Controlling Material Left In The Center Of Small Holes

How does one find these things? My ‘training’ with Estlcam so far is pretty much trying things and seeing if it does what I thought it would do. Good thing there’s foam and some relatively cheap material. :grin:

I’ll see if I can answer all your questions.

As far as the size. My laser engraver is 65cm x 50cm. If I do the math right, that’s more than enough to meet the needs of your 17"x17" CNC size.

My engraver did not come with a laser that is powerful enough to burn through 3mm plywood. My engraver came with a 3.5w laser. I found you really want a laser closer to 7w. I ended up purchasing a NEJE “30w” laser (7.5w actual) and adding it to the engraver. I had two drill an extra hole to make it work and extend some of the wiring on the new laser so it’ll reach the gantry.

Neje does sell an engraver with the 30w laser on it. Their engraver platform is slightly smaller than mine, but the one axis would almost reach your 17" requirement

https://www.amazon.com/NEJE-Engraver-Machine-Wireless-Engraving/dp/B08N1KT4VS/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=neje&qid=1610994974&sr=8-4

I’m not sure how ESTLcam would fit in to the laser engraver. I started using lightburn for creating my laser files and haven’t gone back to anything else since. Lightburn has the ability to control grbl controllers directly, or you can do like I did and put cnc.js onto a raspberry pi for remote control.

I’m by no means an expert when it comes to lasers. I do get good enough results for what I want to do with it.

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Thanks much for the input! I hope I didn’t appear unappreciative of your first post here, it’s just like most I’m looking for the most bang for the buck and have to say I’m pretty pleased with the MPCNC. I’m just probably a bit cautious about lasers as at least to me the danger level seems higher than with mechanical things I’m more comfortable with.

To get started I’d likely want to cut material and probably etch some things. Am I off base to think that could mostly be done in Inkscape or another 2D CAD program and the CAM done with Estlcam? I’m a little confused with where grbl fits in, is it CAD? CAM? firmware? This can be as confusing as going to the candy store with a silver quarter in your pocket and trying to decide what to do with it. And I’m still a bit in the dark with things like “you can do like I did and put cnc.js onto a raspberry pi for remote control” but am certainly willing to learn, beats watching the news. :scream:

Support is also a concern, I know it’s here and well done for the MPCNC so the temptation is buying an American made laser and having ready support all around. I’ve been looking at the L-Cheapo site, maybe a little deeper than I was planning to go but if the numbers are close between an entire machine and adding a laser to the MPCNC, a possibility. I’d also like to fool with some furniture ideas so might well lean towards an LR2 for another machine if I can make room somewhere in the garage.

This is all very preliminary on my part, just trying to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly of different possibilities. If nothing else it’ll keep me away from golf courses. :+1:

I love it… absolutely better to tour the warren than watch news these days lol!

I hear you on wanting to keep the mpcnc size for the laser. I have also done some research in to the same idea, and a lot of folks suggest that larger machines often have too much planar error for lasers to work well across the whole work area. That said, there are modern features like bed leveling that may fix those issues, but I haven’t looked into bed leveling beyond what I do with my printer.

Also, I have a buddy (the guy who got me in to mpcnc… he tends to be right about these kind of things) who is adamant when he says laser diodes are a waste if I want to cut stuff like 3mm ply. He says even the powerful ones pretty much only do “burn art” and can barely cut thin materials. He also advised that if I am really interested in making rc aircraft kits out of stuff like 3-6mm ply or balsa, that I would have to step up to at least a CO2 laser. When I looked into those… yeah that would full on require a special machine as I couldn’t imagine ghetto rigging the mirrors and such on my mpcnc. I would totally be down to build a co2 laser rig to go along side my mpcnc, but right now I’m still having fun in the router rabbit hole (and garage starage has waned to non-existence since adding the cnc).

I’m curious how you get along on this. It seems there hasn’t been much discussion about really cutting stuff with laser on an mpcnc. I really do hope a cheap 7W output diode from like amazon could cut say 1/8ply decently. Also my wife wants me to get one anyways to do burn art lol… so either way I will likely join you on the big laser rig thing soon.

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Exactly why I thought I’d take enough time to ask questions. I was looking at L-Cheapo lasers, in their favor is made in the US and lifetime warranty, I just reviewed their site again and though it says it’ll cut wood, no mention of thickness. Guess who’s gonna get an Email from me? :grinning:

I’m in no rush, just figured I’d line up some reading material and try to gain some understanding of what I’m looking at. So much more difficult than being in the candy store where I knew if it had chocolate it was likely good, or would do 'til something better came along. :roll_eyes:

Not at all. That was more of a warning from me to you that I might miss something you asked :slight_smile:

Regarding of the capabilities of the 7w laser… I’d say 1/8" or 3mm plywood is about the thickest it will do for plywood. It can go thicker on regular wood. It has more to do with the layers of glue than cutting through the wood.

CO2 laser are definitely more capable for both thicker cuts as well as different materials. Diode lasers have issues cutting some materials due to the wavelength of the light.

But to say that a 7w laser can’t cut plywood would be wrong. It takes a few trips around the design, but it’ll get through. Trying to cut through the thicker materials is sometimes possible, but what you find is that it takes more practice to get the setup correct for those thicknesses.

GRBL is the firmware that runs on the controller. Just like Marlin on most of the MPCNC machines. The difference is GRBL doesn’t support LCDs and simply takes the gcode commands direct from the USB port and turns them into movement on the machine. CNC.js is just a web-based app that can run on a computer and sends the gcode commands out to the grbl or marlin based controller.

You would still use inkscape or some 2d design software to create a vector drawing (typically svg). Then you’d import that 2d design into estlcam to create the gcode (CAM part) that then gets sent to the machine. An alternative to ESTLCam for the CAM software is lightburn. Lightburn has the positive in that it is designed specifically for lasers. It provides other functions that allow you to import raster (jpg) images and to do greyscale burns with the laser to engrave images instead of just line art. There’s others on this forum doing a TON with the cheap little diode lasers.

My link and another post on the same forum with a lot of examples:

and this is the one that inspired me to get the more powerful laser:

My laser thread has a link to one of my youtube videos of my cheap laser. From there you can find some of my other laser videos. One is a time-lapse of the build of the machine itself.

Feel free to ask more questions. I enjoy talking about this stuff. If you ask a question I don’t know, I’ll tell you, or research it and then tell you what I find :slight_smile:

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Weeeeeeelll, ish. Makerbase makes a couple TFTs that with the CNC firmware loaded on them, will speak GRBL to the controller over the serial port. I have the MKS TFT24 (not the BigTreeTech one). The real issue is that if you are using the USB connection to your controller, usually something AT328 based, they share the same serial line and you get communication errors.

P.S. Thanks for the shout-out link!

This is the type thing I’m trying to get a handle on. Watching the MPCNC cut ply with a 1/16" bit it seems to not wander very far off line with multiple cuts. I’ve been curious if multiple cuts with a laser increase the kerf size appreciably or has any other bad effects? A bit’s one thing if I’m buying a laser I’d like to know what I’m getting into. I’m also curious since looking at the L-Cheapo site I see many more links to mounts for 3D printers than to CNCs and wonder if 3D printers are that superior for laser use or just more available?

Thanks for that and the links! It was a good day when I stumbled across the V1 website, I couldn’t be more pleased with the way things have worked out! :+1:

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I will look when I get home from work and send directions Christian sent me

I’d appreciate it! I may have to contact him myself but want to try a few things first. Trying to figure out why when I tried to drill 4 holes at the corners of a rectangle the transit speed between them became glacial, haven’t found a specific setting for that.

I’d say the kerf of the laser in 1/8" plywood is less than 1/16". Even after the 3 passes it takes for mine to cut all the way through. You do see some char on the outside edge of the plywood after it’s cut in multiple passes with the laser. The kerf could/would get larger on thicker pieces of wood. It’s due to the laser being cone-shaped around the focus point.

More companies sell mounts for lasers for 3d printers because more people own 3d printers than cnc machines. I have no reason to believe that my mpcnc is any less accurate than my 3d printer when not cutting wood (ie… with no side load). It’s only when the router has side load on it that I notice any flexing on the Z axis (still minimal depending on the speed I’m running it)

I need to do some more testing in 1/4" plywood now that I have the laser dialed in on 1/8". I do a lot of cutting of things for the wife in 1/4" plywood and I’d like to start doing them with the laser as it’s a lot quieter :slight_smile:

Definitely one of the upsides I’m looking at. I have the feeling I’ll try and get a handle on the basics but after that, buying one and using it seems like the best way of learning many of the things I’m curious about like cutting speed and how it affects the cut. i.e. slower speed = fewer passes , more char, or ??? I’d just like to find something known to be reliable from a source that offers some support if needed.

C:\Program Files\Estlcam11\Estlcam.exe" Profile=Laser1

The last part of the shortcut target Profile=Laser1. Sets opens a separate instance for settings that only applie to that shortcut and in this place is laser1

Hardly unusual but I’m a bit lost.

Should that be part of every Estlcam download? I’ve tried pasting it and different variations in File Explorer and the search window with no joy.

Make a shortcut then open the properties and the line target after the the existing line add the Profile= line

If you want me to rebuild a cylinder head or bore a block, no problem. But this? Problem. Not really my thing. I’m old, my only IT training was a contrived by the school binary language called Dummiestron that often had me key-punching cards at 3AM :scream: in the computer center and a course in Fortran, still grudgingly coming to terms with Windows 10, would take 7 back in a NY minute.

Fortunately 4? My spelling cost me 2 grades

Is that code for Fortran? Never heard that. But I did manage to write a program in BASIC that simulated an 8-deck shoe Atlantic City Blackjack game.

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No that is autocorrect for Fortran when y I u don’t look :sleeping:

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If you want at some time I can walk you through it