Hypnotized

I have been a hobby woodworker for about a decade now, and this thing is by far the most fun I have in the shop. Unlike building a big piece of furniture that can take me weeks, I usually can come up with an idea and be assembling things within a few hours.

I am posting this for people wondering what you get when you order a $350 CO2 laser cutter off eBay. I purchased this 2 years ago and have had no issues. All of my woodworking project posts that involve a laser cutter are using this machine, although I have upgraded/modded the machine since purchase

K40 is name for this generic Chinese laser cutter platform. There are lots of sellers under lots of names, but they are all basically the same thing.

There are some American resellers, like Omtech that you can buys these machines from and they will offer upgrades and tech support.

Here was the original posting, doesn't look like this seller is around anymore

Shipped from a warehouse in California so I didn't have to do any import tax stuff

Double boxed with unformed styrofoam

Inside stuffed with the "accessories" which were mostly tossed in the garbage, and some loose foam.

Cutting bed and fume extractor both of which I would later remove as part of the modifications

They had the water cooling tubes routing out through the exhaust fan for shipping, easy process of rerouting them during the initial setup

Lots of info online about ensuring proper grounding with these. I followed the guides around sanding off the paint to ensure good contact with the metal from the case. I think this is probably the only modI did before the first cut

This splice on the high voltage line seemed pretty ghetto to me, but the internet "experts" on the K40 forums assured me this was fine/normal.

Stock fume extractor fan and water cooling tubes. I added a water movement indicator and removed the fan and added a inline exhaust as part of later mods.

Mirrors were hot glued in place, but actually alignment was perfect right out of the box for me and this thing cut without issue on the first try. Over the years of mods and banging it around I have removed the glue and fine tuned but the tube and mirrors have held up well.

Here it is today in all it's glory.

Cross posted from my post here https://lemm.ee/c/lasercutting

This is my go-to site when my projects require any type of box. You put the dimensions in and it spits out a cut file.

I am not really convinced our house plants need labeling, but my wife asked for these so I made them! Since COVID she has gotten really into house plants, and every room is packed now with greenery which is great!

These are super easy to make and only take a minute to cut out. I have also used acrylic to make outdoor vegetable garden identifiers.

For people wondering what you get when you order a $350 laser cutter off eBay. I purchased this 2 years ago and have had no issues. All of my project posts are using this machine, although I have upgraded/modded the machine since purchase

Here was the original posting, doesn't look like this sellar is around anymore

Shipped from a warehouse in California so I didn't have to do any import stuff

Double boxed with unformed styrofoam

Inside stuffed with the "accessories" which were mostly tossed in the garbage, and some loose foam.

Cutting bed and fume extractor both of which I would later remove as part of the modifications

They had the water cooling tubes routing out through the exhaust fan for shipping, easy process of rerouting them during the initial setup

Lots of info online about ensuring proper grounding with these. I followed the guides around sanding off the paint to ensure good contact with the metal from the case. I think this is probably the only https://i.imgur.com/psS1TY8.jpeg I did before the first cut

This splice on the high voltage line seemed pretty ghetto to me, but the internet "experts" on the K40 forums assured me this was fine/normal.

Stock fume extractor fan and water cooling tubes. I added a water movement indicator and removed the fan and added a inline exhaust as part of later mods.

Mirrors were hot glued in place, but actually alignment was perfect right out of the box for me and this thing cut without issue on the first try. Over the years of mods and banging it around I have removed the glue and fine tuned but the tube and mirrors have held up well.

Here it is today in all it's glory. I will do other posts on the upgrades later down the road.

I had an open wall and a sheet of cheap 3/4inch plywood sitting around so I made a French cleat wall.

If you are not familiar with the system, the slats on the wall have the top edge cut at a 45 degree angle and the shelving/storage items have an opposite angle so they slide right into the grooves.

More pics of my messy shop

I had an open wall and a sheet of cheap 3/4inch plywood sitting around so I made a French cleat wall.

If you are not familiar with the system, the slats on the wall have the top edge cut at a 45 degree angle and the shelving/storage items have an opposite angle so they slide right into the grooves.

More pics of my messy shop

Made from 10 layers of 3mm Baltic Birch plywood. This was a gift for my mother who has two pugs.

All the layers made this a pretty tedious process, with lots of failed cuts that needed to be redone multiple times. The small bed size of my K40 didn't help

There are small holes on each layer that I fed fishing line through to help with alignment while gluing it all together.

cross-posted from Laser Cutting Community: https://lemm.ee/post/739699

Check it out

Made from 10 layers of 3mm Baltic Birch plywood. This was a gift for my mother who has two pugs.

All the layers made this a pretty tedious process, with lots of failed cuts that needed to be redone multiple times. The small bed size of my K40 didn't help

There are small holes on each layer that I fed fishing line through to help with alignment while gluing it all together.

The microcontroller that runs the weather station is an ESP8266 and a 2.4 inch touch screen. The button turns on and off the LED backlight on the screen.

Inside the base is a charging station that powers the weather display, 2x USB C and the galaxy 4 watch base.

The base is made of layers of plywood cut out on my laser cutter.

Weather station code by Daniel Eichhorn https://github.com/ThingPulse/esp8266-weather-station-color

Weather info is grabbed from Openweathermap, you can sign up for their free API key

Source code https://github.com/ThingPulse/esp8266-weather-station-color/blob/master/esp8266-weather-station-color.ino

I was using adafruit hardware so used their guide/libraries https://learn.adafruit.com/wifi-weather-station-with-tft-display

I had to remove some of their touchscreen calibration code since it seemed to be causing things to get hung up in a loop when turned on.

I also had to adjust the rotation 180degrees so the ESP attached to the back of the screen was at the bottom instead of the top to fit it in the enclosure.

I use pin 5 to toggle the LED backlight.

Cut on my K40

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/586133

Some random build pictures. I didn't do a great job documenting this build.

I have made a few of these as gifts for cat lovers in the family. The cats are made of three layers of 3mm birch plywood cut out on my laser cutter.

A few other versions I have made

Peace Keeping Mission

The Conflict Intensifies

The Sides Dig In/Unrest At Home

Orders Home

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/654873

The carcass is built from 1/2 sanded plywood assembled with pocket hole screws. In this picture I am filling all the seams and nail holes with filler.

I used hardboard for the moulding, which was glued and tact to the plywood. Again the holes were filled and then everything would be sanded down. The knobs were cut from some cherry scraps and are fitted with bolts through the front so that they can turn freely.

Maple scraps for the feet.

Primed and painted. I was running short in time so made a quick faucet and backsplash out of more cherry scraps. I had wanted to do something more detailed but it was after 11pm Christmas Eve when I was adding the final details and I needed to get it done and out for the kids by morning.

The oven door is plexiglass, with some metal screen spray glued onto the inside.

Burners installed and ready to set out for the kids

A few hours later

It's been 2.5 years since I made this and I have to say this has probably gotten the most use of any toy they have, and has held up without issues.