![]() The exhaust duct is routed 3 inches into the cutting area. The cutting bed looks like a mixture of an afterthought and parts someone found in the spares bin. Low cooling water flow alarm? Nope, better keep an eye on that yourself. Overheat protection for the tube is your problem. Make no mistake, these are not “quality” machines. The K40 mechanics haven’t changed very much, but the electronics have been updated to USB with modern stepper drivers. Earlier versions came with Moshidraw software and a parallel interface. The cutting compartment is on the left and the electronics are on the right. They all look about the same though: A blue sheet metal box with the laser tube mounted along the back. There are numerous manufacturers and there have been many versions over the years. The most popular is the smallest – a 40-watt model, dubbed the K40. Currently, there are several low-cost laser models available in various power levels. China got involved, and suddenly there were cheap lasers on the market. Over the last decade or so things have changed. A few companies made a go with the Epilog and did quite well – notably Adafruit used to offer laptop laser engraving services. The closest you could get to a hobbyist laser was Epilog laser, which would still cost somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000 for a small laser system. Much like 3D printers, they were originally impossibly expensive for someone working at home. Laser cutting and engraving machines have been around for decades. Yes, it sounds like a used car dealership ad, but how far is it from the truth? Read on to find out! Just head on down to Al’s Laser Emporium and pick one up. It’s the next step needed to make laser cutting/engraving get out of the niche world and into mass market capability.Why spend thousands on a laser cutter/engraver when you can spend as little as $350 shipped to your door? Sure it’s not as nice as those fancy domestic machines, but the plucky K40 is the little laser that can. Dan’s going to do for lasers what HP did for printing The GF lets us focus on design and not need to be hardware/software geeks. The software for these is a bad English translation of rudimentary Chinese functionality that has to be matched with specific hardware. ![]() This is one of the biggest reasons I’m looking forward to the GF. If those two settings aren’t correct you’re going to get weird things happening. In the serial number field (bottom left) enter the serial number from the controller board under the right side panel of the machine. In the machine field (top box) make sure you pick the entry with “-M2” in it. In LaserDRW or CorelLaser hit the config or machine setup/preferences. Your speed issue is likely a config problem. Here’s a link on using Corel to do both cutting & engraving - you’ll use layers and send them one at a time. That’s also where you set things like power, starting position, speed, etc.ĬorelLaser is useful if you want to manipulate your design and then you hit the icon to send it to the laser & you’ll get the same pop-up options. The pop-up asks for Engrave or Cut (it can’t do both at once) and hit the “Starting” button. Then I open it up in LaserDRW and send it over. I do my work in AI or Inkscape and save as/export as either a BMP or DXF file if it’s something I may use on other lasers (I use the K40 for smaller stuff or for scaled down versions of something as I test designs). Also, have you found any other software that will work that is easier/more user friendly?
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