Nice man. I literally just created my first PCB with my xCarve last night. It's really cool to see how there's multiple ways to skin a cat!

Enjoying laser videos keep them coming! ☺

I've learned something new. Nice video. Therefore I like your channel.

Thanks, really useful. I use a cnc engraving machine with a 1.6W blue laser mounted on the spindle motor, for PCBs I can do the drilling operations without having to reset the machine. Also, I find Kapton tape much better than black paint, you can scrub off the burnt bits with washing up liquid an an old toothbrush.

Great tutorial, I would suggest you change engraving density in the build files which are open source from 10pixels/mm to 15 or 20 and with that you will achieve a much better finish(on the plane) ;) Greetings, Jake

Thanks for the vid it helped out a lot. I started out with a 2.5w laser then upgraded to a 5.5w and followed the same principles on installation etc; and everything turned out fine. Then I upgraded to a 15w beast and that setup on the same circuit is different. everything works great with the J tech extension, but i did notice that with 305 engineer extension it is too powerful for my particular engraving needs. Turns out that adjusting B/W threshold or grayscale is a bust and has no influence on the m106 power number. But I did discover that if you put a space after the M106 and S40 or whatever S number you want in the "Laser ON Command" then it works perfectly and places it in the gcode. Just thought you should know. Thanks again!

Love your example. Especially the Circuit Board portion. Please though for the love of god, mount a little fan with the laser to blow the smoke away. The lens will eventually have the smoke burn on it and make you a very sand panda.

nice tutorial :) thats amazing

Great! Please make video of full workflow to create PCB with laser.

great job

Thank you so much

If you want to preserve your laser consider moving the PWM pin to one of the GPIO and setting the fan pin as laser enable in marlin. You can also just plug it directly into 12v and use a level shifting circuit with your fan pin if you don't want to change the firmware. The configuration you have it in turns the fan on sporadically and risks damaging your diode in the long run where the PWM pin can turn the beam on and off without turning the cooling fan off. It's especially risky if you are doing long rasters at low power since the fan may not even trigger at low PWM signals.

This is a great idea! I am curious if UV sensitive PCB would be used, perhaps the result would be better, than with simple paint.

i've just got my puny 3 axis cd rom cnc to accept gcodes from inkscape and easel,i want to use a laser and a mill for every application imaginable,these two vids are excellent sources of info,BIG CHEERS for that,one thing,instead of matt paint try gloss or enamel,i use sharpie or enamel to touch up the laser printer iron on pcb image and the sharpie works well,but if i can wait ten-fifteen mins enamel paint is rock solid wont scratch off like sharpie,i think the matt paint is a wee bit too delicate after having a laser scortch its arse so close to what you want too keep as a track/pad,the enamel would be worth a shot. If you do try it could you let me know how it went as it will be a while before i get to the lasering point(puny cd rom cnc stage),again this info is invaluable,and lasers are cool(to watch not temp).

For the burned paint i usually just rinse it under water. The vecor mode also works great for pcbs. You only need to outline your tracks (from pdf) with a 0.5 mm stroke and convert the stroke to solid. Takes more time in inkscape but worth it ;) Great series btw :D

@thebeststooge

6 жыл бұрын

Vector would be the best way I bet.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

Agreed, vector FTW.

You should try using pcb with a photo layer and a developing solution. I've heard it etches very well afterwards.

Mil gracias amigo. las extensiones que sugieres me han ayudado a realizar mis circuitos impresos con laser, en especial el primer complemento. con ayuda del programa Gimp logro editar la imagen y vectorizarlas en Inkscape, así se ahorra mucho tiempo y se logra ganar mucha más resolución en las placas... Pero de antemano mil y mil gracias amigo....

I would be surprised if Eagle does not have a way to export SVG (sharper lines, shorter time). I know KiCad does. This is a really neat way to apply an etch resist mask!

In my opinion this circuit board will be much better when gcode will force to draw shapes of paths except drawing line and making step to next parallel line.. Because with this gcode, zoomed print looks like low res foto without antialiasing! :)

@sinformant

6 жыл бұрын

nanodeath yeah I think the previous method of vector control would have been better for drawing circuits, but still a great vid

Hello Tech2C ! I was wondering could you turn your hypercube into an *automated soldering station* ( _which is hard for the solder supply_ ) or at least try manual precision soldering with it?

Hi, good vid, what kind of 3-D printer are you using?, and the same for the Laser light?. I want to make some pcboards in copper clad using the laser light. Thanks,

I have seen on you tube where a lazer beam pointed at some i think aluminum dust particles and make a gear, can this be done hear too just need that aluminum that comes in powder form.

A thought occurred, you could use the pen plotter head with a sharpie to draw the PCB etch resist mask! Edit: Just watched your pen holder video where you do this lol

I did some tests with this and the best I can get out of it for grey scale raster is 30%-100% so I lose the first 30% of shades on the grey scale.

9:20 you gotta drag the puddle to get that wood to weld aka puddle up he

Hey, I hope you can help me out. I've recently started using the Raster 2 GCode generator and whenever I send anything to print the laser just makes a continuous line and no image. Do you know why this might be?

Those track edges look like they could be a bit smoother. A hacky way of achieving that would be to do one pass in vector mode, drawing just the track/pad edges and then following it up with the raster fill.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure if it was my aggressive cleaning, or the laser not turning on/off fast enough resulting in not so perfect tracks.

Really nice! Could you kindly test the PCB "etching" with the other software? I believe the traces would like a lot sharper, as did the airplane. Thanks for the tests and quality!

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

Checkout Flatcam. It can create toolpaths specifically for PCB design but it's intended for a drill. You need to edit the gcode and replace the Z axis moves with laser on/off commands. It works great though, I've done that previously.

I have been looking at this plugin and for we who are on Marlin + Arduino it has a HUGE oversight. With lasers you control how dark it is via two methods and that is speed and power. Speed seems to max out for us around 60-100mm/s (this is not the same as a 3d printer because each pixel is being burned not a track of ooze being laid out) so that hampers us IMMENSELY. Now as for the other method of power this plugin doesn't do it for grayscale as it is always 255 max which is a nono. What it does is take the pixel value and subtracts it from 255 with no scaling so everything I burn with it is too dark. I know how to program so I can see what they did wrong but I don't know Python to be able to add a scaling power factor we can just input. Say a min and max value for the power.

Please can you test cutting and heating to bend acrilyc to get 90 degre angle cheers

Great video, How do you bring up the gcode ?

This is great! I've got the same laser, and a PCB Router I've built. I downloaded Inkscape and the Plug-in, and imported a .JPG file. I ran the 305 Engineering extension, and got a .gcode file. However, it is just a raster, no on/off! So I'm missing something. Can you direct me to a tutorial? I'm reading the on-line Inkscape manual, but I'm missing something. Thanks!

@brunocabral1578

3 жыл бұрын

I think you need to convert image to curves in inkscape to the extension works, but YMMV

dear sir can you tell me how to get the file i created with inkscape in to repetier and very importand be able to klik print I dont use a sd card

Can any one tidy the list of the 3D printer cause I'm confused about what I need and where can I find the 3D print part file thanks

Hey .. Great job brother I would like to ask that in which software you run the laser .gcode file !? Plz guide me. I am currently working on the 2.5 watt laser engraving project and facing this problem . Plz send me reply 🙂 I generated gcode file but don't know in which software I would run that !!

Is it special pieces of wood for engraving You using? How to find it ?

Although this gets the job done the resolution of the pads and tracks aren't going to be as high compared to when using a cnc router... All the more reason to create a CNC attachment for the Hypercube ! 😂

круто!!..спс.подробный рассказ...лайк.!.

Use Mr Clean Magic Eraser to clean the board after burning. Works for me.

@Tech2C

5 жыл бұрын

Good idea, thanks!

I keep having issues with my raster to gcode. when I take the image in inkscape and make the code, the preview it makes looks really great. Though when I go to print the code.. I never really see the laser turn off /on like it did in your video. Also my results are I think going to print a very solid black shape. I've never really let the laser finish to see the final result.

@laserrooster

6 жыл бұрын

you laser might need additional G-code to turn it on mine requires M03 S255 the s command is just the laser power level. enter that where it has g-code to turn on laser.

how to adjust PWM OF laser, how to know how many pwm is needed for cutting the materials ?

hello friend, great tutorial, and about photos, you have some tutorial. thanks

It feels like this extension needs some way to work without full scanning. Looks like that would cut down on time immensely on the positive space drawing.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

True. Small images like the PCB design are ok I'd say.

I wouldn't prefer using a raster file to etch PCBs, as they aren't particularly precise. I'd instead convert to vector and generate gcode instructions from that. But I think that's what you did in your last video (I haven't watched it yet).

The PCB board may be Carbonized conductive...Will be?

Nice one man. But for pcb is better to use flatcam allows u to do perfect double sided pcb all you do is export garber files and bring them in there .holes tools and more really good. For cutting im using estlacam really good software

@LucasHartmann

6 жыл бұрын

I second FlatCAM. The main benefit is that it is vector based, much better for engraving. Maybe using a large power plane or doing just trace outlines you could improve engraving time.

@dkeinys

6 жыл бұрын

Lucas Hartmann yes but vector engraving is burning that much paint away ill reduce laser life badly.usin ISOLATION method would be much better and quicker.this is only my opinion

@LucasHartmann

6 жыл бұрын

ISOLATION is just what I meant with "just trace outlines." I too think it would be better.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

Yes I've used Flatcam previously (not in video) and modified the gcode to turn the laser on/off instead of Z axis up/down. It works very well and very fast. I needed to create multiple layers as the laser point is very small and not enough paint was burnt away.

@dkeinys

6 жыл бұрын

Tech2C you can set passes .im usualy do 3 passes with 0.02mm overlap works every tine . Love ur videos man keep it up. Do one video with flatcam bet u would help loads off people. When i started to use laser it was head scrach for weeks.and flatcam changed all so easy once u know whats what. Looking forwards to new vide keep it up!!

what is the "black" ink type you used on the board ? i have tried to use "car color spray" but didn't work

@edsonmisaelastorgacastro9170

6 жыл бұрын

any idea?, i've been looking for this but i still don't know

Great tutorial. I downloaded the software but I had to download it to Inkscape /share/Inkscape/extensions folder.. The file does show up in the drop down but when I hit apply I get a error and it does not generate code. I am running version 1.2.1 Inkscape. Has anyone else had this problem? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Do not use alcohol and do not use acrylic paint. Use aceton or mineral based paint and clean with a dry towel

Have you checked out the MKS robin? Seems like a really good value 32 bit board!

@AntonMakesStuff

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah it probably is, but the reason I'm interested in the Robin is because you can install your own steppers, a very important feature in my opinion.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

No I haven't as of yet. Looks like a great board with the LCD display. I like the option to add our own step drivers.

What black paint was used, didn‘t get it on the audio....

Have you thought about using a photo resist pen and drawing the layout directly onto the PCB? I'd love to see if this works!

hola, que hayque escribir en Export directory, gracias

Hi, do extension work for Inkscape 1.0. ??? Thank you

Hi I checked the source in raster2laser_gecode.py and made the following changes: for the filename, change line 149: pos_file_gcode = os.path.join(self.options.directory,self.options.filename+".gcode") Hope that helps Best Frank

Apperantly 2500mW is not enough to go through copper! From your thumbnail, I thought you were going to make a PCB by burning away the copper! Why go through this song and dance when the laser printer transfer method works the same way but at no extra cost?

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure how much laser power would be required to vaporize copper, but I dare say at this price point it definately won't! And why not demonstrate how this Inkscape extension works and provide examples, regardless of the efficacy?

@RinksRides

6 жыл бұрын

something like 5-10W for copper foil. Seen it in another YT video. The guy used a 5W and thin copper foil and then transferred the foil to Kapton tape making a DIY flex PCB. I have experimented (by hand, don't bother) to use the 2.5W laser for soldering. Thinking I was on to something until I seen a Computer Cronicles from like 1988 when one of the guests introduced a "new" laptop that used laser soldering |:/

@ufohunter3688

6 жыл бұрын

Do you have a link to it? Kapton + Copper foil = flexible PCB sound intriguing.

@fredgenius

6 жыл бұрын

Dude, there are so many problems with the toner transfer method. Registration for one.

what type of black paint you use?

Hi .Please help cant change txt into gcode,doing like you but remain text file.

There's a warning on the Banggood page for this laser that it shouldn't be used for more than 30 minutes continuous. In my code, I put a pause in once every 10 minutes. Do you know if these plugins do anything like that?

@nukularpictures

6 жыл бұрын

Well if they are running with pwm it should not be any problem, because its just due to heat. And since pwm doesnt run the laser at full power and probably only 50 % of the time it will be completly ok. If you want to be safe just limit the max pwm to like 200 or so. That will make sure it wont overheat. Or run a fan on the lasers heatsink

When I change the name to .GCode it still says it’s a text file so my printer doesn’t recognize it any help?

how do u get the directory and start print3

I'm gonna try to SMD soldering with laser. I thought Solder paste can be melt with laser.

@brunocabral1578

3 жыл бұрын

Did it worked?

Is it possible to actually use Gerber line draw and flash codes. This would be way more accurate.

I finally got my laser going and it burned through 10 pages and etched my boro glass and went through it and etched a line on my MK2B. :/ I didn't think a laser would go through all of that and be able to do that for these types of lasers.

@Tech2C

6 жыл бұрын

Wow that is alot of material to penetrate and still etch your heat bed!

@thebeststooge

6 жыл бұрын

Yes, I am still in shock and that was a brand new glass too. I will say that I could not get the nice pictures I have seen others get with it no matter how hard I tried. I think the main issue is that the Arduino is just too slow as mine seems to max out around 100mm per sec and that is too slow for 10-255.

just finished building my 300*300*350 mm build volume corexy 3D printer

@devalopr

6 жыл бұрын

zuluknob sorry , typing error! :)

@sandeepshirole4171

6 жыл бұрын

3d tech

15:55 well... That looks way more horrible than my first steps with the toner transfer method... Today I can etch quite good results with 2 layers of transparent foil laser-printed and UV developed.. down to ~8mil... But I will try the laser on an 3d printer too, ordered a Duet 2 Wifi that can do >200 microsteps... my goal is AT LEAST 8mil precision...

When I saw you using isopropyl to clean the PCB, I cringed. I cringed because you had said that the paint you used was an acrylic-based paint. Alcohol (ethanol, isopropyl) is very good at removing acrylic. You should've tried plain water first, scrubbing with a toothbrush, then blotting with a tissue.

Lah yhafdak

what was the black ink on the pcb ?!

@edsonmisaelastorgacastro9170

6 жыл бұрын

yeah man, the same question

@Nick-uf9st

6 жыл бұрын

He said it's black spray paint.

@edsonmisaelastorgacastro9170

6 жыл бұрын

It seems to be ink for printers, toner

Lazer mw?

Test with cd permanent marker.

Have you seen this video by electronoob where he uses a UV printer to print on resist? I think you should try this with your 3D printer - attatch a UV laser, and instead of using paint use dry resist as in the video or a presensitized PCB, or both for comparison, to print the circuit onto. I would love to see what kind of results/precision one can get from a DIY approach! kzread.info/dash/bejne/X4WZ05mTl7i1pag.html

no good