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I think it, i tinker it, i make it :-)



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en:tinkering:laser:eleksmakera3pro

This is an old revision of the document!


EleksMaker EleksLaser-A3 Pro

Blog

  • 2020 october 20: added Power and speed settings section
  • 2017 december 18: Improved the smoothness of the X carriage, $110=5000 and $111=5000 for setting the max speed to 5000 mm/min in GRBL
  • 2017 december 13: Added smoke blower and pimped up step drivers current, heat sink installed on Allegro chip
Warning!!! After flashing the Mana SE Arduino clone With GRBL firmware, if you disconnect USB or lost communication with the PC (serial disconnection) the laser fire!!!

The setup order for mise-in-operation must be:

  1. wear the laser protection goggles
  2. activate the serial communication
  3. power ON the Mana SE board

For shut-down operation the order must be:

  1. power OFF the Mana SE board
  2. deactivate the serial communication
  3. unwear the laser protection goggles

Power and speed settings

2500 mW Laser Diode

Vector letters outline / thin outline

Material Thickness Laser Power (%) Passes Cut rate (mm/min) Example
Plywood N/I 20 1 500

Vector letters fill path

Material Thickness Line Distance (mm) Laser Power (%) Passes Cut rate (mm/min) Example
Plywood N/I 0.1 20 1 1000

GRBL settings

I'm using the machine with GRBL firmware and LaserWeb4 PC frontend instead the original EleksCAM (called somewhere Elek-SCAM 8-) )

GRBL settings used for LaserWeb and explanation.

This article is related to GRBL v1.1f (2017-08-01) Release

The setup that i've used is based on this useful wiki article: https://github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4/wiki/2.1-Initial-Configuration-GRBL-1.1

Latest update of the GRBL settings: December, 12 2017

$0=10      ;Step pulse, microseconds
$1=100      ;Step idle delay, milliseconds
$3=1       ;X axis direction inverted
$10=0      ;send work coordinates in statusReport
$30=255    ;max. S-value for Laser-PWM (is referenced to the LaserWeb PWM MAX S VALUE)
$31=0      ;min. S-value
$32=1      ;Laser Mode on
$100=80   ;steps/mm in X, depending on your pulleys and microsteps
$101=80   ;steps/mm in Y, depending on your pulleys and microsteps
$102=80   ;steps/mm in Z, depending on your pulleys and microsteps
$110=5000 ;max. rate mm/min in X, depending on your system
$111=5000 ;max. rate mm/min in Y, depending on your system
$112=2000 ;max. rate mm/min in Z, depending on your system
$120=400  ;acceleration mm/s^2 in X, depending on your system
$121=400  ;acceleration mm/s^2 in Y, depending on your system
$122=400   ;acceleration mm/s^2 in Z, depending on your system
$130=390   ;max. travel mm in X, depending on your system
$131=297   ;max. travel mm in Y, depending on your system
$132=200   ;max. travel mm in Z, depending on your system
$$         ;to check the actual settings

For a reference, please read Grbl's $x=val settings and what they mean on the official GRBL wiki.

Hardware settings

The VREF on the Allegro A4988 by factory is 0.6V, i have set the VREF to 0.82V, The motors for now are cool, but i've mounted the heat sinks on the drivers.

Hardware modding / improovements

Smoke blower fan

By using this useful thing shared by MiguelBi on Thingiverse i have attached a fan on laser module in order to blow away the smoke from the optics.

Improved the smoothness of the X carriage

By using this useful thing shared by nottingham82 on Thingiverse I have greatly improved the smoothness of the X carriage.

Resources

en/tinkering/laser/eleksmakera3pro.1603199785.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/10/20 15:16 by alessio.cavalieri