this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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3DPrinting

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Designed and printed an air assist nozzle for my laser cutter. (media.kbin.social)
submitted 10 months ago by wjrii@kbin.social to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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[–] BadMonkeyEdd@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Be careful with it.

I have an Elegoo Phecda 10W which at the time you couldn't get the air assist for. So I designed my own air assist (similar to yours).

A test print caught fire (card), and this melted the air assist nozzle (PETG). This, in turn, covered the lens with PETG. While trying to clean it, I broke the glass protection. I now have a new air assist nozzle with an in built 20mm x 20mm glass slide cover to protect the laser. Not ideal, but Elegoo don't have spares yet.

happy cutting though!

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

Good info. I'll need to make sure I keep an eye on it. Safety wise, I have a decent fire extinguisher nearby, a camera pointed at the laser, and never leave it unattended for more than a few minutes. Haven't had any flareups in a while, but I know it can happen if the motors stop and the laser doesn't. As for damaging the module, not that I want to, but there might be worse things in the world than needing to replace the 5-watt laser.

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Most of the Air Assist nozzles for the Comgrow Z1 are specifically for the 10w focal length, not my little 5w, so I stole some concepts but designed my own. Press fit some magnets and hooked it up to an Aquarium air pump.

3D model
https://ibb.co/yPCZHdh

Pulled off the laser for a better angle
https://ibb.co/4sHL1bC

Printed on my Voxelab Aquila in PLA. Designed in my 20-Euro copy of BeckerCAD 14 3D Pro (aka Caddy++ Basic, which they at least attempt to sell for 800 EUR), because I'm a cheap weirdo who wants a clear commercial-use license to maybe sell something someday, but FreeCAD hates joy.

I gotta say though, as niche as BeckerCAD is, the vendor (who seems to have bought the bankrupt husk of a German company that made a 2D CAD package in the 90s) was very quick to send me an (unevenly translated) English manual and sent my question about crashes straight to the Caddy++ Support dude, whose first idea fixed my problem. Not bad for 22 bucks.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

FreeCAD hates joy.

I don't get it. FreeCAD does not have any kind of licensing restriction on commercial use. Is there something I'm missing?

The models and other files produced with FreeCAD are not subject to any license stated above, nor bound to any kind of restriction or ownership. Your files are truly yours. You can set the owner of the file and specify your own license terms for the files you produce inside FreeCAD, via menu File → Project Information.

Or do you just not like how the program itself or interface works (which is perfectly valid)?

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I'm mostly joking about the interface. FreeCAD is the obvious solution for someone who wants no-restrictions on usable 3D CAD software. It's one of the most impressive FLOSS projects out there, bar none. It's awesome.

It's also deeply committed to parametric principles, and I think the code to go the "final mile" to make an intuitive interface that doesn't violate that paradigm is one of the more jealously guarded parts of the commercial packages. I've successfully made a few parts in FreeCAD, but it's always felt like pulling teeth, turning my hobby into work.

I'm just an oddly tech-leaning English major with fairly simple needs, so the direct modelers and the hybrids where maybe the individual 2D sketches are parametric but the 3D model definitely is not, they still work for me.

[–] callcc@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Why was your copy of BeckerCAD only 20€? It's 140€ now it seems :(.

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I got it here. It’s still showing as on sale for me. Oddly, only the top “3D Pro” version was on sale.

If you can’t get the sale, don’t buy it. At 20eur , it’s an interesting experiment. At full price, just get Alibre Atom if you want something with a perpetual license.

[–] callcc@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Welp, guess I'll stay with FreeCAD. Not too bad either.

[–] charmed_electron@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sweet! I need one of those too. Do these use vacuum or blow air?

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

They blow air super close to the laser to get rid of smoke and leave you with better cuts, at least slightly, and in some cases significantly. If you have an enclosure, you’d also have a smoke/fume extractor similar to what you might use to print ABS.

[–] eldoom@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

CNC laser operator here.

I don't know about these lower power lasers so I may be wrong. With the lasers I've used (200-2000W), the air/oxygen is used to create a superheated jacket of gas around the laser which allows it to cut a nice smooth edge. It also has the added benefit of blowing away the slag/dross that's created.

When we cut more temperature sensitive materials like aluminum and stainless we use nitrogen, which cools the material. This creates a pretty jagged deal with the dross that you gotta sand off but it prevents blowouts and really creates a nice edge if you get the pressure dialed in just right.

[–] wjrii@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

You could well be right, and I don't doubt for a second that you know your stuff. What I've heard more often on the low powered diodes is that it just prevents the smoke from blocking the laser's wattage, which is already in short supply, and keeps it from fouling the optics.

Frankly, so far the whole thing only works about as well as the big-ass oscillating fan I had blasting at the laser and workpiece, but it's much nicer to live with, especially now that winter is here.

[–] eldoom@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Oh yeah that's a pretty solid benefit right there. I swear the oddest things will block them from cutting. I didn't even consider the smoke diffusing the beam.

Like the most powerful laser I've used won't cut through a paper sticker or even the residue but it'll cut through .75" steel like it's nothing.

The optics is a big deal too. On the big ones everything is pretty reasonably sized and they're still a pain to clean. I can't imagine what it's like with those tiny ones. Also, those larger lasers lenses are really commonly coated in thorium and a speck gets on there it's going to superheat and vaporize a lot of the lense. Pretty damn dangerous to be around lol!