This page showcases some of the projects we have worked on in conjunction with our clients.
Water flow sensor
Our C02 Lasers have water cooled glass laser tubes which are quite expensive. The lasers do have a trip switch that protects the tube should the water pump fail but over time the trip switch can fail. Some lasers do not even have this feature such as my very first desktop laser.
Over the past I have managed to kill a few tubes due to failed or poor cooling so I wanted to find a way to warn us if there is an issue with the water.
Looking around the web for inspiration I found various articles on using a flow meter connected to an Arduino so I purchased a kit and started to experiment.
I actually used our Fiber galvo laser to prototype a circuit board which worked well enough to get some PCBs made for the working version.
The result is a unit that simply keeps an eye in the water flow and if it stops will scream a high pitched noise. Here is a video (turn your speakers down 😉 )
This project was mainly for me but happy to share – email for details
Engraved panel
We were contacted recently by one of our customers who asked if we can engrave and cut a panel for an electronics project he was working on. Of course the answer was yes as long as the size was not larger than our lasers can take!.
Laserable laminate is great for this and is available is various colours and combinations. Mark sent us the drawings he had created and soon we had prepared it into a format our laser works with. As it was quite complex we cut a test piece on MDF so Mark could make sure the holes lined up which turned out useful as there were a couple of minor adjustments needed.
You can see from the image below kindly sent to us by Mark that our part of the project was most likely the simplest part! 🙂
SMEE and DWG.
I was recently contacted by Alan Martin from The Society of Model and Experimental Engineers (SMEE) Digital Workshop Group (DWG) to produce the laser cut parts for an open source project called the Piccolo CNC Bot.
After cutting a test version we decided some improvements could be made to the design to allow for slight thicknesses of material. Alan got another SMEE member, Peter Edwards, involved and we soon had a working model – the software is still being improved but the basis of the Piccolo CNC Bot is for ”experimenting with 2D and 3D digital output” making it “an excellent educational toolkit”.
I am happy to assist Peter and Alan with this project as I feel it can be a great way to grab the interest of young people to get them involved in programming or engineering. Having used the Sinclair ZX and Atari machines in the 1980’s I have always felt it is easier to write a program if you have a specific purpose and what better way to learn than creating something with a CNC robot.
The Digital Workshop Group is comprised of SMEE members interested in sharing knowledge and skill relating to digital equipment in the workshop. For membership enquiries please email