Educa's BigFoot

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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby educa » Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:48 am

Well I read some documents yesterday and tried alibre (well, the basics)

It looks like a nice program. There are still things I didn't find a solution for however, but it does look nice.

This is my first drawing. Some 35x35mm alu extrusions which I then aligned and mated to form an (strange) assembly :)

Image



I wonder now. This assembly is made with 3 times the same part and the part is 10cm long.

But what if I want a part to be 10cm , another 20cm and the third 50cm? Would I need to draw 3 different parts for that and save as individual part files ?
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby mikegrundvig » Wed Jan 04, 2012 2:54 pm

Again, no Alibre expert but look for the concept of "configurations" for the part. Something that lets you control the configuration of the extrude step to create multiple identical parts with other that difference. Then in the assembly (the drawing with multiple parts) you choose the configuration you need for a given instance of a part.

-Mike
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby BenJackson » Wed Jan 04, 2012 5:34 pm

mikegrundvig wrote:Again, no Alibre expert but look for the concept of "configurations" for the part. Something that lets you control the configuration of the extrude step to create multiple identical parts with other that difference. Then in the assembly (the drawing with multiple parts) you choose the configuration you need for a given instance of a part.

You can't create (but you can manipulate) configurations with Standard. I didn't find configurations to work well for extrusion lengths. I think a different part for each length with a different p/n (and mfr p/n) is the way to go. Plus one of your rails might be "extrude to geometry" instead of "to depth" so that it automatically spans the front of your machine.

One of my initial mental hurdles with Alibre was learning to relax and love the giant part lists.
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby educa » Wed Jan 04, 2012 6:12 pm

partlists ? where ?
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Advise on Laser head , lens + mirrors please ?

Postby educa » Sun Jan 08, 2012 8:39 pm

Hi,

For my machine I want to begin with a 40watt laser tube but the machine will have place for 40watt , 60 watt or 80 watt at a later point.

Now I'm looking to buy my laser head since first thing I want to fully make is my X axis.
Therefore I found the following offer by cnccoletech

http://www.ebay.de/itm/CO2-Laser-Head-M ... 230d0c8a2c

My machine will have a cuttable area of aprox 48" by 24" running on precision ball bearing rails. I can machine my delrin parts on a high precision cnc machine, so alignment should be doable.

Now I read here and there that 48x24" is quite big so its better to have good quality optics and mirror mounts with fine thread pitch.



So here are my questions now:

1) The mirror mount supports mirrors of 20,25 and 30 mm (I think I have to choose on order). What would be best for me ? I personally think I would be best off with 25mm? Any advise ?

2) The mirrors are SI Coated gold. For 40Watt thats certainly not a problem, but will this withstand 80watt also at a later point ?

3) For lens I think best option for general usage is 50.8mm focal distance ? I do plan on cutting too however, but I will hardly cut anything thicker then 5mm (1/5") and materials are acrylic and plywood/mdf. I still have to ask cnccoletech what diameter the lens has because probably thats also important ?

4) The lens is probably ZnSe based. Is this ok for 80 watts ? (it certainly is for 40 watts)


Kind regards,

Bart
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby artwood_decor » Mon Jan 09, 2012 2:17 pm

[quote="educa"]1) The mirror mount supports mirrors of 20,25 and 30 mm (I think I have to choose on order).[/quote]

For 25mm mirrors and lens I got a quotation USD220+USD40/shipping.
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby educa » Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:24 pm

You got that quote from cnccoletech ?
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby artwood_decor » Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:34 pm

Yes.
It was for this listing:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/CO2-Laser-Head-M ... 230d0c8a2c

and here is my request:
1x Laser Head
1x High quality lens, focus length 50.8mm
2x Reflect mirror mount 25mm
3x High quality Si coated golden mirror, diameter 25mm

So the price goes up with diameter...
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby educa » Mon Jan 09, 2012 3:45 pm

and thats ok upto 80 watts of co2 laser?
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Re: Educa's BigFoot

Postby artwood_decor » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:08 pm

Didn't ask about power, but my assumption was the beam diameter goes up with power. (I might be wrong)
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