I finally bit the bullet and bought an entry-level laser cutter(Link to Listing). I have always wanted a laser cutter but a decent machine has always been outside my budget until now. These cheap chinese laser cutters are notorious for horrible software and electronics but relatively good laser tubes. With the success of my Arduino CNC shield I decided that I would give this machine a go and upgrade it to make it easier to work with.
I ordered the JK-K30-20 40W Laser Cutter from a seller on Aliexpress that I have order bits from in the past. The laser arrived within a week and was packed very well.
It included:
- The Main laser cutting machine
- Water Pump – Basically a water fountain pump.
- Smoke extractor and 2 meter of 10 cm air ducting.
- Power cable, nice long USB cable, CD and USB dongle for the software.
Over the next few weeks I will do some write-ups about the laser cutter on how to run it and improve some of the features.
Below are a few initial pictures of the machines.
Interesting find. Are you planning on using GRBL and your shield with this? Any idea yet what kind of steppers this laser cutter is using internally?
Hi.
Yes… GRBL will be used. Also thinking of adding a Raspberry Pi to give it a web-interface.
The Laser used two Nema17 stepper motors. The Y-Axis has a stepper with a shaft on both sides and drives 2 belts on each side of the axis. X-axis is a single belt drive.
Could you give us name of the seller – so we can buy it also. How much did you pay for it?
Hi. I bought it of Aliexpress http://www.aliexpress.com/item/The-best-JK-K3020-220V-Laser-Engraving-Machine-laser-cutting-machine-laser-machine-co2/735652925.html
The sellers name is Shenzhen Scotle Technology Ltd. They are very easy to deal with and I have bought most of my electronics gear from them to do normal and SMD soldering.
And what laser blocking glasses do you use?
I bought these : http://www.aliexpress.com/snapshot/6060078529.html
they are pretty good quality. I must admit that CO2 lasers are pretty user friendly and nothing to be scared of with the right safety gear. 😉
One piece of advice. As with all hobbies the cost is usually in the accessories. This laser comes with the bare minimum and will need extra money for proper fume extraction and water cooling. But saying that, bigger machines have the same costs.
Any updates? I have been looking at these (specifically your version) and have trying to learn more before taking the plunge.
No real updates at this stage. The limitation of having z axis movement makes it very hard to do precision cuts cause the laser can not be focused for different materials.
I have one of your Arduino Shield boards on a router I built. I couldn’t find an out put on the board to switch the spindle on and off. How do you trigger (and pwm) the laser?
I have used the spindle enable pin to control the laser but left the PWM manual(The original machine uses it to control the laser)
Which software and which protocol do you use to interface with the cutter? Is this usable with Linux? I know that there are laser cutting machines that present themselves as a printer and can be used by just feeding them a PostScript with proper lines width and color. Is this the case with this machine?
Thanks!
yes… that is one of the pains. This machine has closed source Chinese software that is very limiting. basic shapes and engraving abilities. Options is to convert it to Arduino CNC Shield + GRBL but for that you still need to turn the Cad into g-Code that is then sent to GRBL via serial.