xiphmont

Of course, there's still a bunch of wiring left to do :-|

With the printer fuser repaired, I was able to get a good overlay print onto Papilio white self-adhesive polyester. Setting the print type to 'labels' produced the best result by far.

Then I cold-laminated a protective textured vinyl overlay onto that. It took a few attempts to find a technique that proces a good lamination with no bubbles, but here we are!

Most makers I know keep a bunch of paint colors around.

Me, I have a few primaries and maybe 40 different whites. Nothing messes with me like THE WRONG WHITE. And yes, I *do* own a handheld spectrophotometer! Why do you ask?

I need to paint my new control panel with a good match to the other panels, so I got out my paint test strips. It's hard to tell, but there are five different white stripes on the particular pictured strip.

Anyway, we have a winner! Spectrophotometer agrees! The laser cutter's white matches Duplicolor 'Toyota White'.

The bending brake has added a third dimension!

Not a perfect job, but not atrocious either.

I didn't notice till after I'd finished that the bend depth adjustment had slipped, so the bends are a little rounder than I'd have liked, but meh. Let's tack weld it and see how well it fits before complaining too hard.

Given the two laser control panels and the design comparison, what's the actual goal here?

The first goal is functional: I need to add a number of new control and status functions.

Second: I am a vain man, and I want this tool to look a little less hokey. Not entirely, just a little. I mean, I gotta be me.

The biggest addition will be a software control for the laser. I somewhat arbitrarily decided to go with a rebranded Anywells controller from LightObject-- I'll find out later if that was a good idea or not.

The huge, spread-out, not-calibrated-to-anything digital PWM laser current control gets replaced by a thumbwheel implementing a Kelvin ladder. And instead of a 7-segment LED display that simply goes from 0-100, I'll use a good-old analog meter that measures actual milliampres.

While we're at it, a matching analog meter reads cooling water temperature.

Like on the American control panel, the key switch is the only power on-off, and the emergency stop will be a real immediate-stop interlock.

I have an onboard air assist, so that needs a switch too, along with a lighting switch and two switched laser pointers, one a centering beam and another for focus.

And, why not steal the tube runtime meter from the nifty panel as well? :-)

Last of all, arrange it in a more 'American' style: functions grouped together, consistent labeling, and no angry color salad. And just one or two inside jokes, because the tool is still a bit hokey.

The control panel for my Chinese K40 laser cutter is very very Chinese. That's not a truism, condemnation, or praise. It is what it is.

To be fair, it works, and that's no backhanded compliment. But it has a number of functional and design sins my Western eye simply can't leave be.

First and foremost, it spreads precious little functionality over the entire available space. I need to add additional controls and an entire DSP panel, and there's simply no room to do so.

And that's not for the jam-packed functionality. Pretty much the entire 7x5 square in the middle is doing the job of a single knob or thumbwheel. But a single knob would not be 'cool', and so we have this monstrosity of an ampre control that's not even calibrated in amperes/milliampres (despite the legend).

It has three (three!) 'ON' switches wired in series. A rocker, a key switch, and a stop paddle. They all do the same thing.

The temperature gauge, at the top, is simply a little LCD-readout battery powered number. It works, and it's reasonably accurate. But it is hard to read. And it's smack in the middle of space that could be used more efficiently.

I will give this particular kudo: It uses sans-serif fonts, which gets a 'well done!' And there's no Comic Sans.

I won't even complain about the pastel lavender gradient, except I just did.

Another post I meant to make a while ago... George, my Tiniest of Tinies, has taken a liking to lasers and mirrors.

eBay and Amazon advertise a number of little Chinese 'optics experiments' kits with a laser line source that makes three parallel beams, a number of partially frosted lenses, prisms and mirrors, and a few other fun things. There's no English version but it looked like a good gift anyway.

Using Google's realtime image translate and no knowledge of technical Chinese whatsoever, I cobbled together a partly translated box and a translated instruction manual. Unless the original Chinese was quite subtle, I don't think there was actually a ton of useful content there, but hey.

In any case, here's scans: My English translation, and the original Chinese pages (in the event someone would like to improve on my atrocious hack job). Given the Amazon comments, I expect a few others may be interested :-)

(Empire of the Lasers has nothing to do with the original Chinese. It's a silly take on George's usual gaming handle.)

....and, of course, immediately after mastering the water slide decal-fu, I discover the laser printer will, with no intermediate steps, print and fuse directly to the polyester diffuser sheet thankyouverymuch.

Ah well. Knowledge gained for next time. Hmmm.... I wonder upon what else this thing will print directly.

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I needed a few chunks of acrylic that were a little thicker than anything in my supply closet. Cyanoacrylate (superglue) bonds PMMA nicely, makes an optically clear joint, is easier to work with than acrylic-specific solvent glues, and doesn't add nasty internal stresses to the plastic.

On the downside, the bond isn't quite as fast (I suppose this is just as easily an upside) and the index of refraction of the glue won't be quite the same as the sheet. A perfect joint will still be noticeable right around the critical angle where seam's angle of total internal reflection will be a little different from the rest of the plastic.

IMHBCO that's small price to pay for getting perfect, strong, bubble-free joints every time without getting light-headed indoors.

Pic related: two in-progress parts curing and my go-to favorite CA glue. Once the glue is fully cured, I'll mill and polish them into rough lenses.

I hate to do this to a nice indicator made in the US, but it's the year 2000+17 and still no one has digitized any of the classic industrial control typefaces used by American manufacturers in the early- and mid-20th century.

A few used Futura or a close knockoff, but that sticks out a little too much. And no, Sublime is not a valid answer either. I used Leroy pen sets. Sublime is neither authentic nor true to purpose, it's just a more subtle kitch font.