Hey folks! hopefully, you’ve already seen our new product announcement!
Spoiler alert: It’s a laser!
All of the laser facts are in that link. I figured you all might want to see a little bit of the background of how we got here.
When we first got the idea to do a laser I got one and bolted it up to my machine. After doing a few days of test cuts I was hooked. I was lasering everything I could get my hands on.
Turns out you CAN laser a tortilla. I don’t recommend it though!
Initially, I started with a fixed laser mount. What I didn’t like about the setup that I had was that the laser prevented me from having a bit in the spindle. I set about to come up with a better way:
I grabbed some old linear bearings that I had around, 3D printed a base plate and grabbed some bungee cords to make the first version of a retractable laser. It was pretty low budget but it proved out the idea: Being able to retract the laser was awesome. I loved being able to switch between spindle and laser work. This is the final result of the deployment system:
Then came the challenge of making the electronics a little easier to setup. Don’t laugh but this was my first crack at making a “control box”
This was the beginning of the integrated control box idea. The idea was essentially to combine all of the disparate things you need for a laser into one box to make it easier to set up. As you can see there’s wiring, pneumatics and the laser control box. For the keen-eyed: You may notice some old trailer wiring, two random power supplies and some airline that I’m pretty sure is from a refrigerator ice maker.
From here the real engineers at Avid CNC took this idea and made it a reality. They spent months and months toiling over every detail. They tested tolerances, made a bunch of prototypes, sweated each little detail in the machining of the billet aluminum deployment plates, and tested all kinds of air cylinders. We even threw several control boxes from great heights to test their shipping durability. They also spent a LOT of time thinking through how the software for Mach 4 will handle all of this.
And this is just the “cool” engineering that they got to do. Never mind building BOMs, tracking down suppliers, etc. Here’s the resulting control box:
It’s hard to truly articulate how much work has gone into this. I’m super proud to get to work with these folks and to have had a small role in helping bring this laser system out. This absolutely wouldn’t have been possible without so many of our team working so hard to make this a reality. From the hardware to the software, I believe that what we’ve built is the most well-thought-out laser add-on available.
I figured you all would enjoy a little look behind the scenes here. If anyone has any questions I’d be happy to answer.
? WIll it fit around the S30C with the tramming mount?