Found a little Oops when I did the cutting and drilling today. Turns out ‘someone’ had the depth of the cabinet at 576mm but it’s actually 500mm. Power supply fits where shown but there’s no room for the fan
Fixable, just means drilling few mores holes and mounting the power supply at 90 degrees to that shown
One solution might be to mount the fan outside the case (still blowing in).
Spoiler: The someone was me 
Got chance to do some work on the K40 today. Got the power supplies and stepper drivers mounted. I’ll start making up the wiring loom tonight/tomorrow.
That’s way to neat to work …lol!
Heavy duty (22AWG), 4 core, shielded microphone cable for the stepper motors. A lighter gauge (28AWG) 4 core, audio cable for the control signals from Raspberry Pi to stepper drivers. All DC (5/12/24) power cables are 17AWG, not really necessary but what I had available. Mains wiring to outlets and to power supplies is from standard, 3 core flex.
All stepper driver and Raspberry Pi wires will be terminated with bootlace ferrules, similar to those used to connect the standard laser power supply. Mains wiring will be female spade connectors, these may end up being soldered instead.
Here’s the board I’m building the wiring against in the absence of the laser cutter.
One step forward, two steps back!
The laser tube was replaced about 18 months or so ago and whoever did the install, managed to solder the high tension lead to the tubs. In installing the new power supply and wiring, I’ve been careful to not place too much (mechanical) tension on the high tension lead. Tonight I failed and the glass tube holding the wire, snapped. (Couldn’t find an idiot emoji) 
Time to brush up on the specs for a replacement. Any recommended suppliers? I was going to try Cloudray.
Cloudray and Lightobject get consistently good reports here. Here’s a recent conversation on this topic:
While I’m stressing the credit card, is there anything else I should consider replacing at this time? As far as I know, the power supply is OK (the way I’m going though …).
Mirrors and lenses were replaced at the same time as the laser tube (18 -24 months ago)
Looking at this tube replacement.
Price from Cloudray $US136, Price from Light Object $US185.
Both prices include shipping.
If I buy from Cloudray, I can get a power supply for $US43, free shipping.
I’ll wait for some more answers/suggestions over night before ordering.
I forgot you are in AU. I bought my 100W tube from LO in part to work with someone in the US if I needed help, which wouldn’t help you any. (You might Display your national flag with your user name to help me out here. 
)
I have ordered a few times from Cloudray and except for “free shipping” for a small part that came by the small packet service and took about a month, shipping was fast. I would order from them again.
Found a flag 
Delivery from Cloudray is quoted as May 1st. That should give me time to finish off everything else.
I can only work on the laser once a week for at most a couple of hours. It’s 60 km away from home.
And to think that I complained that my makerspace (which closed shortly after I joined, just my luck, or am I the curse?) was approximately half that distance!
Well an order has been placed for the following:
Not sure I’ll need this last item but after the bodge that was used to install the last tube, I’d rather have it and not need it. Total cost $A286
That last item seems to show only 1/2 the cable and connector?
Those connectors have two parts Cloudray Laser Power Supply High Electricity Adapter / Connector for High Voltage Cable|adapter connector|connector adapterconnector power - AliExpress
Thanks Don I think you’re right. The tube does seem to have a wire attached as supplied but couldn’t see how it was terminated. I’ll order this bit too ‘just in case’
… also in case you do not know, Just twist the wire around the anode and silicon it in.
Do not solder or crimp …
Part of the reason that the current tube broke was that the anode had been soldered (at least I tell myself that so I don’t feel so bad…).
I’d guessed from looking at the high tension connector I’m buying that it was a mechanical connections i.e. alligator clip, or similar.
The lead from the LPS is just long enough to reach the anode so I’ll have to splice it into the new lead. I seem to recall reading (probably from your blog) that the HT lead is part of the fly-back transformer and not separately replaceable. Other than making sure the splice is as far away from any metal parts and is insulated correctly (RTV silicon should do it), any other things I should be aware of?
Instructions on how to splice the HV cable safely are in @donkjr 's blog, linked from this Getting Started with CO2 Lasers article:
Here’s a search for more discussion on this forum:
https://forum.makerforums.info/search?q=hv%20splice
I’ve been over the stuff in @donkjr’s blog and looked at all the videos he’s linked on the subject of tube change. Splicing the wire is not a problem but my main concern was the best/correct way to attach the wire to the anode. The Cloudray tube does come with a wire attached (not sure on the method - mechanical or soldered) so all I should need to do is to choose the best location for the splice.
Is it 7 or 8 mm that fits on a “standard” k40 laser tube?
Regards Bernd
CLoudray told me 7mm was fine. Hope they’re right.
