I was asked by some people tonight to post up the build log of the upgrades I’m going to be performing to my 40 watt K40 chinese laser cutter. This unit can be purchased for around $500 approx from ebay. This post is a placeholder for the conversion and upgrade project of my 40 watt K40 Chinese laser cutter from Moshidraw hardware to Ramps 1.4 hardware.
I’ve been working on the firmware in C and Python recently based on Marlin to allow the hardware to provide raster drawing code. This allows you to burn a picture into your material where each pixel of the burn can be at a unique intensity of burning power.
This build log will cover the following topics once I write it all during the process or the build
- Upgrading Moshidraw Mainboard to Ramps 1.4 Mainboard
- Protecting your focusing lens
- Aligning your mirrors
- How to raster burn an image on your material
- Making your laser electrically safe - interlocks and wiring
- Adding air assist to improve your cuts and burns
- Adding an grid Z bed for cleaner cuts.
- Keeping your laser tube cool
- How to design gcode to drive your laser cutter - Vector cuts
Please stand by for more updates.