Low Cost Chinese Laser Engraver For Marking Wood Projects

[21incher]

My laser came Monday.  And, yes, takes longer to unbox then to assemble it!  Four nuts and two screws.  I'm cleaning up my shop because I certainly can NOT be running this in the kitchen like the 3D printer!  Might get to test it tomorrow.

I have been kicked out of the house with mine. Wife if you want to smell a campfire go camping, don't stink up my house. ;D

[Ljohnsaw]

Still haven't played with it yet.  I've been working on cleaning up my shop that is years overdue.  Got rid of some stuff, rearranged putting all my metal working stuff on one wall and woodworking in the middle.  Went so far as to setup my dust collection system that has been waiting for 12 or so years!   Laser will be on my workbench that is still covered with a foot of "stuff"!

[Ljohnsaw]

OK, finally got it up and running after a false start.  I have a little work table with a plug strip mounted on the bottom of the modesty panel and a adjustable work light plugged in there.  I plugged in my laptop and the engraver.  Hooked the laptop to the engraver and fired everything up.  The software kept saying there was an error with the laser.  Great... The steppers would not move the head and when I tired to turn on the laser to focus, the fan would just come on a tiny bit.  I recently changed out all my florescent lights with LED.  I know LEDs can interfere with electronics so I ran an extension cord from an outlet and turned off all the lights.  When I unplugged the power strip to move it to the extension cord, I noticed the engraver did not turn off.  Interesting.  Looked under the table and the power adapter was only plugged into one side of the outlet.  The USB was powering up the Adrino and allowing communications but nothing else. :  That was a good waste of 15 minutes trying to get it working!

I had a piece of thin plywood.  Looks like luan on the back and birch on the front.  So, started on the back.  Left to right is what they call "Line 2 Line" (true black fill), Dither (random dots, set at about 50%) and Vector.  Vector did not do well at this size (about 7/8" diameter).


  
These were all printed at 1500mm/minute travel and 100% power.  About 6-8 minutes/print.
Flipped over to the better side with the same settings and then doubled the size (12 minutes to print).


  
I put some wax on the big one but that just added "stain" to the grain where it should be "white".

Next up I used a very thin piece of Incense Cedar.  I printed at different speeds.  1500, 1000 and 500 mm/min.  At 500, it really burned away the softwood leaving a very weathered look.  At 500, the print took 48 minutes.  I think it would look pretty neat filled with clear epoxy.
 

 

 

 

 

[doc henderson]

looking good.  if you hit that with a fine sand paper, like 220 on an orbital sander, it will get rid of the smoke and make the letters pop.

[21incher]

Looks good. The grbl m3 mode works really good. The grbl m4 pwm mode will give you some trouble with the greyscale right now. Ortur is working on it now but can't get the key players involved till after the Chinese New Year  Celebration is over. Probably a firmware update that should allow these units to do an awesome job on photos also.  For the price these are a fun introduction into laser engraving.  I bought a  batch of 3mm Baltic birch on Amazon and can cut that with multiple passes but can't get through 1/4 no matter how many passes I take. Seems like my laser goes out of focus at about 4mm deep. I bet that would look good filled. I have been using air to blow them off before finishing because they leave a lot of soot behind.

[doc henderson]

for deep cut on thicker stock, I do drop the lens down as I go.

[21incher]

Ijohnsaw a firmware update was just posted.  Here is a link.  Ortur Laser Master and Laser Master 2 Firmware Updates 1.34 - GRBL - LightBurn Software Forum
Turns out we were only running at max 25% power and now the photos come out great.  There are instructions on that link and mine works great now. Only thing is all your speeds and power settings will need updating for the increased power.  one pass will burn about 1.5 mm in wood for me now.

[21incher]

for deep cut on thicker stock, I do drop the lens down as I go.

That's a good idea.  I may try to add a simple z axis to this unit.   These things are fun.

[Ljohnsaw]

Thanks for posting the link.  Wow, it was only operation at 25% power?  Its gonna kick some tail now!

[21incher]

ljohnsaw here is a quick video about updating it 
Update Your Ortur Laser Master Firmware To Version 1.34 - YouTube

[Ljohnsaw]

It is really hard (for me) to see the laser spot when you focus it.  *It seems* to me that it is a bar rather than a dot.  As I turn the focus ring, I see a bar that goes from long to short and then long again (turn too far).  I have a sheet of the laser certified acrylic that I'm looking through (along with my supplied safety glasses).  Can you see a dot when focusing?  However, the results prove I have it focused as the lines drawn are incredibly thin!  It is just amazing how well it performs.

On a side note, I printed an 12 hole Ocarina (sweet potato "flute") with my Ender 3Dpro using red PETG.  That is an amazing machine for the money as well.  It took 12 hours to print.  Now I just need to learn how to play it!  It has a range of one note less than 2 octaves including sharps/flats.  Just a little "airy" on the high end, but that may be just me not knowing what I'm doing.



 

[randy d]

We are considering sending for one of the Ortur 20w lasers but am wondering with the virus over there is there any chance that the laser and package could be contaminated .  Randy 

[21incher]

ljonsaw that's how these blue laser diodes look. When I focus mine I use .5% and it's slightly rectangular.  I just set it to the smallest size that I can. Its funny because at full power it looks like a dot and must concentrate in the center of the rectangle. These have very low cost optics  and I think higher cost lasers have better optics that can help correct that at a cost of $800 for just the laser. I have a Creality CR10S for 3d printing  but don't use it a lot because it takes so long to print decent looking parts.

[21incher]

We are considering sending for one of the Ortur 20w lasers but am wondering with the virus over there is there any chance that the laser and package could be contaminated .  Randy

I am waiting for 2 packages from China.  An Ortur 2 laser and a Zino 2 video drone.  Have been waiting a while because shipping shut down for 3 weeks during the Chinese New Year and will resume Feb 14. Everything I read says  the maximum possible time Corona could survive on or in a package is 2 days but it really is only hours so far.  Everything goes through customs and I am sure they have the latest CDC warnings and will make sure everything is safe. The problem I could see is airlines refusing to make flights to China if it gets any worse putting big delays on everything.  Always wash good after touching any package from offshore.  Do you think the 20 watt is worth the extra $50.00? It really doesn't have much more capability its only about 4500mw output versus 4000+mw for the 15 and pushing this technology to the limits.

[Ljohnsaw]

So here is my update to the laser engraver.  I dug out my handy dandy plexglass thermal bending device. ;)


 
There is a hole in both ends so I can thread PVC pipe through it to heat it up and then bend it however I need.  I slip a piece of the spiral BX conduit inside to help the pipe keep its shape.  Anyhow, I cut a small piece of "laser grade" plastic and formed it with the use of two PVC couplers.


 
Once it cools off:


 
I made a wheel to make it MUCH easier to focus the laser beam.  There is a tiny wheel under the heat sink that is really awkward to reach and difficult to turn.  The first one was just too big.  The second one is not much smaller but just enough that it doesn't bind with the X axis wheels.  I decided it needed vent holes to let smoke out.


 
Installing it I found a couple of problems:


 
First, even with the reduced wheel, it just barely hit the corner of the plastic the two stepper motors are mounted on.  I had to just trim off the corner.  Second, the plastic was just a little too long and scraped the table top (let alone any material to be etched!).  Just a little trimming needed.  Third, the wheel would hit the near leg before it tripped the limit switch.  I could have just moved the limit switch but didn't want to reduce my print area any.  So I cut a 1/2" thick spacer block (clear acrylic) and used longer screws.

In doing this, I noticed that my laser was loose.  I tightened the screw and the laser was tipped.  The laser has two brass spacers screwed into the heat sink.  Those are then used to mount to a slotted plastic mount on the x-axis boom.  It seems to have melted a little?  The screws were just long enough (and metric) for the one washer on the outside.  I wanted to add some to the inside to spread the load and help dissipate a little bit of the heat.  So I went though my junk collection from old hard drives and found what I needed.  If it happens again, I'll be making an aluminum plate to replace the plastic.

Now that the laser is operating at full power, what I ran at 500-750 mm/min works at 1000-1500

[21incher]

Wow, that came out nice. I was just thinking about printing a knob for  the lens adjustment  because of my fat fingers. That would be real nice if a small vacuum hose could be attached to remove fumes and dangerous vapors. I may steal your idea.

[Ljohnsaw]

I had one big concern that the extra mass would affect the movements since the head really slams around when not cutting.  Seems like it moves around 3-4000mm/min and then drops back to the burning speed of whatever I set (500-1500).

I did a test print of a picture at 1000.  Came out ok but using the GRBL, I don't see a "gray scale" setting.

If you want the STL file, I can send it or attach it here.  I did have to chuck it up in my lathe to enlarge the center hole about .01" larger to fit the lens wheel.  I used SketchUp to make it and circles (by default) are 20-sided so I had to smooth out the inside.  Makes a great grip on the outside, however.

[21incher]

I had one big concern that the extra mass would affect the movements since the head really slams around when not cutting.  Seems like it moves around 3-4000mm/min and then drops back to the burning speed of whatever I set (500-1500).

I did a test print of a picture at 1000.  Came out ok but using the GRBL, I don't see a "gray scale" setting.

If you want the STL file, I can send it or attach it here.  I did have to chuck it up in my lathe to enlarge the center hole about .01" larger to fit the lens wheel.  I used SketchUp to make it and circles (by default) are 20-sided so I had to smooth out the inside.  Makes a great grip on the outside, however.

I use the Jarvis in m4 mode. Make sure your not using m3 mode as that doesn't have pwm Dither does not use greyscale either. I like lightburn because you can change the settings and see it happen real time in the preview screen.  I quit using the laser grbl as once you adjust photo settings and go to the preview screen I couldn't figure out a way to make minor tweaks without starting over. I am playing with a orange pill bottle for the shield that's very light and tapered at the top so it won't affect airflow through the extrusion shortening the laser life. Seems to have the same filter capability as my glasses but may need an additional film layer.  You can change max speed and acceleration in the settings but can't save it. lightburnwill allow the machine settings to be in the material  library. When Ortur starts the forum I think it will be easy to get answers

[Ljohnsaw]

I use the Jarvis in m4 mode.

What is "the Jarvis"?  Is Lightburn free?

[doc henderson]

I use Jarvis for almost everything.  it is called dithering.  I think it help blend the pixels to make things look better.  recommended for specific media, like wood.  that is the majority of the engraving I do.

[Ljohnsaw]

OK, GRBL has  dithering selection available.  I'll give that a shot on the same picture I tried yesterday.

[21incher]

Dithering doesn't use grey scale.  it is dots and the spacing between them that generates the change of color. It's best for older machines that run m3 without pwm. Jarvis is good for m4 machines with pwm that can vary the s numbers for power creating a true greyscale  that doesn't rely on dot density just a line of varying intensity.  there are several other types of rendering also. Basically they are rules for creating the code file. Play with them all to see which you like best. Lightburn is $40 and I feel its worth it. They have a 30 day uncripled trial period if you want to try it. Make sure the machine is set as a grbl m4 machine to take full advantage of the pwm advantage. Laser grbl works good also but doesn't have file editing, creating, ability to change the power for each line, and the ability to save and recall material settings as lightburn.

[21incher]

Well finally received the large Ortur and it's great for larger areas. They can take a long time when you have to babysit it. This one is basically a kit.


 

 
Here is a video about it
Ortur Laser Master 2 400mm x 430mm 15 Watt Laser Engraver From Gearbest - YouTube



 Here is my first project with it. A poem that my wife wrote years ago after a nesting swamp for geese was filled in to make room for a commercial building. The frame is catalpa from a tree that I took down 25 years ago that the geese would bring the babies up the road to feed under. The center of the tree rotted out and it's great looking wood .

[21incher]

Anyone else heading to the woodworking show in Syracuse NY next weekend?

[Ljohnsaw]

Wow, another first class video review.  Nice little perk you got there from reviewing the first burner!  Maybe I should start making video reviews for some free tools!  Nah, no way I could come close to your thoroughness and quality.

When you were tightening up the belts on each side of the gantry I was concerned about it not lining up with the toothed pulleys and causing it to rack/bind.  Nice that you showed how they thought about that and provided an adjustment.  That little micro switch on the circuit board - I know the one you mean, same on the little burner.  It just doesn't make a click at all.  I had to deal with it when I modded my burner.  

Nice poem but sad for the geese. :-\