Exhausting the blackTooth laser cutter is a very important consideration and should be taken seriously, especially if you are cutting materials that give off toxic fumes when the material is burned. You will want a 4 inch hose to connect from the blackTooth to a blower, and another 4 inch hose to connect from the blower to the outside. The blower should be sufficient to provide completely negative pressure within the laser enclosure so there will be no escape of gasses.

The connections at the machine, at the blower and at the location the hose exhausts outside should be thoroughly checked for leaks. Use a gasket, or silicone. Once complete, try cutting a non-toxic material that will give off an odor (wood, or non-toxic plastic) and try the system and determine if the smell is present.

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I have been asked to provide an exhaust for the Blacktooth Laser Cutter CO2 40W. I see no specifications or guidelines for exhausting fumes from the machine. Can someone help me?

Temperature probe monitor. Very valuable. This keeps you up to date on your coolant temperature levels.

Voltage meter. This will tell you the exact level of voltage/power you are running telling the laser to run at instead of an arbitrary mark on a drawn wheel around your POT.

Ammeter sensitive to 1mA. This will be sure your not over driving your tube and reducing it's life significantly.

Hour meter. This will tell you exactly how long your system has been 'on' giving you a more accurate bead on the length of your tubes life.

Exhaust fan upgrade. The current fan included is 100CFM. You can buy 120mm fans that push 250CFM and I have included a guide on how to go about doing this here. http://buildyourtools.com/phpBB3/viewto ... 8cdd1802bf

To push the exhaust fan even further, if you have the room/power, I would highly recommend investing in a 600+ CFM "Dust Collector" system. 250CFM is still not suffice to draw all the smoke that can come off of 3mm or 1/8 MDF cutting job.

A cutting surface. I bought myself a aluminum 'egg crate' mesh from my local HVAC company. They are used a cover for fluorescent lights and work great for low impact cutting surface. They come in 4'x8' sheets and are easily cut to fit. The other side is if you can find a steel honeycomb cutting bed to fit. These can be quite costly or fairly affordable depending where you are looking. The benefit of a steel honeycomb is you can use high power magnets to hold material down.

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HOW CAN YOU ENHANCE THE BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER?

The blackTooth Laser cutter and Engraver can be built in a weekend. Take a look at the build instructions and try to determine if you feel you have sufficient capability to put together the laser system.

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HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TO BUILD THE BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER?

If you take the standard parallel cable BoB (Break Out Board), then you will need control software (Mach 3 or EMC2) and CAM software to make your G-Code (such as CamBam). Personally I use CamBam and Mach 3, they work beautifully but don't expect to turn them on and know how they work out of the box. Give yourself a few weeks to get familiar with the basics. CamBam is VERY powerful software for it's price. I'm surprised how much I keep learning on what I can do with it...I highly recommend it if you want as much control as possible.

Mach 3 + CamBam as a bundle costs $310. EMC2 will give you a free replacement for Mach 3 and is exclusively for Linux.

If you use the USB BoB, it will cost an extra $75 + $75 for the software. This is an all-in-one package so no need for Mach 3 or CamBam.

For etching rasters (jpeg, bmp, tiff, non-vectors, photos), I highly recommend PicEngrave. It has been a labor of love for the past 9 years and John has done a wonderful job with it. It easily compares in quality compared to software that is in the $200-$300 range. John's software runs $40 and can be found here: http://picengrave.com/ (don't let the modest website fool you, this stuff can do amazing things). DotG and the Mach3 engrave plugin are two other options and instructions can be found on Dustans page in the gallery on buildyourcnc.com website.

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WHAT SOFTWARE CAN BE USED WITH THE BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER?

You can find all of the information including the price on the blackTooth Laser cutter and engraver page found here: https://www.buildyourcnc.com/blackToothLaserCutterAndEngraver.aspx

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How much is your ; blackTooth Laser Cutter and Engraver CO2 40W

Hour meter. This will tell you exactly how long your system has been 'on' giving you a more accurate bead on the length of your tubes life.

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WHAT CAN ADD TO MY BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER MEASURE THE TIME OF USE?

Temperature probe monitor. Very valuable. This keeps you up to date on your coolant temperature levels.

Voltage meter. This will tell you the exact level of voltage/power you are running telling the laser to run at instead of an arbitrary mark on a drawn wheel around your POT.

Ammeter sensitive to 1mA. This will be sure your not over driving your tube and reducing it's life significantly.

Hour meter. This will tell you exactly how long your system has been 'on' giving you a more accurate bead on the length of your tubes life.

Exhaust fan upgrade. The current fan included is 100CFM. You can buy 120mm fans that push 250CFM and I have included a guide on how to go about doing this here. http://buildyourtools.com/phpBB3/viewto ... 8cdd1802bf

To push the exhaust fan even further, if you have the room/power, I would highly recommend investing in a 600+ CFM "Dust Collector" system. 250CFM is still not suffice to draw all the smoke that can come off of 3mm or 1/8 MDF cutting job.

A cutting surface. I bought myself a aluminum 'egg crate' mesh from my local HVAC company. They are used a cover for fluorescent lights and work great for low impact cutting surface. They come in 4'x8' sheets and are easily cut to fit. The other side is if you can find a steel honeycomb cutting bed to fit. These can be quite costly or fairly affordable depending where you are looking. The benefit of a steel honeycomb is you can use high power magnets to hold material down.

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WHAT ARE SOME USEFUL MODIFICATIONS CAN APPLY TO THE BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER?

We will generally consider a change in dimensions or machine features if the change will be beneficial to other users as well. This is due, in part, to the time it takes to make such changes and that it maintains the desired functionality and expected safety.

What dimensional changes do you wish for the blackTooth?

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I was hopping to be able to have a cutting surface of 2' x 4'

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We have that size in our queue to be designed. However, you may be more interested in the laser adapter we are designing for the existing CNC machines to house a laser tube on the z-axis of these machines. This will be a quicker turnaround.

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Is there a time frame possibly to having this adapter made as well as cost? I am possibly looking to start a business so I am looking for something I can use to mass produce some specific parts.

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There is one project that takes precedence to the adapter, so I would expect in two months time.

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Is the blackTooth Laser Cutter available for custom size orders?

I'll be honest, it can be pretty awful at times. You'll want a dedicated exhaust line. Cut a new hole, make a dedicated line. Also, invest in a charcoal air filter, it will help. Trust me. They can also be done DIY very inexpensively. Buy a "Universal Pre-filter" and simply wrap it around a screen and have air push down through the screen wrapped in the charcoal laden felt. $20 + fan + screen. Away you go =)

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HOW BAD IS THE SMOKE AND EXHAUST USING BLACKTOOTH?

A cutting surface. I bought myself a aluminum 'egg crate' mesh from my local HVAC company. They are used a cover for fluorescent lights and work great for low impact cutting surface. They come in 4'x8' sheets and are easily cut to fit. The other side is if you can find a steel honeycomb cutting bed to fit. These can be quite costly or fairly affordable depending where you are looking. The benefit of a steel honeycomb is you can use high power magnets to hold material down.

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WHAT CAN USE BELOW MY WORKPIECE AS SUBSTRATE IN BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER?

You can find the wiring diagrams for the blackTooth on step 105 and 106 on the list of instructions on the blackTooth page. Step 105 pertains to the parallel breakout board and step 106 pertains to the USB interface board.

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wire size

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WHERE ARE THE WIRING DIAGRAMS FOR BLACKTOOTH LASER CUTTER IN INSTRUCTIONS?

The blackTooth's 40 watt laser tube can be cooled with simple tap water. A bit of anti-freeze keeps the tap water clean and free of algae. The cooler the water, the better output you will get from the laser. A great source of information can be found here: http://www.buildyourtools.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3452

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What kind of cooling system should we set up for the Blacktooth laser cutter laser tube? Can tap water be used? Is water temperature critical?

Hello, I was wondering if the Blactooth laser cutter can engrave in 3d, different depths in the same piece of wood?

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I was wondering what the max depth is for something to go into the 40W C02 Laser cutter and engraver with blacktooth

A standard 40W CO2 laser will cut up to 1/4" thick of material, be it wood, acrylic, card stock, leather, fabric, foam, cork, etc. (Decent speed and final cut are heavily dependent on a strong air assist upgrade)

Metals cannot be cut due to the power level and wavelength of the CO2 laser. But it can be marked with special solutions like Cermark or Thermark.

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WHAT THICKNESS OF MATERIAL CAN THE BLACKTOOTH LASER CUT?

Upgrade your mirrors to SI coated mirrors, using a HQ ZnSe lens and even pushing up to a beam expander will all boost power. The ideal order of experimenation for lowest cost would be changing out for a higher quality lens labeled HQ ZnSE lens. Next would be SI mirrors, which will absorb less heat and reflect better, the last would be to use a beam expander which expands the beam, reducing the heat signature on the mirrors and makes a tighter focal width.

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CAN BOOST THE POWER OF MY BLACKTOOTH LASER?

Cooling is not as tricky as you might think. There is 3 ways to approach this, only 2 really matter for a low scale 40w setup. First one is the cheapest and easiest. The higher the temp of water the worse your performance will be, from what I understand anything in the 30C range is about the most tolerable it gets. Lower is better. But not frozen...from what I've been told a very experienced cutter, he found 8C was the highest power he achieved.

1. Use a 5 Gallon resovoir system which gives you a fairly large space of water to heat up before you need to tend to it. Add about a cup of anti-freeze to the mix of DISTILLED water. You don't want ANY minerals in the water that might build up in your system. The anti-freeze works to keep algae and other ickies from growing in your water.

2. Use a smaller resovoir system (or even closed loop) and install 1 or more radiators found in CPU cooling systems with 120mm fans attached. This will continously cool your water system to ambient room temperatures, but with a tiny resovoir it will be difficult to add things like ice-packs to drop the temps if the ambient is quite hot.

3. Using an industrial coolant system. Overkill and unless your cutting A LOT, this is a very expensive option to take. You can also explore the idea of Peltier cooling but it is extremely expensive electricity/BTU wise compared to an industrial cooler.

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HOW TO COOL THE BLACKTOOTH 40W LASER TUBE

These tubes are rated for 18mA. The power supply is able to push up to 21mA. This is a very dangerous thing to do. If you are pushing the tube beyond 18mA you will cut it's life by QUITE a bit.

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HOW HARD CAN PUSH MY BLACKTOOTH LASER?

You can use our shopping cart to determine the shipping. Add the machine and the parts you want to purchase, enter your shipping address and click on the Calculate Shipping Button to get a price for shipping. The shipping charges are determined directly from the carriers at the time of pressing that button.

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Hi, I live in Australia and am looking at purchasing the Blacktooth laser cutter and engraver. I am wondering what the cost to ship to Australia would be?

There is a th or tl on the laser power supply that serves as the trigger on a high or low signal. There is also a potentiometer "in" terminal that will accept a variable signal from 0v to 5v to control intensity. You can use either of these features to fire the laser tube.

If you have gotten grbl to work, then, no doubtedly, you have the expertise to know the output features of grbl. If grbl allows a pwm output, you can tie this to the potentiometer terminal on the power supply. Otherwise, you will need to use a digital output to control the power supply using th or tl.

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How to wire the Laser Power Supply with an arduino & GRBL ? (I'm not using a blacktooth laser cutter)