Has anyone converted a K8200 to a laser cutter or engraver?
I presume a laser could be fitted instead of, or alongside, the extruder and the sofware used to guide it
40Watt CO2 laser tubes and power supplies seem to be available online for about £100 each. I would be interested in anyone’s experience of this technology
And information on what equipment is needed in addition to the tube and power supply.
I have considered doing this, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet. My initial reaction is:
40W is a massive amount of laser power. I bought an engraver kit that has a 0.5W laser. You would need more power for cutting, but that seems like a LOT of power to me.
PLEASE be sure to get proper eye protection for the type (wavelength) of laser you get. Even a low power laser can cause permanent eye damage very quickly, and the beam is not always visible. A reflected ray can carry considerable energy. It is extremely important that you shield the cutter to avoid injury to people or pets.
To control the laser from the printer, you will need a power supply that has a 5V control input for switching the beam on and off under digital control.
Also, keep a fire extinguisher handy.
40W seems to be the minimum size I can find in searches. Most hobby machines use this size or bigger. You are quite right re visibility. CO2 lasers operate in far infra-red.
I think the biggest problems are likely to be power supply (kilovolts) and focussing. A lot more thinking required!!
A guy I know from work has done this, and made an instructable on how to do it.
Thanks - It looks interesting. Willl follow it up. The kit of parts is from US. Is there any company in Europe supplying similar projects
I decided to look at fitting/using a 500mW laser on my K8200. The main problem being how to control it between print and non-print areas. I was not sure what additional hardware and software may be required, so I looked at a ‘quick and dirty’ solution that only requires the laser module. It gives a surprisingly good print/burn.
I made my design with CAD software, gave it a 3D height, saved it as an STL, then loaded into Repetier. The image height and your slicer setting will determine how many passes the laser does (unless you turn the laser off early).
To the eye a laser starts immediately, but actually it takes a short while to get to full power/output and start burning. So as the bed moves it has to stop (until full power is reached) or part of the print/burn may be missing. Probably what the additional hardware handles.
I decided to leave the laser on, from start to finish. You may think that would leave a burn line across ‘non print’ areas.
As a 500mW laser is quite a low power it requires a very slow print speed. By using a high skip speed between print areas, the laser doesn’t spend long enough to make a mark,
Just play with the various speeds in Repetier to find your ideal settings.
Just remember to remove temperature settings from the resulting gcode, or your K8200 will stop straight after it moves to ‘Home’.
Always use correct eye protection for the laser (frequency) you use.