Ultimate Air Assist with Shop Air

[Dave Vigness]

Heard from the step daughter down there they went on lock down again. Somebody panicked. Give it a few days to hear from him just in case.

[Brian Book]

Hi All .... well I sent an Email to Russ Sanders and he was kind enough to reply right away and this was his reply ... I have attached a pic of what I take from his message .... please confirm if you can that I can proceed with my interpretation.

Hi Brian
I came to this Chinese technology with industrial metal cutting laser experience. I was convinced that the guys from the East were having a laugh when I saw the little pulsing air compressor. I therefore hooked in my shop compressor with a regulator and filters to "do the job properly". During my first month, despite having a crap low power tube, I managed to kill 3 lenses by baking and burning debris onto the lower face. I was too clever for my own good and eventually worked out that the small orifice through the air fitting into the nozzle was less than 3mm diameter whereas the nozzle orifice was 4.5mm. That meant that there was a rapid expansion of the compressed air as it entered the nozzle. Rapid expansion means rapid cooling of the air. Despite the filters, the warm air from the compressor was still water (and probably oil) laden. the rapid cooling was causing vapour to form in the nozzle . Vapour is micro particles that were being heated by the laser beam and baked onto the face of the lens. I removed my shop compressor and have for the last 5 years relied on the unfiltered and unregulated 4psi from that stupid Chinese compressor. Zero lens issues confirms that (with knowledge or not) the Chinese made a good compressor selection. Storage in a reservoir is not necessary which is why the air assist pump is linked into the program enable run signal.

In the pdf document attached the circuit shows the 24v relay controlling the mains supply to the Chinese (instant) compressor. In your case if you wish to continue with your shop compressor. instead of a mains supply and air pump, you need to locate the power supply unit that is the source of 24vdc used by the controller because I suspect that your air solenoid will draw more than the 100mA limit from the controller. Connect 24vdc to the common terminal(11) and connect your 24v air solenoid to the Normally Open contact (14). The other side of the solenoid should be connected to the 0v (ground) terminal at the power supply.

Best wishes
Russ

Schematic for Ultimate air.jpg

Thank You

Brian

[Brian Book]

Hi all ... well mission accomplished .... I did a Skype with Matt at MW Laser and his suggestion was to get rid of the Relay .... he thought I should wire the Inline Air Solenoid like the 3 way Air Solenoid .... unfortunately that didn't work and went back to see what Dave wrote and lo and behold .... the Inline Air Solenoid needs to be wired to 24v and Status .... now it all works as it should !

Thank You Dave for sticking with me like you did and for your help .... it is Greatly Appreciated !!!!

Take Care

Brian

[Dave Vigness]

The only difference between STATUS and WIND is when they switch on and off. Both of them switch the ground connection. If it operates on one, it will operate on the other. If I had to guess, you had the polarity reversed. It is DC and it does matter. ANY terminal other than the ground and the positive are ground switched. Most people assume it is positive switched and make the connection back to ground thinking it will work. You are basically connecting both wires to the same connection doing that.

Don't forget, if you wire it to the WIND, set your blow type to processing or it will rattle the solenoid like a machine gun. And don't do what I did and forget to read / write to save the setting.

[Brian Book]

Hi Dave my Solenoid is not acting like that .... but I tried looking for that setting and couldn't find it ? .... I'm still using RDworks 8.18 still

Brian

[Dave Vigness]

Part of it is RDWorks, part of it is your controller firmware. Anything below .15 firmware and you don't have to worry about the blow type settings. They are in the user tab. Work, Output, Doc, User, Test.

If you get above the .15 firmware, then you need the newer version of RDWorks to change that setting. It is also controller dependent. It doesn't show up if you don't have the option. Until my RDWorks set itself top the 6445G, the option wasn't there. I know it's there in the .47 and .48 versions of RDWorks, but I couldn't tell you what version it actually became available.

[Gene Uselman]

I assume that the 6442 variants and the 6445 have different firmwares?

[Dave Vigness]

That I couldn't tell you Gene. I know the upgrade file is labeled as 6445 vs 6442, and they are 4 axis vs 2 axis so my guess wold be they use different firmware for that reason alone. But then again we have all seen the program that just ignores what it doesn't have so an email to Matt would probably be in order since Ruida and Cloudray have him doing some video instructions now.

I'll drop him a line when I get a chance.

One good thing, if you upgrade and find it catching you but don't want to make the jump to the newer RDWorks or if Lightburn is having trouble with it, you can downgrade the firmware with no problem. I was back and forth between .15 and .19 so many times it wasn't funny. And then I did have to chuckle at the appearing read / write option hidden behind the laser work window. Especially since these upgrades are sooooo well documented.

Gene, you list a wireless remote in you machine info. Is that the physical remote, or the Android app?

[Gene Uselman]

It is the early style Ruida remote [they have changed the actual remote a bit now], I don't do cell phones and like the convenience of having the remote stuck to the frame. I use it constantly, it has two speed that can be toggled with one button, I use it in slow speed for focusing and use the panel buttons for big fast moves. My only con for it is the batteries have to be fully charged, when they run down a bit it stops working... so I have a recharger close by. That may have been fixed by now.

[Dave Vigness]

I would imagine with that big of a bed a remote of some sort would almost be a necessity. My 6445G is on the network so I use the app. It has it's pluses and minuses. I like the quick change in travel speed, but no travel vs micro step, and no power / speed changes in a loaded program. I use it more doing alignment than anything. The thing that took the longest to get used to was no button beep. The controller beeps when you push a button, the app has just the slightest vibration. If you have it sitting on the machine, it's not much more than the little vibrations in the machine itself.

I sent Matt an email, will update if / when I hear back.