truth it does not work nearly as good as a high power airjet right in at the cut but it's better than just the fan blowing over the cooling fins. The second purpose is to act as a shroud and helps stop laser light from bouncing all over the place. Let me be clear !!!THIS DOES NOT REMOVE THE NEED FOR THE CORRECT SAFETY GLASSES!!! when using lasers. The hood should just slide fit over the heatsink.
I also included some brackets to hold the driver board. Before printing you need to check your lasers dimensions to see that this will fit. Mine is 40mm x 40mm. The heatsink is 52mm from base to the start of the fan. Many of the commonly available laser diode modules of this power will have similar dimensions. The hole spacing on the rear plate should be 20mm x 40mm There may be a fifth hole on yours which you dont need to use.
The driver board bracket fits a board with a heat sink width of 47mm. You need to print two of these. This whole package allows me to quickly switch between using my laser and other tools and indeed the spindle itself very quickly. The ring locks in place with an M5 nut and bolt, Just hand tighten.
Lastly a great addition you can add to your laser setup is an airjet right in at the cut point. I've included a pic of mine which is simply a small metal tube bent and zip tied to the hood. Its attached via some silicone tubing to my airbrush compressor. Be sure to crush the end of the tube tight to increase the airflow speed out the end. To illustrate the difference I attach another pic showing the difference air-assist makes.
Hope you find some of this useful.