K40 Chinese Laser Cutter Mostly Stock and Running on a RAMPS Control Board

[@mxbunnycatter]

What kind of steppers are you using here, andm. If so; what type of board/steppers did you upgrade to?

[@AustinSteingrube]

Just using the generic ones that were installed when I got the machine. They work pretty well. As far as the driver board, I'm just using a generic Arduino CNC shield from Amazon. I'd also recommend running GRBL as the newer versions have pretty fantastic laser control.

[@patprop74]

Hi there, i am about to get my ramps setup for the K40, how are you liking it? did you find any problems using the 24V to power the ramps, or was there a power loss in the laser because of it ?

[@darkracer1252]

is there a reason it's moving so increadebly slow?

[@AustinSteingrube]

It's running fairly slow for a few different reasons. 1) This is a pretty low powered laser cutter. It doesn't have the oomph to punch through like a $10k professional one would. 2) I had no idea what I was doing when I made this at the time, heheh. I didn't have air assist really, my lens was dirty, my focal length is off, and things were mostly misaligned. Cutting through 1/8" plywood can definitely be done a little faster on a K40, but unfortunately not by much. I think a good speed I used last week was something like 800mm/s at full power (at ~19mA of current) with good results and everything in (proper) focus with air assist.