Beeing Snoopy, I was able to turn my K8400 into a laser cutter, but 1st of all:
Laser light can be very dangerous for your eyes, so NEVER look at the laser without
the goggles, even though you are curios.
Attention: Plan another 7805 Voltage regulator to convert 15V to 5V for the laser ;)
This is what you need
Build it
- install a tape to protect the laser lens
- Install an Additional Wire from the Printer Power Supply(Minus Port) up to the Hotend board
- Print the Part, install the Laser and Mount it with screw and Nut.
- Glue the toggle switch and jump header on either side of the plastic part
- Implement the laser side schematic
- Unmount the Hotend such you can access the bottom of the board and solder 2 cables to the 2 rightmost pins of the long connector. Black(rightmost)=Minus, White=Plus. This is FAN supply, mount the hotend again
- Mount the Laser on the 2nd's extruder place with the 2 M3x10 screws
- Implement the rest of the schematic
Operating it:
The Jumper is used to generally switch on/off the laser. Switch it off after laser cutting always
The Toggle switch is used to test-drive the laser. If its not pressed, its operated by the program.
Calibrate it
- Wear Glasses
- Remove the tape from the laser
- move Z=100mm on the printer
- Put Paper onto the print bed
- Use one hand to test-drive the printer while the other hand adjusts the focus such as
the laser can acutally cut the paper
Use it
- Write special style gcode programs(sample rect.gcode attached)
- Wear Glasses
- Enable Laser with Jumper
- Print the File
- Disable Laser
The attached image shows the result of the program. its a 30x30 square.
Safe you Eyes!