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
Almost identical to my experience! I see a lot of tape and mods on your current photo, definitely would be interested in more info on the mods you’ve done now
Hey there,
Lots of things over the past few years. I will list them here and just let me know if you want more details.
Most recently to oldest
*Built a new stand/rolling cart with laptop drawer and monitor mount
*Air hose regulator so I can easily toggle the air for the assist on and off without messing with the compressor valve
*Microcontroller based thermostat that triggers LED lights when water for the coolant gets too hot
*Cohesion 360 board so I can use lightburn and control power intensity from computer
*Secondary power supply to run case upgrades
*Extra case lights
*Intake fans
*Laser crosshairs
*Drag chain for air assist and laser cross hair wires
*analog Ammeter
*analog flow gauge
*Scissor lift
*Honeycomb bed
*Inline exhaust setup
How do you like the scissor lift? I keep thinking about trying one but it seems like it’ll be wobbly / hard to keep level…
It has worked fine. No issues with stability or leveling.
Getting it to the right height is a bit of a hassle if you change material thickness frequently because in order to adjust it I have to remove the work piece and the honeycomb bed, turn the screw, add everything back to check if it’s right, and if not, repeat the process until it’s dialed in. Usually I am working with 3mm ply though so it’s not very often I need to fiddle with it, and when I need to work on something bulky it’s nice to be able to lift it without for added depth.