Construction Details of Jeff's Laser

[Jeffrey Aley]

Someone asked for photos of my laser (rails, etc.), so I'm starting a new thread w/ lots of pictures.

The laser is a 50W, 50cm x 30cm "China blue". I believe it is very similar to Russ'.

[Jeffrey Aley]

Exterior photos.

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[Jeffrey Aley]

Laser bed details.

I used deck screws for my pin bed because I had a box of them. The coating does cause some flashback; I want to try substituting drywall screws, but I haven't done it yet. Nails don't work because the lengths aren't precise, and the heads aren't uniformly square to the shaft. Longer screws cause problems with wobbling - shorter is better.

See also Pepsi's "Punker's Bed" - there should be a thread on here about it.

I bought a sheet of perforated steel for the bed. I got perforated instead of solid in a misguided understanding of the airflow needed. If I do it over, I'll get a sheet of solid steel.

The alignment guides are scrap acrylic. Use the laser itself to cut the alignment guides after they're in place. That way, they'll be perfectly aligned to the axis of the laser.

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The alignment guide on the factory-installed stainless-steel (non-magnetic!) bed is used when engraving (no pin bed needed). It also serves to hold the pin bed in alignment.

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[Jeffrey Aley]

Laser head

Here's a poor photo of Mirror 3 and the laser head. You can also see the bottom part of it in the previous photo (of the stainless-steel bed).

As you can see, mine came with a black head. Others have the gold one.

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[Jeffrey Aley]

Y-axis rails and other details.

This photo shows the profile of the rails. X and Y use the same style and size of rails. I believe these are HiWin clones (or perhaps real ones). You can see the rail is firmly mounted to a black steel channel. (The open side of the channel faces to the left, and is not visible in this photo). In the foreground, you can see that the channel is welded to another channel; overall the steel channels form a rigid square frame, to which all of the X and Y positioning stuff is mounted. This gives a solid foundation for the mechanical systems of the machine.

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Here's a picture of the back-left corner of the inside of the machine. The X-axis stepper is partially visible. Note the grease port on the red bearing cap. Remove the middle screw and insert a needle-tip on a grease gun to lubricate.

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Here's the back-right corner of the inside of the machine. The chrome "shock absorber" for the lid partially obscures the connector for the rotary device.

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[Jeffrey Aley]

Left side, looking down into the laser area.

Here you can see more of the black steel-channel frame, the gantry, and the laser-head mount (not labeled). Of course, the laser head is directly below Mirror 3.
(I'm writing some of this stuff for the folks who don't actually have a laser yet, so may not be as familiar with what they're seeing).
I also tried to label "Front", "Left/Right", and "Up" so you can orient yourself when looking at the pic.

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[Hank Morgan]

Deck screws on magnets... that's brilliant!
I've got a metric buttload of little neodymium magnets and probably a couple of pounds of short drywall screws but it had never occurred to me to use them together.

Thanks!

[Jeffrey Aley]

Deck screws on magnets... that's brilliant!
I've got a metric buttload of little neodymium magnets and probably a couple of pounds of short drywall screws but it had never occurred to me to use them together.

Thanks!

You're welcome! It's not my idea, but I'm glad to be sharing the tip with other folks. Well, I came up with the deck screws by myself. I started with 2" nails, but that didn't work. It's all about what you have on-hand.

Get a nice flat steel plate to use for the bed.

[Gene Uselman]

Thanks for all the pictures, it is always interesting to see how different manufacturers go about assembling all the basically similar components.