Well today I made a lot of progress on the laser today. I worked most of the day today and I think the only thing I have left to do is do an alignment and it's ready to go... also I have to put the table top on and level it. Here's a few pics of the progress I made:
The first thing I did was tear down the shelf... took the power supply off and disconnected the wiring and removed it from the rig. I cleaned up the burrs from drilling the holes, sanded, cleaned, primed and painted the pannel. I primed both sides, but only painted the top as that is the only thing that will show. It is not the best paint job I have ever done and is far from smooth, but it will serve the purpose of keeping the rust from forming. It was hot outside today and the paint didn't have enough time to self level.. plus I tried using one of those trigger handles for the spray paint and it kept getting in the way of the spray, building up and dripping. I had to sand out the drop marks. Anyhow, it worked out and looks decent. The paint is dry enoug to touch and work with, but is still soft... I will wait a day or so to let it set up before I install the power supply. I will also use adhesive wire hold downs to run the wiring.
- Painted Shelf
I also got the front pannel installed. I had to cut the corner out of the corner bracket that i moved so I could get the switch farther tothe left. I also had to notch the plastic a bit. I got the wires connected to the 9 pin serial port.
- Front Pannel Install
I ran the 9 pin serial cable up the santion and par way across the horizontal member using the slot covers to hold them in. It worked very well.
- Front Pannel Wiring Rout
I also tied down all the wiring on the electrical panel.
- Mounted wiring
The wire you see going off the side is the CAT 7 wire that goes to the laser from the pololu driver board. I have to add a selector switch to the front pannel to select between the pot and PWM, but that will come in time.
I will also add a relay that will be controlled by the arduino which measures the flow sensor. Right now I have a jumper wire shorting the switch to ground.