(Part 2) Best products from r/lasercutting

Having made them before I would say wood veneers work quite well. They likely need to be one sided and you will have to play with your settings because it's fairly easy to burn through. That said I've had the best results with these two:

Cedar Wood Veneer and Veneer Variety Pack

The cedar veneers are super consistent in quality. Thin enough to feel like a biz card but thick enough that they are sturdy like card stock paper. Prints well and gives a reasonable differentiation between shades of light and brown so that you can get some complex imagery going if you feel like it. The variety pack comes with a whole selection of woods of varying color and quality. Some are full of burls which don't lend themselves well to lasering over, and others have such a grain pattern that distracts to much from small imagery as used in a biz card. On the other hand some of them have beautiful sheen as well as very striking color.

Here's an example of some done with two veneers from the variety pack.

Will something like this work?

Here's the rest of the design BTW. Emoticon heart is gonna be replaced with a heart made of grand kids thumb print like this, and the ampersand will be fixed. May also engrave rest of grandkids thump print hearts on top in the wood.

So, fully wood top, wood bottom, windows cut in other 4 panes, 4 frosted panels, 3 with etchings, just plain frosted in the back, or maybe I'll add the kids name or something.

Thanks again for your recos.

Congrats on your purchase.

I don't know of a place to get signal cables pre-made, but you can get the components at DigiKey. For my CW-3000, the laser end is a 4-pin female cylindrical connector with only 3 pins active. The chiller end is a 3-pin female. Yours may be different. You'll need some basic soldering equipment, but it's not hard to do. Digikey's livechat support folks are pretty knowledgeable. You'll need to trace the wires in your old connectors to make sure you get the pinout correct.

Water stays in the laser tube all the time - which is what you want. Ideally there is no air gurgling through your tube, as air has 25x less thermal conductivity compared to water. Small champagne bubbles are not a problem. If you need to drain the water, start with the laser end and keep a bucket handy. Pull the hose and drain the water out of the laser, then clip the loose end of the hose to the bucket with a clothespin or binder clip. Discard the water in the bucket when you're done. When you're ready to reassemble, fill back up from the chiller side and when the chiller starts up again, you'll see some air bubbles cycling through the tube but those should work themselves out. Let it run for a while and top up the water chiller a little bit at a time as needed. Only fill/replenish with fresh distilled water.

I don't know anything about off-label chillers.

As for exhaust, in my last shop I had the laser exhaust routed through a window. We removed the glass from this old single-pane sash (which was cracked anyway) and replaced with acrylic, and just drilled a hole in it for the dryer vent. A portable AC window adapter is handy, but they're expensive. Thrift store find? There are also many DIY options.

Hope this helps.

Sadly, the short answer is no; While you can boost a 210cfm fan by putting another in series, there's going to be a bottleneck. The best thing you can do is just but a higher rated extractor, like a 450/500cfm inline extractor. Look at Hydroponic suppliers too - they use them for vents in hot crop rooms and at the time were cheaper than any I could find from a laser supplier (the market for hydroponics is bigger and those guys have driven the market down).

Unfortunately, if you need to stay with 4" duct, the best I'm seeing on amazon is 260cfm right now:

https://www.amazon.com/Hydroponics-Commercial-Ventilation-Efficiency-Lightweight/dp/B074L4FDKV/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1520029281&sr=8-6&keywords=260cfm+inline+fan

Bear in mind, they may be lying as it's unbranded so you might actually want to shop around for a more legit one.

If you go to 6" or 8" then the CFM's go as high at 800-1000.

The only thing is, I have a 40w laser and and a good brand (Thunder) inline fan which is only 160cfm and don't have too much in terms of smoke issues unless it's really burney wood. 500cfm sounds really excessive for a co2 laser such as the Boss. Do you run an air assist?

One other thing though, the fan should be as close to the unit as possible. Also, the bendy/spiral type duct isn't as efficient with airflow as solid dryer vent ducting so you can improve your flow by placing the fan as close to the unit and using solid duct work.

Finally a lot of people build risers, and move the exhaust port below the laser. It usually results in less smoke build up, less smoke staining on materials and an even air flow pull (rather than smoke building up furthest form the side or back mounted exhaust port).

Hope this helps :)

Ok, you have about ~3.5 liters of internal volume to work with. It's pretty tight for any more surface area than a 3" driver or equivalent. I'm going to assume that you're okay with a ported box over a sealed box since you'll get a lot more sound out of the small form factor.

Drive-wise, there are 3 easy options:

• 1x full range 3" like the AuraSound NS3-193-8A which would go into the box with a 1" diameter port (or any shape of equivalent cross sectional surface area), 6" long, which would tune the box to about 50 Hz. This design gets you the most dB's for the least $$, as far as I can tell. The port will add the low-end where you want it for music. If you want to go completely sealed, you lose an octave of bass.
  
  
• 2x 2" speakers like the Dayton ND-65-4 with a port tuned to 70 Hz, which would be a 1.25" port 5.5" long. This option is simpler in terms of bluetooth amps.
  
  
• 2x pre-built speaker module such as the Tang Band T2-2181SA (pricey, but simple)
  
  
  Then you'll need a 2x50W class D amp with bluetooth pre-attached. There are tons of these all over amazon; my favorite chipset is the TDA7492 or the TPA3116D2. Wondom, Dayton, Drok, Sure Electronics all make decent versions.
  
  For power source, if you want batteries that's a bit of an added cost, otherwise, you just need a 24V power supply rated in the vicinity of the nominal output power of the amps (75W will be more than enough). Otherwise you'll need a 24V battery pack, which you can make out of 6x 18650 cells (I linked some expensive ones because there are a lot of fakes on Amazon, there are cheaper "protected 18650" cells out there) and wire them in series with 18650 battery holders and you'll need a 6S li-ion charger. You can always opt for a 12V system for simplicity; you'll need the same bits but just 3-Series instead of 6.
  
  If you want a cool switch, there are a billion options
  
  The speakers range from be $15-$60, and power supply (battery or wired) will be an extra $20-$60 depending on what options you choose, making it $65- $150 (with the amps) in total, for the outlined options. And that's about all you really need.
  
  If you want to get fancy, you can add some inductors to high-pass filter the amplifier output in order to prevent the speakers from bottoming out, but that has to be calculated on a case-by-case basis. Let me know if any questions.
  
  Edited for clarity

Yeah, it's 1/8 birch plywood so it gets a little glue residue on it and of course, some smoke marks and I read of a couple people using shop hand cleaner like Orange Gojo to clean it up and it works great. I just put some on a toothbrush and scrubbed it pretty good and then gently whipped it with a towel. (https://www.amazon.com/Gojo-957-Natural-Orange-Cleaner/dp/B000BDEYTE/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1492539181&sr=8-4&keywords=shop+hand+cleaner)

I have one been using it for a few weeks.
Works Well, software is being updated all the time but it still has features that I would like to see that are not available yet.

https://goo.gl/photos/oV4DMMUMvtmj4As58

Overall the reliability and precision is good and since I usually do my design work in openSCAD and export as SVG, it is perfect for my needs even as the software continues to be worked on.
On software I love the way it runs in the machine and is updated remotely, it does not need to be online to work! and yet it all runs in a browser.

Set it up with a chiller, exhaust fan and compressor on a table from amazon, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U79A2NE/

I would recommend the below laser, it works as described. Having a separate control module seems to be something of a personal preference based on the project, I mounted it on the X-Axis carriage above the laser.
2.5W Laser Module

I'm very happy with the below MKS-Base V1.6 (?!?) controller board. Apart from having to replace all of the Solidoodle connectors with JST-XH connectors it has been very easy to work with. There are a bunch of comments about various polarities being reversed, but I haven't seen it yet. I have not hooked up the LCD yet, which is one of the wiring concerns mentioned in the Amazon reviews.
MKS Base v1.6 Controller Board

This crimper is the bomb! I debated this unit (~$17) vs the PA-09 (~$40), and am extremely happy with my choice. The lack of reviews on this one made me a bit skittish, but I have another IWISS crimper that works well and I went with the brand recognition (and it's cheaper.)
IWISS Crimper Tool

We have used LA's Totally Awesome cleaner to clean powder coated tumblers after running them through a 120watt Universal PLS 6.150D.

It pretty much just dissolves any residue as you spray. Its amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/Totally-Awesome-Purpose-Concentrated-Cleaner/dp/B007P0TH0M

I am laughing so hard at the burnt masking tape collection on the side.. I do that to mine too :)

I've also done a lot to mine since I got it and have completely taken mine apart twice, but it was cutting VERY well right out of the box... I mainly wanted some extra features/upgrades/like to tinker with things :) Realigning the optics is really not that difficult.

One of the first upgrades I made though was to replace the exhaust vent and tubing, I already had a 3" inline fan from a prior project that moved a considerable amount of air (but also pulled too many amps for the particular application I had in mind), so I found this brake duct on amazon which fits the slot on the K40 almost like it was made for it - I only had to trim about 1/8" of plastic off each side of the flange.

I dug into it and photo-resist looks like the way to go. There is a product called RapidMask which doesn't even require rinsing before use, and I think that is what is in my picture. You just zap it, stick it on, peel off the top sheet, and blast. The UV-exposed material disintegrates under the abrasive spray, and once you are done etching you wash off the mask with water.

I already have one of these guys, just a name brand version of the tool you posted:

http://www.amazon.com/Paasche-AEC-K-Air-Eraser-Kit/dp/B0001I2ASG

I have used it a couple of times and it's great, very easy to get a good effect.

Usually, acrylic comes with a protective sheet you can leave on while cutting and engraving. If it doesn't come with it, then you can buy paper transfer tape, or the widest rolls of masking tape that are available at your local home improvement or hardware store. (If you go the transfer tape route, be sure to buy the paper transfer tape, not the clear.)

For super-intricate engraving, 'weeding' all of the protective plastic or tape is cumbersome, so I'll peel it off ahead of time. After the job is done, I gently scrub away the acrylic residue with hot water and dish soap using an old toothbrush.

I have a special two-color acrylic I use for necklace pendants, charms, and signage. Using the 'high-speed, low-power' setting required on that particular plastic caused the protective plastic to melt and 'pebble' on the etched surface instead of vaporize, so I'm forced to remove it before engraving. That particular plastic leaves a stickier residue on the surface after engraving, and for that I use the adhesive remover Goof Off, which works well enough.

Another tip I've read about is changing the settings so that the machine engraves from the bottom-up instead of top-down, so that's another thing for you to try.

So, I have a smaller compressor at home for tools and the such, this guy
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000N5UHK0/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
and I have attached an airbrush regulator with filter
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00171BFKK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Will these work good for air assist? I rarely use the compressor and would love to make it more useful ;)

I use my airbrush for applying anything that I can, be that paint/stain/finish etc. Aside from saving money on paint you get much better results with a bit of practice. Smoother transitions etc etc. This is especially true with laser cut projects as I will often mask whatever it is that I am making, which allows me to spray the engraved/cut parts with an airbrush, and then remove the masking for perfect results.here is an example Basically an airbrush is GREAT in combination with a laser cutter, that said, there is a cost. I'll provide you some links to my setup.

airbrush

compressor

fume hood

masking material

Also there will be a smattering of paints/cleaners/paint thinners and airbrush cleaning supplies you'll need. So you are probably looking at $300-500 investment to get a good set up. Now clearly you can spend less on the airbrush, and if you plan on working outside, you can skip the fume hood etc etc, but just know that you won't be saving money on this right off the bat. All that said I heartily recommend getting one