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weeb

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Weeb, well, that is a tough call. even with best outcome shipping back and forth will sure take time. Yes, nowadays when we buy new stuff we learned to expect things to be scratch free and in good working order. Those chinese guys however seem to be very... well , lets call it optimistic (see below) . Someone sure needs to teach them the cost behind sending out knowingly bad stuff, but you probably don't want to be the one - consider whether all this headache and expense with is worth it for you as i'm sure you want to start making parts already.

 

as i said earlier your machine looks serviceable to me. if the power supply and tube are functioning i would not bother sending it back since there is no guarantee you will get one in better shape. calibration (once you get the DSP) and optic path alignment you will have to learn to do anyways.

 

 

 

 

absolutely. my test pattern is a 40mm square, i'm measuring the square itself and the inside cut-out with goal of (dim_Inner+dim_Outer)/2 = 40. i'm quite confident i will reach the right numbers. its the out of square that worries me a bit as there is no simple way to put any of the angles i have against the guides. plan to disconnect the Y shaft coupler, adjust by tiny increments and then measure the made part with granite surface plate and gauge blocks.

 

 

with that there is more fun stuff from optymistic china tech support.

per their request I emailed them this tube video. after seeing it the tech person is under impression that the issue is with unaligned light path. normally i would laugh

 

ADD:

Yey!!! my situation was surprisingly resolved by auto tech. after reading my overnight exchange with the Chinese supplier John sent out his technitian Taylor who dropped off new tube at my place. so now i'm cutting again :D

well at least for now.

 

Lol, that video was scarey m8. Glad you got some customer support from the tech guy. I sent mine back today to be replaced, cost £50.06 to ship cos they wanted it by Royal Mail tracked Parcelforce. I have until the 12th of March to hear back from them or I am invoking the money back guarantee and I will take it from there. :)

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Well that went just as I thought it would. Got the 55 inch, 4k, 3d, quad core smart television set up in the living room (wireless access and firewall rules were a bitch to set up), just to check it was working OK. Its awesome, so much so it's staying where it is and gonna have to buy another one for the flight sim. I will have to use my 37 inch until I can find a similar offer.

Wallet has taken a serious shafting this month, with the laser and the new pc for DCS. I am going to be eating grass or hay for the rest of the month. :doh:

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Here is a heads up: if you buy a laser off them, just be careful. I sent mine back and postal costs were over £50.00, instead of sending me a replacement they have gone dark, not answering emails etc, phone calls etc. (Industry-Village). I have brought ebay into the mix, so atm, I am 300 bricks down on the laser and another 50+ bricks down on the return postage

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I hope you get it sorted out mate, I hate piss poor service, just because its "cheap" its not bloody disposable, thats still a hefty wedge.

 

You shouldnt be able to waiver UK trading standards because you are a Chinese supplier through EBAY. So EBAY should be responsible.

 

Bahhh, I hope you get a good outcome.

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I hope you get it sorted out mate, I hate piss poor service, just because its "cheap" its not bloody disposable, thats still a hefty wedge.

 

You shouldnt be able to waiver UK trading standards because you are a Chinese supplier through EBAY. So EBAY should be responsible.

 

Bahhh, I hope you get a good outcome.

 

Finally got an email from them, does anyone know a courier that doesn't work weekends. I think this is going to end badly.

 

 

 

 

New message from: industry-village (7860Green Star)

Dear friend,

Thanks so much for your email.

We will arrange the new machine for you on Monday, cos the weekend, our courier company do not work on weekend.

Thanks so much for your understanding and patience.

Best reagrds

 

I'm like what the fcuk :doh:

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  • 2 weeks later...
So how is the story with the seller progresses Weeb?

 

 

"Milling" recesses for mounting nuts in 6mm acryl sheet with laser , it actually worked quite well. While finish is poor it is not critical in this particular instance (the smooth white behind is a sheet of lasermark)

 

20150325_080347-vi.jpg

 

That looks really good for a first attempt bro, well done.

 

My saga continues: Replacement arrived out of the blue yesterday, everything physical appeared ok with the exception of the on/off laser switch being broken. Easy sorted, ordered 6 from China, I can use the other 5 nps. USB stick was there as was a software cd containing:

 

 

1. The latest CDR software Windows 7

2.The latest Chinese easy engraving software Windows XP

3. Coreldraw 12 - English.rar

4. K40 installation instructions

 

There is No video for setting it up.

 

Unfortunately there is a circular scratch round the written area of the cd making it unusable.

 

I Emailed them back and they sent me a link to some software but there are no instructions anywhere how to install it and no link for CorelDraw 12.

 

Do you have the same laser by any chance? If so could you email me any software setup instructions. I'm just frustrated, I ordered and paid for this on the 23rd of February and I'm still not up and running yet.

 

I suspect I will have to go toe-to-toe with them to get my £15.00 discount for my troubles and my postage cost of £50.00+. I'll keep you guys in the loop.

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Setting hardware is not very hard: get the water hoses, pump connected and in bucket of water , exhaust fan ducted outside. Verify power output from your tube, then Verify beam alignment and adjust as needed.

 

As for software it took me one evening of frustration to realize I will not be working with the stock "Moshi" solution (changed over to thunderlaser DSP) so I can't help with that. not sure if there was any change with stock electronic package since 2 years ago, but back then the requirement was nothing newer the winXP for OS . I never managed to get Corel plugin to work as IIRC it also required some old version of it as well. Moshi software should be enough to produce couple parts to verify squareness however.

Anton.

 

My pit build thread .

Simple and cheap UFC project

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  • 2 weeks later...

Right here we go:

 

I live in a bought flat without a garage so I have no option but to make this work and not poison me or the neighbours. The supplied 120 mm fan is nothing short of a joke. Cut away, it's looks like this. Totally inefficient 2.5m3 per minute. Pulling through a pillar box hole 17.78cm x 5.08cm.

 

fan%20duct.jpg

 

Whilst waiting for my X7 conversion kit coming from the States, I got a hydroponics fan, same wattage, but 150mm fan shifts 300m3 per hour instead of 150m3.

 

fan%20cropped.jpg

 

A simple ducting convertor:

 

air%20intake.jpg

 

When I was diving in my career, our masks used positive pressure to keep water out at depth so It got me thinking, stick another of the fans on the front pushing and the rear one pulling, when I have sealed up the cutting chamber, it only has one way to go, so atm, cutting plastic fan duct to make it fit exactly over the pillar box. I think it should work, but will only know when I fire it up. Am I mad or is this normal behaviour in the flight sim cockpit building community. :)


Edited by weeb

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When I was diving in my career, our masks used positive pressure to keep water out at depth so It got me thinking, stick another of the fans on the front pushing and the rear one pulling, when I have sealed up the cutting chamber, it only has one way to go, so atm, cutting plastic fan duct to make it fit exactly over the pillar box. I think it should work, but will only know when I fire it up. Am I mad or is this normal behaviour in the flight sim cockpit building community. :)

 

No need to push any air in. With vent going the machine compartment will be under lower pressure and there will be plenty of air going in through all the cracks and crevices. That low pressure inside will prevent any vapor to escape.

 

As far as fan.

300m3/h is 5m3 per min, which translates to 175CFM. Totally unacceptable, and thats before any flow restrictions are factored in (the stock exhaust slot is very restricting). I tried several solutions and I don't see how anything below 600cfm (17m3/min) can be sufficient. If you going to filter the exhaust (and I think you should to insure neighbors don't conplain.) You will want even more then that.

 

ADD:

Post 18 in this thread.on picture, the white column to the right of the machine is my air scrubbing solution. Contains paper prefilter stage followed by 14x23" box with 6" inch high carbon granules pile through which the air is drawn. The blower fan is variable 5 speed whole house HVAC unit (1200~1500cfm before restrictions) , after trying several speeds I stuck it on the highest one. Still I would give it some time after laser job is finished to evacuate the dirty air before I open the lid.

 

Can't have to much cfm


Edited by agrasyuk

Anton.

 

My pit build thread .

Simple and cheap UFC project

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Thanks Anton for your continued input.

 

I have followed your thread constantly but unfortunately I think your solution is brilliant but I can't put that into my flat here. Building restrictions etc. SO I am trying to work with the best I can. Hear me out for a second:

 

I intend to get rid of the duck-billed platypus vent and leave just the pillar-box hole. I will tig weld up the cutting compartment leaving it airtight, including the stupid hole in the side where it vents to the motherboard. I have no idea why its even there as the power-supply has a fan.

 

So I I force feed air into the compartment, it has only one way to go out. Like a supercharger venturi effect. I don't know how efficient it will be until I try it. I am looking at a cost effective way to use a chinese laser in an enclosed area without killing myself or my neighbors. I will keep you updated m8. :thumbup:

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Noise will not be a problem with inductive motors, they are very quiet. As far as size it can be made much much more compact .how about something that looks like AC window unit, or hanging on outside wall altogether?

 

Then there are indoors recirculating filtering solutions for those that don't want to loose conditioned air and heat/cool the street . you will need something to put your machinw on. It might as well be a filtering cabinet. again more powerful fan will be needed to suck the air through the filtering media.

 

ADD:

 

I intend to get rid of the duck-billed platypus vent and leave just the pillar-box hole. I will tig weld up the cutting compartment leaving it airtight, including the stupid hole in the side where it vents to the motherboard. I have no idea why its even there as the power-supply has a fan.

 

Removing the flat intake is good idea. But realistically that box cannot be made completely airtight with no amount of welding- you need to be able to open the lid. And If you keep it under low pressure/sucktion inside then there is no need at all. For that same reason the fan shoud be as close to final exhaust as possible - any leak ( those wre near unavoidable) will not result into contaminated air leaking into room. Imagine how clunky opening the lid with all the rubberized sealing gaskets and compression latches will be.

 

If your goal is to weld and put lots of effort into improving that end of the line machine then by all means. if your goal is to safely remove the gasses while making sure the physical possibility of leak stays at 0 then single more powerfull fan and low pressure system is your solution.

 

BTW , it's not neseserily more money. Check with your local HVAC place if you can buy a motor out of old unit they about to junk.


Edited by agrasyuk

Anton.

 

My pit build thread .

Simple and cheap UFC project

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  • 3 months later...

Right here we go, I was asked to do this so I will.

 

The cheap Chinese 40w laser:

 

New%20Laser.jpg[/url]

 

I looked at it and thought it was wired by Stevie Wonder So I thought lets rip it back to basics. Honestly I thought WTF.

So I ripped off the helix wire (that thing that covers a multitude of things)

 

earth%20problem.jpg

 

I was left with this, is the PSU PWM so that it sends a low signal to the laser to make it fire, I searched high and low and never got an answer, there are so many Chinese PSU's around but majority of them that are ATX use PWM, it's a cheap way of getting around the on/off 5v. (Please correct me if you think I'm wrong)

 

So I started ripping the wires out. Quick shot of the avometer gave me the following:

 

LASER%20OLD.jpg

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So this is where it goes tits up. The Chinese do not use the colour coding on wires like we do. They had 2 red wires to the switch. One of them has to be live, one has to be neutral, they had red to both.

 

2%20reds_1.jpg

 

This is power on, 110/240v depends where you are,trust me it only gets worse, but if I can help someone I will. Off to bed parte deux tomorrow

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry about the delay, been busy with aluminium, redoing the side consoles and front console. Idea with the laser was to strip all the wiring out and just build it my way in logical steps. Hopefully it will make it easier for new guys buying chinese lasers.

They are great, all the parts are there, just looks like they build them with the lights out.

 

The moshi board was just shite, it also controlled the stepper motors for the x and y axis. Hang on will take a pic. In a perfect world no probs, factory set-up, would work, the 50.3mm focal lens on mine was set at 47mm hence I went for the z table so i could adjust it.

 

In the uk the power supply is 240v ac so obviously we need a step down as the board, stepper motors and chip use 24v ac and the digital readout requires 5v ac as does the lcd lights and laser pointer. (these are adidtional, my choice not everyones.)

 

First thing was to rip the wires out and put in the 24v ac supply.

 

wiring%20sorted.jpg

 

and feed the control board.

 

Then it was make the 24v buses and the 5v buses.

 

This was the 24v bus for the x and y. I know the wires look kinda scary but it's logical steps.

 

DSC00094.jpg

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This was the z table stepper motor, (motion table up and down)

 

wiring_1.jpg

 

The it was onto the 5v bus, I used a digital buck transformer that I used to vary the voltage on this and fed the 5v lcd with outputs available to lcd lights and laser pointers, (5V)

 

5v bus below.

5v%20bus%20and%20control%20box.jpg

 

 

I will tidy this up, just trying to get stuff down.

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Here's the Moshi Board.

 

moshi.jpg

 

This board ran everything on a 2014 Chinese Laser. I am only learning electronics as I go, but I honestly studied that little board and tried to make sense of how it worked. It's not an A-B it's an A-A, that board ran laser power through a potentiometer, pwm to fire the laser, test fire, it controlled the x and y axis,it controlled the limit switches, (they were hit or miss by the way) but it made a totally functional laser. I can't get my head around why it was able to do what it did. It had hardwired moshidraw, horrible software imho, hence I spent $750 upgrading it to the way I wanted. Ian, Anton, John, we try and make a usb connected arduino do certain things, but can anything be learned from that board. Can we not make steppers for gauges simpler. We must have done it already as the Chinese merely copy ours.

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For all intents and purposes that board is a USB connected arduino. It has a USB driver chip, a micro controller and two stepper driver chips. Think of it as an arduino + stepper shield all on one board. The micro controller takes input from the USB interface and translates it into a set of pulses going to the stepper drivers at the right timing along with a set of pulses to fire the laser.

 

I run stepper motor based gauges on the same principle. I hook up pins of an arduino to a stepper driver IC. People usually use easy stepper or pololu compatible stepper daughterboards as they simplify some things in the circuit design and allow them to be replaced.

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Thanks Gadroc, I forgot to bring you into this, I totally apologise. Basically you started this whole connectivity thing and I for one am totally appreciative. I really struggle to understand this board. I am such a noob to pcb's, I have so much to learn, I thought if it can do this! I can do that! I went total x7 conversion for the laser, job done, but the more I looked at that board the more it intrigued me.

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Nice weeb. Looks like you are almost ready to start cutting again :thumbup:

 

Cheers

Hans

 

Hi Hans my friend

 

Yeah, been cutting, just trying to learn the power, depth and focal lens. I will put some pics together of my fails and my triumphs. The guy that said "you can't engrave a glass mirror with a 40w laser" I'm like "wrong m8". I Can show you!

 

Anyway, I am trying 0.6mm, 1.0mm, 1.5mm, 2.0mm and 3mm acrylic, depth and kitch until I understand what it will look like on a panel. Anton had explained exploding text in autocad so I am playing around with that.

 

Speak soon

 

Gordy

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No point in starting a new thread so I will incorporate the pit build with this. I took Dimebugs plans and tried to make them skeletal, honestly these two consoles took ages to build as they were hand cut/sized/angled etc. I used: I think it was pythagoras who stated, "if you have 3 mounting points you can take away a straight line without losing structural intregity" so I built them modular so that if anything gets in the way I can either move it or remove it. I'm building the TM warthog into left console like a cassette, so it can slide in and out. I mean it's not a replica, but now I have somewhere to put my laser work onto.

 

From side oblique

 

consoles%20alu.jpg

 

From Front, please excuse the mess of my cubby-hole (cleaners day-off :) )

consoles%20front%20on.jpg


Edited by weeb

Windows 7 64 Home Premium, i5 3570K (3.4 @ 4.4GHz), Asus P8Z77-V LX, 16GB dual channel 1600 ram, EVGA Nvidia GTX980ti, 240 GB OCZ SSD, 3 TB Raptor, Thrustmaster Warthog Hotas and Throttle, Saitek Pro Combat Rudder pedals.

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Before anyone asks, the risers on top of the consoles are not for mounting my gauges/switches. They are merely place holders for the dzus rails. :)

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Right I went through so many options about making the TM throttles cassette like, you all know when something goes wrong, ie even a lcd light, you need to get the faulty part out so you have to dismantle your whole console to sort a wire. I spent 2 nights going through as many a10 cockpits as I could find and using pixel ruler I kinda found what I needed. Dimebug did an awesome job and total respect to the weeman. looking at angles:

 

throttle%20body.jpg

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Holy crap Gordy...I had no idea you were that far ahead. Especially with a bout in the hospital.

 

Looks great my friend.

 

John

Regards

John W

aka WarHog.

 

My Cockpit Build Pictures...



John Wall

 

My Arduino Sketches ... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Dc0Wd9C5l3uY-cPj1iQD3iAEHY6EuHg?usp=sharing

 

 

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