Laser CNC project build

So this whole thing started when my brother found a XYRON Personal Cutting System behind a dumpster at his apt. After staring at it for a year, I ripped out the circuit board and put in my own stuff to make it CNC. Then I thought, "I'll put a laser in it!". Then I thought, "it should be water cooled!". So here we are, the build thread. As I have little use for the final product, (lol) I will be focusing primarily on uniqueness and looking badass.

I've placed on my design quite a few constraints.

• Must meet clearance of lid and sides
• Must actualy cool the diode
• Must not get anything wet
• If possible, look cool
• Must fit entirely inside the machine
• Cost very little (Not including the hundreds I spent on the lathe, ha)

Here's a little of what I have so far.

The machine moving around with a sharpie in it - YouTube

After LOTS of thought, I came up with a pretty nifty pump and heat exhanger that will fit inside the unit and cost $0. A friend of mine gave me a broken blood pressure monitor control unit. Another friend gave me a red ringed xbox. So here's this. Quite fun to play with.

Super spiff water pump and heat exchanger

This is the problem I'm currently working on. I need to design a waterblock that sinks heat from the aixiz module into water (derp) and fits in the holder with the lid closed.

The diode holder thing

This post needed a pic:


More to come, gotta learn how to use a lathe real quick

If you wrap the module in copper tubing, say, 3-5mm diameter, and pump water through the tubing, I wonder if it would exchange enough heat from the module to the water efficiently enough to work. You may need to solder the coiled tubing to the copper diode module (the part in which the diode is pressed, and screws into the Aixiz module.) That assembly then mounts into the CNC head, and flexible tubing and power leads come off the head to feed the diode water and power.

pschlosser said:

If you wrap the module in copper tubing, say, 3-5mm diameter, and pump water through the tubing, I wonder if it would exchange enough heat from the module to the water efficiently enough to work. You may need to solder the coiled tubing to the copper diode module (the part in which the diode is pressed, and screws into the Aixiz module.) That assembly then mounts into the CNC head, and flexible tubing and power leads come off the head to feed the diode water and power.

Click to expand...

This was an idea I was toying with. Have a rear aixiz housing made kind of like a wormgear, but you know, threaded to fit the module. Then I could wrap the tubing around in the grooves, maybe even solder them in too. I found some 2mm O.D. x 30cm copper tubing for a few dollars. This would let me maintain the 12mm diameter and fit perfectly in the 12.15mm holder thing. Unless I think of something better, this is what I'll do.

If you do that it probably would be a good idea to use some heatsink compound on the threads since they don't have very good thermal transfer properties.

Looks like a very interesting build at its stage. Good luck!

The first thing I have ever made on a lathe. It wasn't my intention to make a knob. I was just playing with the different tools, and it ended up being a knob. This is going to go a little slow for a while. I wasn't originally planning on spending a thousand dollars on this.

I still have to buy:
Laser $105.00 -Purchased
2 taps $20.00 -Purchased
copper tubing $7 -Purchased
copper bar stock $13 -Purchased
other stuff I haven't thought of $alot

So, I got my freakin laser! I just threw it on the Tektronix at 90ma. I pointed it at the desk. What an unbelievably small dot, zomg. Wait...is that?...The desk is smoking! Pretty exciting stuff. I also got almost all my stuff in, even the taps from China. I got 2 because I'm an idiot an thought I was doing something I wasn't, but I guess it's good to have an extra.



So, the plan is still to do the testing on the DVD burner laser shown below. This is the prototype water cooling block. I don't have a grinder to make the correct tool, so I was just playing around with a 60 degree threading tool. It's 12 threads per inch, and the copper tube will wrap around it in the thread groove which will be cut 2mm deep so the copper tubing is flush at 12mm. That copper tube sure looked bigger in the picture though. I may have to go bigger. 2mm O.D. sure makes a small I.D., 1.3mm or something. 2mm is a loose fit on my fuel tubing anyway. I gotta think about this.

This isn't really related to the build besides checking to see if I could use the metric tap with an imperial drill bit (it seems I can), but I've only been a "machinist" for a few days, and I made a thing fit on another thing...*milestone*