New Reverie CNC Projects

I bought a 4 axis CNC machine as a birthday present to myself about 6 months ago and i've managed to get pretty good at it. Its been about 2 months since i've snapped a bit or made the machine do something really dumb. I also have all my fingers despite considerable effort on my part to loose one.

To date i've done a few small projects like PCB boards and some small metal components, but now i'm ready to move onto my first big project.

A SMALL white laser with custom PWM and multi color functions (different than the FLM color kit), solid beam and two mirror spiro settings, and diffraction options.

So let me take you to day 1 of the laser block. The block is being machined out of a 3in dia x .6in aluminum round. I have a few laying around and my wood jig holds it nicely so that is why this setup was chosen for this piece. This block will eventually be inserted in my custom host which is going to be 1x2x4 with 4axis custom ergonmics and looks (check back in this thread in a few weeks for pics of it).

The first step is to cut the outline of the block. I'm not cutting through the whole piece just yet, but the outline will give me a good idea of how everything is going to fit in the block as i cut out light channels and such.

Today I ordered some of the technology that will be going into my project.
First the unique way of controlling the laser programs and options. If you have seen FMLs white mixing kit then you are familiar with it's program and option button operation.

Since i am programming my own microcontroller, I wanted a better control method.

Here is what i found.


This jog dial has a center push button as well as the ability to push up, down, left, right
OR scroll in a circle.

The idea will be to have left = red, up = green, right = blue, i will be machining a rim of acrylic to go around this dial that will be illuminated with LEDs to indicate these colors.
Scrolling will go through the intermediate colors here is how it will work
red - scroll left for magenta, blue, .... , scroll right for yellow, green, ....
green - scroll left for yellow, red, .... , scroll right for cyan, blue, ....
blue - scroll left for cyan, green, .... , scroll right for magenta, red, ...

Pressing down on the jog dial puts the laser into white mode
From white mode, scrolling the dial will change to the various effects functions. (details later)

Pressing the center button will lock the current function and open the scroll wheel up to use it for options within each program. An example of this would be finely scrolling through a rainbow or speeding up and slowing down strobing effects.

I also ordered the motors i intend to use for my spiro.

They are the omron b5a


These motors are super thin at 2mm, and they have a footprint of 11mm square.
I chose these motors because of their thin profile. They will have to fit within the space i am creating for them on the sled, which is the top right corner in the pics i first posted.

I am waiting for the motors to arrive to cut out the final space for them, but I expect them to work well.

Good luck with your project, it will be a good learning process for you and should provide a nice build there.

Just a little heads up, really think out your diode/dicro mounts well, you will need super fine adjustments to get good beam alignment and make them beefy to prevent drift.

Keep us updated.

Cheers

Sounds like a really complicated build, I can't wait to see it finished!

Where is the output shaft on those motors, is it obvious or am I just blind?

Looks like its going to be sweet. The jog dial is a great control for it.
Where is that jog dial from? What mcu are you planing to use?