Red Black Laser 3D Printed Vents

[Johnny Smith]

Hi all, for anyone interested I designed, 3D printed and installed a couple of vents into one of the access doors on the side of the machine for the Y axis slides. I did this after noticing the smoke swirling around inside the machines work area as a result of the extraction being on the left hand side of the machine and the vents being located at the front of the machine. The standard arrangement caused turbulence so as an experiment I opened the access door on the opposite end of the machine from the exhaust and noticed the flow was much better, ie. the air would enter from the left and be extracted out the right.

I designed the vents with integrated louvers so there was no direct path for stray light/radiation out the right hand side of the machine. That door is after all in line with the beam path and should the No.2 mirror that directs the beam to the cutting head become catastrophically misaligned, I didn't want an open path out that side of the machine. Yes I know that the PLA plastic I used to 3D print the vents is not going to withstand the beam, but I figured I'd get some warning cause it was going to smell like burning plastic pretty quick. It would however stop direct exposure to low power stray reflections.

The end result was somewhat successful. I suspect it would have worked better if the louvers were not required and the air path was straighter but they did help.

The vents will fit a 126mmW x 46mmH cutout and have rounded corners so that holes can be drilled at each corner in case you want to use a jigsaw to cut them out. I've attached the STL file if anyone is interested in 3D printing for themselves. Happy to provide the Freecad source file. Please don't put the file up on Thingiverse...I'm happy to share with members of this forum but beyond that I like to keep ownership and my rights over things I create.....even if it is only a vent.

Vent.png

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Hope it is useful for someone.

Regards,
Johnny.