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?

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?

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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Additional Information:



Additional Information:

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WHAT SOFTWARE CAN BE USED WITH 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?

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?

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?

Depth of Field. This is how far the focal point goes before re-expanding again. With a 2" lens, you have approximately 2-3mm of DOF. This means that you'll have 2-3mm of perfectly focused laser before it starts to re-expand again. If you have a 4" lens, you will have up to 7mm of DOF.

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WHAT IS D.O.F OR DEPTH OF FIELD FOR THE BLACKTOOTH LASER AND LENS?

The eyebolts are used in the squaring of the machine. I would use a standard carpenters square and first run the end mill along the edge of the square to first make it parallel with the long axis. Then run the end mill along the other edge with the short axis and adjust the eye bolts and chain according to the angle that the machine is out of square.

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DO NEED TO SQUARE UP THE MACHINE AND IF SO YOU HAVE INSTRUCTIONS OR VIDEO FOR THIS?

The blackTooth build instructions explain how to hook the four LED control panel to the USB breakout but not the Parallel BOB. Turns out it's very easy. Simply wire the corresponding LED cathodes (top pins on the display) to the matching CP- for the X, Y, and Z axises and wire the anodes (bottom pins) to the 5V terminals. For the on/off LED, wire the cathode to the G terminal on the laser power supply and the anode to the 5V laser supply terminal. Also, remove the 5V wire running from the Parallel BOB to the 5V terminal on the laser power supply. It is not needed and will cause the laser on/off light to always be on if the USB cable is connected.

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WIRING THE BLACKTOOTH LED PANEL TO PARALLEL BOB

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

The lens is 20mm wide and a 50.6mm focal length (the one included). This lens will stand up to at least 30PSI air assist.

The mirrors are 25mm wide mirrors.

Focal length is the distance from the lens to the material for the laser converge into the best focal point. If a lens is listed as 2". You measure 2" from the lens to the material, this will be the tightest point the laser can go before it starts to re-expand again losing focus.

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WHAT ARE THE BLACKTOOTH LENS SIZES AND FOCAL LENGTH SPECIFICATIONS?

The blackFoot CNC machine kit does not include a table. The table can be made as long or shot as you need. for instance, if you are looking for a travel of 4 fet x 4 feet, then the table will need to be about 6 feet long to get the full 4 feet of travel.

The electronics are very straight forward using the connection diagram for the breakout board that you select. Use the videos for a general idea and then use the connection diagram to verify the correct connections for the interface of your choosing.

Yes,the USB interface replaces the breakout board, but remember that you will need to use the planet-cnc software with the USB interface.

Additional Information:
The electronics does accompany the cnc machine kits as long as you select the option "with electronics". There are option to purchase the machines without electronics and that would be necessary if you either have your own electronics, or you prefer the plug and play cnc computer system we call the redLeaf, or redSprout. This will also be necessary if you prefer the electronics that use the USB interface rather than the parallel interface.

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WHERE ARE THE ELECTRONICS WIRING VIDEOS?

The electronics and wiring videos are located under the tutorials section (click Tutorials on the top menu. The Title is "CNC Electronics and Wiring". The actual link to these videos is: https://www.buildyourcnc.com/CNCElectronicsandWiring.aspx

Additional Information:
You will also find the electronic wiring videos for the USB controller at: https://www.buildyourcnc.com/tutorials/tutorial-Electronics-USB-Interface-Wiring

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WHERE ARE THE ELECTRONICS WIRING VIDEOS?

The blacktooth ships in 3 boxes.

Structure 38x22x5 #54

Components 14x13x13 #30

Laser Tube 35x7x6 #4

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WHAT ARE THE BLACKTOOTH SHIPPING DIMENSIONS?

The motor that is attached to the 4th axis is wired as follows:

The motor should have red, green yellow and blue wires coming form the motor. The red and green are paired as one coil and the yellow and blue is paired as the other coil. You can wire the motor to a 3.0 amp driver with red to A+, green to A-, Yellow to B+ and Blue to B-

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HOW DO I WIRE THE 4TH AXIS THAT YOU SELL. I HAVE MACH3 SOFTWARE. NO INSTRUCTIONS ON YOUR SITE

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?

Shipping crate size 121" X 36" X 92"

Weight 511 LBS

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WHAT ARE THE SHIPPING DIMENSIONS FOR VERTICAL LASER