The ventilation duct on the machine protrudes into the work area quite a bit. The sheet metal is spot welded in a number of inaccessible areas– otherwise I would remove the entire duct. So I just lopped it off with a Dremel (actually a Rotozip). Not perfect, but much straighter and cleaner than the cut made by the factor in the aluminum channel next to it.

The control panel on the lid was the obvious place to mount the LCD. I had already removed the potentiometer for laser intensity and the momentary switch for test firing the laser– both of those functions were present in the Arduino controller. I had thought about keeping the ammeter and the laser power switch, but they were in the way and really didn’t provide anything too useful. So they’re gone now, leaving only the power switch. The only other issue was the distance from the panel to the Arduino at the bottom of the case. So I found som The control

I cleaned up the rat nest of wiring I had from testing. I got some series 2500 wafer connectors and pins from Tayda to replace the headers on the RAMPS so I couldn’t accidentally hook something up backward in the future, as I tend to do that while quickly messing around in my moments of free time. I still need to properly mount the boards and screen. I’m still debating where I want to mount the screen. I’m leaning toward mounting on the lid, but I would need some much longer IDC cables to be able to easily open the lid. To

I’ve had a laser on my list of tools to acquire for well over 10 years. I’ve thought about building one, but with no prior experience with laser tubes I never really felt comfortable starting that project. I noticed, maybe last year, cheap Chinese made 40w laser cutters (K40) has been coming down in price and contemplated getting one, but my money was stretched to thin between other projects. At the time and I only had $50/month budgeted that I could spend without the wife’s say (we call it blow money) because we were on the last stretch of a