I’ve been making yet more improvements to my laser. Mainly because there are so many things that can be improved upon. This time it’s been mostly about safety. Probably wise after I managed to burn a hole in the back of my hand last week.
Operating the laser without the water pump running is a quick way to overheat the tube and kill it. As this is just plugged in separately it is hey easy to forget. And it uses up another valuable socket. I added two outlets to the back of the machine that are connected to the main power switch. If the laser is on then the water is on. Ditto the power for the exhaust fan – not as essential but might as well do that to. I was going to use a standard UK kettle style power outlet but as the supplied fan and pump have Chinese plugs and they’re the same as Us ones I just used US sockets from Maplin.
Whilst doing this I checked out the wiring and traced where the main be power was going. The colour scheme used was black for neutral (or sometimes live) and red for live (or sometimes neutral). Thin yellow wire for earth of course. The fan had these three wrong way round. And a connector strip mixed them up anyway. Astounding!
The final thing was a simple microswitch in series with the laser on switch the cuts the beam if the lid is open.
Next will be a water flow sensor in case the pump is unplugged or the tubing is blocked. Then a water temperature sensor. I could add an emergency stop and maybe even circuitry that kills the laser if the head isn’t moving. That should prevent it burning a hole if I forget to turn it off at the end of the gcode.
0xFRED 