New machine on the way

[alboy]

Hi Al, that's impressive,
my son has signed up to buy a glowforge ( a waste of time and money i think)i'm hoping to change his mind so i'm researching options for him. he has a fledgling architectural company started and wanted a laser for model building. i finished a course in cnc/laser cutting sometime back and can see the potential for model building. the course did not include any maintenance or optics setup so i'm wondering is it much of hassle? any info would be greatly appreciated. also is there a chiller required for the tube. and if so , is it supplied? i seem to remember a water chiller to cool the laser tube on the course i did ( trotec laser, lasersaur laser) . i heard that a air jet is also required to stop the material from catching fire, is this true? i spoke to a laser owner near me and he uses an air jet on the material being cut to prevent fire. last but not least , is there an extraction method for the fume supplied? sorry for all the questions but i'm trying to get as much info about the machine you bought because it looks a bargain and i am putting together a costing to convince my son.

paulro

Hi Paulro,
Glad to see another Irish based member on the forum,

The machine I have, would I class it as a bargain, well yes. The reason this brand of machine is appearing at bargain prices is because the company that makes them have gone out of business, I really wouldn't let that stop you from buying one if you so wished because any spare parts needed are easily obtained.

Now you do have to take in to account the fact that this is a chinese machine and you will probably have to tinker with the setup and adjustments and probably replace some consumables for better quality ones, such as the mirrors and lens but the are not expensive.

The machine I have came with a huge extractor fan that mounts outside of the machine and connects by a large bore flexible pipe. Fume extraction is very important, some fumes created on certain items can be very unpleasant and toxic, I vent the fumes outside through the workshop wall.

There is an air pump supplied that supplies sufficient flow to ensure there is positive pressure in the cutting nozzle (stops smoke damage to the lens and prevents material being cut from combusting) for cutting things like acrylic but better airflow is required to help deeper cutting on material such as ply and mdf.

The coolant method for this machine is an aquarium style pump that I have in a large container filled with 20 litres of deionised water fine so far but then again it never gets that warm in Ireland does it :-)

The machine also have a coolant flow sensor that prevents the machine from operating if it detects no coolant flow.

The optics are not that difficult to align. If you want to see some very informative videos on youtube then search for the Sarbar multimedia channel, excellent info and tutorials from Russ.

Any more questions just ask, if you want to have a look at my machine I am based in Roscommon.

Cheers

Al