That is a great area for the month! I ended up putting a picture hook bar thing on the back to hang it on the wall. As the center of gravity moves with different months, I can easily adjust from where it is hanging to keep it level.

@@CNCATHome A double picture hook will take care of the balance issue.

@@homezero - Good point! I had a long picture hood so I used that. Two would mean no re-leveling when I change the month!

Thank you. It works well! I also have a fresh air intake right above my laser that I can open up to help promote circulation. It also have an inline fan I can turn on to force air in from outside.

Do you have any experience with using a carbon filter? I thought getting one but not sure about it not venting outside. Just thought I would ask

@@johndiego3105 - I have not used a carbon filter for the laser work I have done. My brother has used something like that for his 3D printers and says it does a good job. He has lung issues and is sensitive to that so when he says it works, it must.

@ with that 440 cfm fan I imagine you’re moving some air. I think it’s time for me to upgrade my exhaust system.

@@johndiego3105 - It sure sounds like quite a bit of air movement and it is. There are times where I wish it was more. ;-)

You snooze, you loose! ;-) There are so many things you can do with this project. I was thinking of adding a picture frame on top so I could switch images monthly too! Also, have a window with another sliding piece that has the month names on it. If the front part was wider, it could cover the extra dates and only show the actual moth dates! So many options! The date windows could be circle, hexagons, octagons, or some other random shape like a profile of some animal. Skys the limit my friend! 🙂

Absolutely! I had thought about putting some information on the back of this with information about which months have 30 vs 31 days and the rules about February and leap year stuff. If the year is evenly dividable by 4 and the last two digits aren't 00 unless the year is also evenly divisible by 400, then it is a leap year. I looked into formulas for calculating the first day of a month and it was more complicated than what I wanted to put on the back. ;-)

Great question! I have a 440 CFM exhaust fan that pulls air down through my honeycomb waste board and then out through a vent. I have a video on that from over 3 years ago. I have updated my waste board to a larger once since then. Here is the link to that if you are interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZyYlnqopNZ3qsk

I wonder if you could add another slider on top for the months??

@@johndiego3105 - Absolutely! I was thinking of that for version 2 as well as adding a picture fame thing on top too!

It was well received. Thank you for the subscription! I hope you find some of the router content helpful. I just ordered an attachment that will let me draw with a pen or pencil using my router.

Thank you. It was an easy solution to a not too difficult problem. ;-)

It would be great if there was an easy conversion for that. There is more too it than just the output power. The size of your laser spot will also affect your parameters. My AtomStack P7 is only a 5.5 watt laser but the spot is really tight and small so it acts more like a 10 watt laser. But with the smaller spot, doing a fill requires more passes. I did find that the CGC has quite the latitude where it works well. If you have LightBurn, use the material test option to find where your laser's sweet spot is.

Thank you for the advice, i'll run a test pattern and adjust the settings, thank you again, take care

@@DaveJonescruise - Once you find your operating area, you will be golden!

I have done a similar process with other colors of paint and even had several layers of paint and burned through one or two layers to get to the one below it or go through all the paint back to the base which has typically been a white tile. What can be an issue with most white paint is that it contains Titanium Dioxide. Under the hear of the laser, it can crystalize and turn black. Depending on the material it is on, it may or may not stick. That is the trick. I have not tried burning paint off of brass so I do not know how that would work. without knowing what you are attempting, you might find that using your laser to burn a mask and then paint the brass might work better? I hope this helps.

🤣

Absolutely! I didn't have a dowel that size. I will have to check my stash to see if I have a drill bit in the 14.5 mm (9/16") range. The other issue is that I don't have a drill press and boring a hole down the center of a cylinder would be challenging. If I had a drill press and vice, it would be easier to do that. ;-) Your method would also allow for some cool decoration. I could make up my own battery brand.

I hear ya @@CNCATHome

My brother has a printer he wants to give me. That give me a great resource for questions and answers. One of his sons is deep into 3D printing and CAD. He and I have had many conversations on the subject. We will see. I may not like it or it may fall in love with it. P.S. A high school friend was the founder of Z-Corp which was one of the very first 3D printer companies. So there is another resource I can tap into. 🙂

There's an idea. I did start a second channel recently where I can do things that do not line up with the purpose of the CNC @ Home channel. I could start out there. Then maybe start adding content to the main channel? I do show a 3D filament printer in the opening to the videos.

@CNCATHome in that case I'd say go for it 😀

A very appropriate comment! I just posted a short video directing people to a poll I put up about a week ago about 3D printing. If you haven't see the poll already, check it out: kzbin.infoUgkx3n41wkOX83nlpYRYmVljdPg85W8L_tyX I would have a totally different solution if I was using a 3D printer. 😃

You know it! That is part of the fun. After spending the time to make it look somewhat nice to then take time to just beat it up like what would happen over years of use.

I will let my daughter know that you enjoyed the violin music. She is starting to come out of her shell a little and she did a duet a couple weeks ago in front of strangers! She has gotten so much better and I love listening to hear practice. This is an old video. It was fun to take a quick look back at it. So much has changed in my setup since then.

That is very cool! Thank you for sharing.

That is a great question. This type of fire blanket is reusable! My hope is to never need it. If I do, then I can use it, re-fold it, and put it back for another use. The material is fiberglass so you want to do your folding while wearing gloves. This one comes with a pair of gloves. 🙂

@@CNCATHome thank u!

I am glad my video could be of help.

Thank you for the questions and always great to hear from my Irish kin. Thank you for subscribing. A - CGC goes directly on a clean tile and you don't need much B - With my 10w laser, found the sweet spot at 35% to 50% anywhere from 2,000 mm/m to 3,800 mm/m. It seems to be a very forgiving process. I did find that too much power is bad at the lower speeds and is good at the higher speeds. C - With your 15w laser, you will have plenty of power to do this. Doesn't take much. I got great results with my 5.5w laser. D - As with anything you are burning, make sure to have good ventilation. As a general rule, you do not want to inhale anything the laser is burning. When applying the CGC, it is also a good idea not to huff the fumes. ;-) I have been using TiO2 mixed with alcohol and gotten great results. If you can get CGC, that should work great for you. It is easy to spray on in a light even coat and the results are very nice.

​@@CNCATHomeMany thanks AJ. I'll get some CGC tomorrow. We might even explore your Irish kin one day 😂

@@mikemcguckian6968 - Best of luck with your experiments with CGC. My dad's mom was Irish. Her parents were first generation immigrants to the USA. You have to go back farther on my mom's side but they are all British Isles: English, Scottish, Irish. I was asked once how much Scotch I had in me and I replied "About a fifth!" 😂

@CNCATHome that's the right place to have scotch! No point in keeping it in the bottle😃

That is great advice! Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for the information! I did another one with a thicker layer on it and it only turned out darker. The main issue is starting with a lower resolution image. I wanted to do it as a surprise and this was the best image I could get without asking my friend for the original which is likely better. Sounds like you are doing a grey scale where I am using Jarvis dithering. I really should play more with the grey scale as my first experiment worked well. 80 watt laser at 12.5% max would be about 10 watts to 0 watts at 3,000 mm/min. My diode laser is 10 watts max so I am already at or below your powers. (Did you hear any jealousy in my typing?) ;-) I really need to play around more using the grey scale set up with TiO2. It sounds like you have it dialed in for your laser. How to you apply the TiO2 to your tiles?

@CNCATHome I was doing 3 to 1 with alcohol and titanium dioxide but I just starting trying it with 1 part Elmer's glue. I like using no glue better and spraying it with a fine mist spray bottle but the bottle keeps getting clogged and i have to get another one. I actually don't do grey scale. I haven't been able to get a good picture with it. I try a couple times, get frustrated with it then go back to the way I know how to do it. I process most of my pictures through imagR and do kasia or baning algorithm at 318dpi. If I do go through just lightburn, I'll do stucki or jarvis.

@@CSP.D-zignWerqz - I have had several people suggest the school glue thing and I just haven't tried it and I really don't want to. ;-) I have been using an inexpensive all-in-one airbrush with good results. I can keep it clean so it doesn't clog. I keep my mix in a spray bottle but I don't actually use the sprayer. I even removed the pickup tube so I can't use it without putting that back in place. The image I started with was 340X440 pixels. On a 4" tile, at best that would only be 110dpi and I needed the width to fit so I was in the 85 or less dpi range.

@@CNCATHome I've had a airbrush for a couple of years but I've never used it. Someone gave it to me for a Christmas present. All it is, is the handheld part. I don't have everything I need to use it. Since you have the set up, I don't blame you for not wanting to use the glue. I wouldn't either. I've also been a subscriber for a while now. You put out some good content. Thanks for the time you put in to help others in this craft.

@@CSP.D-zignWerqz - Thank you for the kind words and being a long time subscriber. :-)

This was done using the Genmitsu LC-50 + which is rated as a blue, 10 watt LED/Diode laser. The glass does turn out well. A great option would be to use your idea of inverting the image. After cleaning off the TiO2, spray paint that white, silver, or some other color. When it is put into a frame, the TiO2 side would be behind the glass and really look like a photo. With it on the front of the glass, it casts a slight shadow onto the background. The thicker the glass, the more pronounced that is.

Both great ideas to increase the holding capacity. I was thinking a thin piece of neoprene rubber would also be a good add. These end stops are really intended to help create a reference location for repeatability between multiple parts and not for clamping. Still, they can work for both.

​@@CNCATHome I wouldn’t recommend using rubber, as its flexibility can affect holding and repeatability. Sandpaper, on the other hand, doesn’t compress and provides significantly more friction compared to any flat surface. Fine-grain sandpaper, in particular, can increase friction by up to 20 times.

@@axelSixtySix - Absolutely with the repeatability. Those end stops are designed to hole as much as they are to position. I will have to try the sandpaper trick if I am unable to use a better clamp. Thank you for the input. 👍

I would love to know more about your method. I have had other viewers talk about dipping the tile into a mix. Can you explain your process and talk about the mixture you use? I have had good luck with my airbrush when doing 4 to 6 tiles but it is a pain to clean. There is also some drips when I am not careful and as long as that is not on an already coated tile, I can clean it up. have tried pouring a mix onto a tile but it was too thick.

Thank you for the input. I have a zeroing template for this machine that I can use to get repeatable alignment when doing multiple cards. I have also made templates out of card stock that work well for multiple items. Even masking tape as a template can work and is easy to set up. So many options and they are all good ones! :-) You had a question about resizing the original artwork before doing the trace. I try to do my trace while it is at its original size and do all of my resizing once once it is vectors. I do this to maintain the highest level of accuracy I can as a vector doesn't care how big it is and will reduce aliasing. For some reason, I had it in my head that Print and Cut would not only resize my image at burn but also alter its aspect ratio. That was WAY off. ;-) Once I realized that, I did the resize and altered aspect ratio to fit my business card template. I still used Print and Cut to fit my randomly placed material.

Sorry to hear that. Part of my brain thought that the down draft exhaust I have would hold that in place. The problem is there is too much open area to really make any difference. If I were to block a bunch of the honeycomb, that could help. But a little tape on the bake worked great in this case.

@CNCATHome yes tape happened on the next try

Ya, that was a total brain fart, the heat was assumed. So you know what that makes me. When all is said and done, the fire blanket did work. It really helped starve the fire from the oxygen. It doesn't help with the heat or fuel. As you pointed out, you need all three and this can greatly reduce the oxygen.

That is such a great question! I have been thinking the same thing. My gut say no as the resizing is all done outside of the settings. But my curiosity says to try it! Now that you have suggested the same thing, I will do a quick test to see what happens. :-)

Before you get a new sprayer, thin your mix to see if that helps keep things clear. I only spray 2 to 6 tiles at a time and have had good luck with my cheapo sprayers. Both have a 0.3mm nozzle. The funny thing is they are both listed as "beauty equipment. One has a single pressure and the other has two settings. I use both at their highest setting.

That is a unique question. :-) I looked up the specification on this and they show 6.34oz of blowing force. That converts to 180 grams. I was going to say that the cone is not removable but then I never had tried that. It seems it does come off. There were no specification on the force without the cone on.

@CNCATHome thank you for the info, you can measure the thrust using a weighing scale yourselves otherwise...

@@chetanpathare2853 - Unfortunately, I don't have a small scale on which I could perform that test. :-(

Since this video, I have switched to using an airbrush to apply a much thinner mixture (about 3:1) and have gotten great coverage. :-)

Liquid milk! Nice analogy on that. I am currently using a mix about 3:1 with a drop or two of food coloring. Seems to be nice and thin and doesn't clog the gun. I would have no issue going to 4:1 on that too.

Thank you for that. FYI - I did get to see your original comment too. I am glad you were able to find what you needed. The whole thing with the Roman numeral for 4 is kind of interesting. In "modern" Roman numbering, 4 is IV. I find it funny to call that modern Roman numbering as that has been the standard for hundreds of years. BUT back in the day, 4 was done as IIII and from what I have found, is still acceptable to do it that way. I also find it interesting that on clock faces using Roman numbers, they still use IIII for 4 o'clock. When I first heard about this years ago, I didn't believe it and was surprised that I had not seen that before. I have my great grandfather's pocket watch and it has Roman numbers. When I pulled that out, sure enough, IIII. Right in front of my for years and I never noticed. Now it is something you will always look for when you see a clock with Roman numerals on the face.

That is a great suggestion! Since this video, I have started to add a drop or two of food coloring and it makes the world of difference. So much easier to see the coverage.

Thank you for asking. In this group I play Bari Saxophone.

I am not sure to what you are referring. What are "orbs" and where are you seeing them in this video?

Great question! For this process, absolutely interchangeable. It will likely change the drying time a little which isn't always a bad thing. ;-) It tends to be cheaper to use isopropyl alcohol too.

Hello Pat from Australia! You are about as far away from here as you can be and still be on the planet! I am located in central Minnesota in the USA. ;-) Great questions! Thank you for asking. I will see if I can answer them for you. CO2 laser, will this process work? I have no clue. I don't know if the frequency of the laser has anything to do with the transformation process or not or if it is the concentrated heat the laser provides. It is something that is easy to set up and is not a bank breaker. I would say to give it a go and see what happens. DPI - LightBurn uses a LPI (lines per inch) measurement and on my Genmitsu LC-50 +, I am using 254 LPI or .1 mm Line Interval. On my AtomStack P7, I am using 300 LPI or .0847mm line interval. This is due to the highly focused laser dot this unit has. It requires me to make more passes to get equivalent coverage. That being said, you will need to find what works best for your laser and its laser dot size. The mix I have been using is a 3:1 of denatured alcohol to Ti02 mix with a drop or two of food coloring. The coloring makes it so much easier to see how even the coverage is. The whole "white" glue thing I have yet to try. A mix of water, glue, and TiO2 has been suggested by several viewers who say they are getting good results. The white glue is a basic water based school glue. That is what we call it here. I use the DNA because it evaporates quickly and I like to coat the tiles and get them right onto the laser. The glue/water mix will dry more slowly which should allow the mix to better self level and still be easily cleaned with water. It should also be more stable and resilient on the tile. TiO2 with DNA will brush off practically by looking at it. ;-) Once the DNA evaporates, it is just a light dusting of TiO2 on the tile with nothing really holding it on there. It does still well enough that I can use my basic air assist without blowing it off. But a light touch of your finger will easily remove it from the tile. I hope this helps, Pat. Good luck implementing this process with your laser. It should be very fast with 100 watts available. We are transitioning into fall/autumn here and you should be entering your spring season. Enjoy playing with your laser and trying new thing. 🙂

I was thinking the exact same thing. I don't know if this is generic or specific to this unit. My hope is it is generic and they are plentiful. I did a quick search for "mini vacuum replacement HEPA filter" and several results look about the right size. I think it is generic. I will contact the company from where I got this to see if they have any specifications or a part number for replacements. I found something that might be the right thing. The measurements are close: www.aliexpress.us/item/3256807322419283.html?src=google&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa I did reach out to the company that sent this to me and if they have information, I will add it to your post! 🙂

Update on the HEPA filter. I heard back from FORTAKASY. She said they currently do not have replacement filters in the USA. Something to keep in mind I guess. The filter seems sturdy and was easily flown clean. I don't plan to use it as a vacuum very much so I am not too worried about it.

That is awesome! I saw this back in 2002 when I was contracting at General Mills. I was there early and it was blinking away at someone's desk and I wondered what it was. The more I looked at it, I realized that the LEDs were changing every second. That is when it hit me that it was a binary clock. I put that on my Christmas list and a year later, I got this from my parents. The founder of the company I work for was fascinated by it. When he came into my office, back when we actually had offices, he would just stare at it for a while. Is yours the red one like I have or did you get the blue one?

@@CNCATHome Mine is red.