Home and desktop machines as lasers, 3D printers and other CNC are more avalible for everyone nowadays, this introduces a lot of modifications and bits and pieces to extend or make your laser better.
Some voices has been raised about using 3D printed parts inside a laser, heat and PLA/ABS plastic is usually not a good combination.
But in the lasers there is really no danger about it. You can use parts close to the beam or other parts without any problem.
If you get problems…
– Parts close to the beam melts, well, your beam hits the part. Move it
– Parts close to the mirror melts, well, your mirrors are dirty, energy is lost as heat. Clean your mirrors.
– Parts close to the lens melts, well, your lens is dirty, energy lost to heat. Clean your lens.
As you can see, the only way a 3D printed part can be affected by our laser machines is direct or very very close contact with the beam itself. Be careful when aligning the parts used closed to beam path.
There are a few gantry upgrades for printing out there, my question is, would a coreXY or HBot gantry not be easier to align and keep in alignment inside the box? after months i still don’t have my k40 aligned and spent hours on end fiddling and tweaking
I have tested with similar stuff, but its getting very complicated quick.
Its probably easier to align the one you have now than change it to another. But if the new solution gives you bigger surface it might be a good upgrade.
What issues do you have now with the gantry?
Mainly the alignment itself, the changes go in such extremes or no change at all, i had it aligned for a while but as soon as upgrades came, haven’t gotten it to work, after taking the Laser head carriage down, even the Standoffs are crooked, the threads are cut at different angles in the lower carriage, the “hidden” pulley mounted on an angled bit of metal is super wonky. That is what is triggering me to want to use V-Slot extrusions and standard hardware which is tested and known, looking into the replicantFX Build for now, also have multiple 3d printer boards from printer modifications that could be flashed with LaserGrbl or Marlin which has evolved alot towards Laser support in recent iterations.