Week 05, 2016 – How Soon is Now?

Okay, I got off to a slow start this year.  But things are looking very promising.

First things first, on a sad note one of my internet comrades, Tim Lazicki, had his house burn down on Christmas.  Some of us banded together to make a new PC for him… It seemed like the appropriate thing to do, after all if it weren’t for computers and internet access, none of us would know him…and his absence due to no longer having one had not gone unnoticed.  (I’ll write a separate in-depth post about this later.) Anyway, working on a new computer for Tim inspired a few other projects which I will be posting about…

The new year also marked my acquisition of a video camera.  The quality isn’t the best without super-duper lighting, which I don’t yet possess, but it’s a hella nice little camera… A Canon VIXIA HF-R62.  I got it very cheap right before Canon debuted the R72…which seems like a thinly-veiled excuse to go back to getting full price on a camera… Since as far as I can tell it is all but identical to the R62 in every way.

I plan to start shooting YouTube videos regularly… Things would go a lot easier if I got some contributions to that end, and I will be making a Patreon and a couple different Amazon Wish Lists once I start posting videos.

I’m going to replace my previous ‘brain dump’ post type with “What’s On The ‘Bench?” videos, where I do a 1-2 minute (each) pitch about any ideas I have or things I’m working on.  This way I can try and both gauge and garner interest in nascent ideas in a more natural and conversational way than simply writing a post about them.

I got so sidetracked with stuff after removing the stock bed of the laser cutter that I never got around to draining the water or doing anything about the coolant loop, and now I think there’s algae growing in it… FML  Oh well, these things happen.  I ordered some Copper Sulfate Pentahydrate to add to the coolant loop, that oughta take care of the stuff.  (Good thing I hadn’t finished the coolant system and added all the water yet.)

Things are getting started, I would expect videos to start showing up any time now.

Week 50, 2015 – Quick Update… Quick like a Laser!

A blog post, on time?! Is it an illusion, or am I one miracle closer to sainthood?! (Is there an evil equivalent of a saint?)

I still haven’t posted the November Acquisitions– which ought to be a hell of a post considering I spent $2,500+! –nor the December Acquisitions… (Blame Fallout 4; 130 hours in and I haven’t touched the main storyline. great game!) So just bear with me for a moment!

Yesterday I finally got the stupid exhaust duct out of the laser cutter, having long since removed the original bed.  This required that I completely remove the XY table assembly.  I wasn’t too keen on doing this, but it turned out that it couldn’t really go back any way but how it was because of the tight tolerances. One interesting thing of note; the holes in the enclosure’s mounting flanges were properly made as part of its construction…but the ones in the XY assembly were very roughly drilled in the steel U-beams with no cleanup, I really don’t get it.  It’s like the whole XY assembly was handmade and put into an off-the-shelf machine enclosure. The cut-out in the rear beam for the exhaust was rough-hewn with some manner of saw, too. (And not even deburred!) In a perfect world, I would have taken the XY assembly completely out of the machine and cleaned those up, deburred the edges, and so on…but life’s imperfect.

Anyway, now I have to align the mirrors… I needed to do it anyway because I hadn’t after receiving the unit, but now that I’ve taken the whole bloody carriage out and put it back in, I definitely have to do it.  There are some helpful 3D-printable tools for this, which I will link to down below.

After that’s taken care of, I can find the focal point of my laser and that will help me determine how to mount my new honeycomb bed.  I ripped out the shitty old bed which was utterly useless, and now with it and the exhaust duct gone, I can cut/engrave basically the entire space within the XY table area… That’s like 12×14 inches, certainly a fair sight better than the 9×12 the machine is supposed to do*, and it sure makes the 12×12 sheets of birch plywood I picked up more useful.  (*And the work-holding clamp in the stock bed had a capacity of like 2.5×6 inches or something absurd like that, and you only got the 9×12 if you laid something on TOP of that.)

Though, after everything is back to normal, I’m going to want to install my new air-assist head and high-quality 18mm Zinc-Selenium lens… The air assist will aid in cutting by blowing smoke out of the way of the beam, as well as helping to keep stuff from getting deposited on the lens and mirrors. (And blowing out small flare-ups.) The lens is purported to give a 15-20% increase in power over the regular lenses they were selling, and I’m sure those are already a little better than the stock lens.

Doing that will of course require me to readjust the bed height to account for the new lens height and focal length…but such is life.  I don’t want to do all my upgrades at once and then try to figure out why everything’s gone to hell.

Links!

Here’s some helpful links for laser cutter users.

Week 46, 2015 – Radiation and the Stimulated Emission Thereof

A new post? After Fallout 4 was released?! And it’s actually ON TIME?!?!?!  Yeah, I amaze even myself sometimes.

Five days ago, Fallout 4 dropped.  So I’ve kinda been doing nothing but playing that since then…  But that doesn’t mean nothing of note has been going on, because yesterday… This happened.

Excuse the certain earthy potato-like flavor of these pics, I used a Samsung Galaxy S3 to snap them, because I’m sick of not getting these sorts of liveblagging images when I can’t be bothered to set up a bunch of lights and a tripod.  I need a point-and-shoot that can do RAW. :<
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A FREAKIN’ LASER! From China, with cheapness.

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In its new (at least temporary) home between the 3D printer and the NEO-GEO cabinet.

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The inside. I’m going to need a power bed upgrade and an air assist… And I’d like to get rid of that stupid exhaust duct.

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A 40 Watt, water-cooled, CO2 laser tube.

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The second test, after using the laser to engrave the word ‘TEST’… I wonder what it is?

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It seems Vault Boy approves of my use of ‘Science!’ Guess I can go back to Fallout 4 now.

I’ll do a more in-depth look at the laser soon, as well as the November acquisitions post.

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