I have a blue and white chinese 1060 100w machine with an old control board that relies on Corel Draw (LaserDrw i believe), and id like to upgrade to using Lightburn and a Ruida controller. Largely all the running gear has proven to be almost identical to your average K40.
What im wanting to work out is if the following would work as an upgrade capable of driving the 100w laser.
Cloudray K40 Series Upgrade Kit For CO2 Laser Machine
Ruida RDC6432G controller
RS-150-24 (150w, 24v) power supply.
Ive had some feedback from the local ebay seller, who appears to be cloudray, but im not convinced I’ve recieved good advice, particularly with regards to power supply. Theyve stated the 75w power supply that comes with their alternate suggestion is just for driving the unit and not the laser, and thay this controller is designed to work with smaller machines. In my mind im replacing what are components typically found on a k40 with components designed to replace those on the k40, even though my machine is larger, and I should be paying atte tion to the power supply.
Has someone been down a similar path before? Im essentially replacing an M2 Nano, and hoping to have the laser power be controlled by the software / Ruida controller instead of a manual setting for each pass set at the control board.
Yea, a kit like that can be used to upgrade K40s and K40-like machines.
I also put a DSP controller (TL-A1), two stepper drivers (DM320T), and a 24V PSU in my K40, but I had to replace the endstops and redo some of the wiring since my machine used that 12-pin flexible flat cable.
Since you got a bigger machine, it might use a NanoDRV controller with external stepper drivers, which would mean that you already got external stepper drivers which you could continue to use.
Post some pictures of the electronics and a closeup of the controller. Check what kind of endstops you got. Check the labels (if any) of your low-voltage PSU(s).
If it is a Cloud Ray product, an ebay purchase will exclude you interfacing with Cloud Ray directly. You will have to go through the ebay vendor if you have issues, not Cloud Ray direct. Here is the disclaimer from Cloud Ray.
Notification
1.We only offer after-sale tech support for customers who order directly from www.cloudraylaser.com. 2. We are not responsible for orders from Cloudray store on shopping platforms (Amazon, eBay, AliExpress) or offline dealers as we don’t have your order information in our system. Please contact the related store or salesman directly to get support.
Most K40 have a low voltage supply for the control items and stepper motors in the same box as the lps (laser power supply).
You need to know how much current the steppers require, add that to any other required power to get a useful power supply for boards and motors.
The tube itself will require a 100W supply for the lps to handle.
The Ruida, will have the proper control lines to control the tubes power via the IN terminal and the laser is enabled from the Ruida…
The big black laser power supply stays, but im a lottle unclear why i also have a
150w silver supply (for the stepper motors?)
12v 5a supply (for the panel?)
In the linked controller pack it seems like the silver 150w power supply would get changed out, and the 12v 5a power supply becomes redundant with the setup being 150w supply → ruida controller → stepper motor drivers → stepper motors. Following the diagram. The laser power supply stays as is.
The lasers black 100w power supply is switched via the ruida controller control lines, and thats what gives the laser power control to the controller / computer as the ruida controller is somehow controlling the lasers strength via pwm. Searching the model number only really shows newer versions of the power supply, and they are pwm compatible, with the same input and output line nomenclature as this one.
So… i can keep the black laser power supply in the pics?
As @jkwilborn says you need to clean it. Ideally take the case off, and vaccuum + soft brush every crevice. If the residue is greasy use isoalcohol + swabs to get it clean.
Leave the PSU disconnected (remove the wires!) for at least 24 hrs before you do this.
There are some serious high-voltage power capacitors etc inside; if it’s well made they will have drain down resistors to make them safe quickly. If badly made you need to allow enough time for the caps to drain through leakage; Treat all unknown PSU’s as badly made until proven otherwise
Ah, now this is the kicker. The current 36v supply is running the stepper motors, but the supply in the kit is 24v. Thats not exactly ideal. Ill have to figure out what to do here. A bit of background reading suggests that the steppers are more sensitive to amp changes than voltage, and that typically the stepper driver handles the magic. In which case id swap out the 36v and swap in the 24v new power supply and jump from 4.2A to 6.5A.
As for the “everything is dirty” comments. Yes, it is. You should see the honeycomb table. Im slowly going through the machine with alcohol wipes, bbq wipes, etc. Its pretty clear that the machine was run for a long time without proper smoke clearing as everything is covered in grime and dust and innsome cases a sticky coating thats like old honey or maple syrup.
The “magic” is that the stepper driver limits current to whatever it is configured to limit it to. Most steppers are rated at a much lower voltage than the stepper motor supply in use; the voltage rating is the max if there were no current limiting.
Higher max voltage adds torque. This means that the impact of lower max motor supply voltage will be lower maximum acceleration without losing position. It’s probably fine — if you run into problems with it seeming to lose position, though, you can keep this in mind.
The drivers in the kit, DM542S, are rated 24-48V so why would he not just keep the 36V power supply since the motors were designed(or the machine was) to operate at that voltage?
Interesting, I wouldn’t have thought the Ruida could only be setup using the external motor drivers power supply. It does simplify a system but don’t larger systems use more than 24V motor drivers. Anyways, I guess it’d have to be tried at 24V and see if the motors skip at desired speeds and then rethink the stepper power supply AND controller voltages later.
