ARGMeter the Open Source Laser Power Meter

[ARG]

Had no idea something like this existed for the home user. Fantastic.

I was amazed when I first heard about a 3D printer for under 1,000$. The tech is all Open Source so through the collective collaboration of the community they keep getting cheaper and easier to build!
A few years ago they were 800-900$ for a bottom of the line printer, now this one is only 400$. Printrbot jr (with 1.75mm Ubis Hot End) | printrbot

Hopefully it will soon be a standard to have one in your house, just as it is with a normal printer. I know a quite a few people on the forums already have them, so they can download & print out the case on their own.

 

[Livinloud]

WOW ARG is going to be a one stop shop for LPM's!!!! That printer looks amazing. cant wait to see the products you put out with it

op:

 

[lasersbee]

Interesting 3D printer...
I would really like to see the quality of the parts produced...
the time to produce a part and the actual cost of materials
and time to produce a finished part.


Jerry

 

[ARG]

Interesting 3D printer...
I would really like to see the quality of the parts produced...
the time to produce a part and the actual cost of materials
and time to produce a finished part.

Quality of the parts produced is dependant on a lot of things, especially how long you take to calibrate it. The print quality wont be as good as say a resin based printer.

Printing time is rather slow, for a case it would probably 16 hours, maybe more? I don't yet have a good idea of how long these take, so that's a rough estimate. The slower the print the better the results, some of the prints you see on YouTube are run at absurd speeds.

Plastic is 40$/kg and a case would take about 200g of plastic, so about 8$ of material. The printer does draw around 500W though, so that's about 0.5$ in electricity as well.

 

[Livinloud]

I am VERY excited for things to come! ARG is going to blow everyone's minds one of these days, i just have a feeling :angel:

 

[ARG]

Planning out what to add for the next version. v1.1.1 or v1.2 depending on how big the changes are.

I have considered moving to a standalone Atmel chip for this, but after I added most of the components that makes up an Arduino it comes out close to the same price as the Arduino since parts are not being purchased in bulk.
Even then it doesn't have all the features of the Arduino, and takes more time to assemble.
Plus having the Arduino means I can keep it smaller in length and width by having it bigger vertically.
I can then also modify Open Source 3D cases to fit it, which saves time in designing my own.

All in all, keeping the Arduino for all future versions, so long as it continues to suit the needs of the LPM hardware I want to use.

Edit: Another update on the 3D printer! It is ahead of schedule and has shipped.

 

[rbc1225]

Planning out what to add for the next version. v1.1.1 or v1.2 depending on how big the changes are.

I have considered moving to a standalone Atmel chip for this, but after I added most of the components that makes up an Arduino it comes out close to the same price as the Arduino since parts are not being purchased in bulk.
Even then it doesn't have all the features of the Arduino, and takes more time to assemble.
Plus having the Arduino means I can keep it smaller in length and width by having it bigger vertically.
I can then also modify Open Source 3D cases to fit it, which saves time in designing my own.

All in all, keeping the Arduino for all future versions, so long as it continues to suit the needs of the LPM hardware I want to use.

Edit: Another update on the 3D printer! It is ahead of schedule and has shipped.

Ahhh I see you have a 3D printer on the way too. Nice. They are fun and very useful.

 

[ARG]

Yup, I was thinking about getting one just for general use, but I still couldn't justify it enough. Once I thought of using it for LPM cases that was enough reason to get one

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

I want to wait for my printer to arrive to see what kind of tolerances there are in the prints before I design something in solidworks.
I may just design is sketch up because it's free and I want others to be able to modify the case easily before printing I think sketch up is powerful enough for what I have in mind.

What 3D printer do you have?

 

[rbc1225]

What printer did you order? I have a Prusa that I bought from Craigslist and I am building a Ultimaker. The Ultimaker has the resolution of 50 micron in the Z axis and I believe 100 micron in the X and the Y axis. Is that close enough for you? I have seen prints come from the Ultimaker that rival resin based prints. Yes it takes some time to print, but the cost is generally low as you point out and once you get setup and going you set it and forget it. Surface quality? I love it. You can set it up to show the internal structures of the prints themselves. Not easy to do that with a conventional process now is it? Anyway I love the 3D printer process. I just got into it about 8 to 10 weeks ago and I can't put it down. So many projects so little filament. I will start on the enclosure probably tonight just playing around a bit. You can sue Solidworks if you like but I would recommend Sketch up as it freeware, and I use a product called Hexagon which is a very accurate piece of software yet very inexpensive to purchase. I think it's something like $20.00 now if they are still selling it for that. I bought two licenses for that price so I am legal on both my laptop and my desktop. Can you tell I can go on and on about this? heheheh

 

[ARG]

Yeah the trade off for the resolution is the time unfortunately, I'm going to have my printer running 24/7 I think. Have you seen what some people have done with acetone? Makes a glossy resin-like print after an acetone bath.

I'm really excited about 3D printing too, I got the new Prusa kit, the i3 with a fine extruder It's supposed to be much simpler. They claim a 3 hour build time, I will see if that's true.
The ultimaker looks awesome - That was one thing I briefly consider while shopping around for a printer.

Do you have a link for hexagon? It sounds interesting. I goggled "Hexagon" and that got geometry websites, and when I goggle "Hexagon CAD" I get how to make a hexagon in auto cad

I'm very excited to get my printer as well, I have a list of things to print I think it's going to take me a day or two to calibrate to the quality I want though

 

[rbc1225]

Ahhhh the new I3 huh? Did you purchase a kit? If not I could print your printed parts for ya. Here is the link to Hexagon. It's through a company called Daz3D. Awesome piece of software. A little tricky to learn I am finding out but I think in the long run well worth the hassle. A buddy of mine at the space knows this software inside and out and can do amazing things with it.
What is Hexagon

 

[ARG]

I got a laser cut kit I was going to self source it all - but it wasn't too much more for a kit. The i3 documentation isn't yet up to where the i1 or i2 was so I wanted to be able to ask the customer support for calibration advice if need be.
Thanks for the link to hexagon I'll check it out.

 

[unrealistic]

I'm a noob just got into laser hobby after flashlight hehe I have few question, can i use a scientech head with this? And arglaser you sell the board for tec like now? Thanks in advance

 

[ARG]

I'm a noob just got into laser hobby after flashlight hehe I have few question, can i use a scientech head with this? And arglaser you sell the board for tec like now? Thanks in advance

I believe the scientech head will work for this, I think the output is the same as the uncalirated TEC output from a regular sensor.
I do sell these boards for the TEC, but I will need to know how much to amplify the signal by for the OPA.

 

[ARG]

PCB has shipped for v3's!

Here's a sneak preview of the 30x30mm board:

Still takes USB-B connection, but there's no external power needed now, just add in the positive and negative signal connection

 

[unrealistic]

I believe the scientech head will work for this, I think the output is the same as the uncalirated TEC output from a regular sensor.
I do sell these boards for the TEC, but I will need to know how much to amplify the signal by for the OPA.

That's what i think too. How do i go about measuring for the op amp? I learned the basics for op amp in school recently *might* be able to change the gain myself =D How much you selling? Able to make it thru hole haha my school have lots of components free that is thru hole type but not smd type. So i can be a bit cheapo here hehe