Lightweight head kit for 12mm rail

[Ignas Kaz]

Hello folks, Mr. Sadler,

I'm contemplating replacing K type head to Russ' brilliant thing, however i have 12mm rail.
Been looking at things on Cloudray and there is no lightweight heads, just the bracket. Then it dawned on me that i will need the tube/adapter/etc.

Is there a full kit i could buy to get the head/plate/tube/mirror mount for my machine, which uses 12mm rail, 20mm mirror and 18mm lens ?
At this moment i'm trying to determine what sort of investment i'm looking at to get the head replaced by reusing mirrors/lens.

[Frank Small]

Hello Ignas

I have fitted Russ's light weight head to my 50 W China Blue machine. Though I have not measured my rails they look to be 12mm. I have included a picture below. Does this look like how your rails are mounted?

Russ's head kit had what I needed to attach it to my machine. Because I upgraded my tube to an 80 W one I needed to machine new tube mounts to fit the larger tube. Along with many other modifications I made my overall machine will be unique to me. I will be making a post in the near future outlining my changes.

As for lens tubes, nozzles, and lenses I purchased an assortment from ebay. I used my original mirror mounts but purchesed a 20mm mirror for the head.

Based on what I have seen, machines are the same but different and you may be required to do some tinkering. I happen to have a well equipped work shop so I can do most things myself.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

[Ignas Kaz]

My machine has top mounted rail. I worry that i will be required to do some heavy modification to fit bigger belts/idlers/pulleys to fit things inbetween belt loop. Which effectively requires me to replace whole gantry beam, as only 15mm belt idler tower i've seen is for 40mm hole spacing. My gantry is only 40mm wide (40x20x3mm extrusion).

[Frank Small]

Can you post some pictures?

[Ignas Kaz]

Here. Loop is pretty tight here, gantry beam is too small to fit wider belt/bigger pulleys/idlers.

[Frank Small]

Did you watch Russ's videos #184 and #185?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&fe ... lZ2Ttdwrdc

From what I see in your picture you may not need to change your belt width but you may need to modify the brackets. You could use you machine to make spacers and adapter plates.

When I changed my head out on my machine it was not working because the laser tube failed so I had to make everything thing old school.

Frank

[Justin Bathke]

where can i get the lightweight head kit for a 12mm front mount rail? or the dxf to cut it myself

[Pete Cyr]

Look here. viewtopic.php?f=97&t=5226&p=27512&hilit ... ght#p27512

[Charles Jones]

Maybe a stupid question...
... I'm also trying to get the lightweight head, and I see the .pdf document linked above, and saw the specs and price for the lightweight head, but couldn't see where to send the order information or how to pay? Are we supposed to PM Russ directly and coordinate payment with him to get the MK2 lightweight head?

I checked CloudRay's website, and they have the top mounted adapter bracket (which I need as well) but not the actual MK2 lightweight head. As you can see, the head that came with my laser is ENTIRELY too large and heavy