TSRA

Tag: k40

  • Upgrading the Ventilation System on my K40

    Upgrading the Ventilation System on my K40

    The K40 (or at least the version I have), has a pretty insufficient / badly designed ventilation system. It features a fan that just barely moves air, and a metal shroud that is supposed to direct the fumes toward the fan but unfortunately blocks the working area by about 1 inch (the working area is not very big in the first place mind you).

    You can kind of see the metal shroud in this product listing photo

    So there are two issues needing two solutions. (Duh.)

    For the fume shroud, I attempted to cut it down with a circular saw. It almost killed my hearing and barely dented the shroud. (Kudos for using 1mm thick stainless steel, my K40 manufacturer!)

    Time to design a new shroud and 3D print it!

    Model is here.

    Getting some M4 metal inserts in (I used this set of metal inserts on Amazon)

    Installed

    And we also need to augment the wimpy fan, so I bought a 4” inline fan from Amazon, and along with that some extra duct.

    Inline fan installed. Notice the ghetto vent / window adapter made out of a cardboard box 🙂

    Now it works better!

  • Making a Pittsburgh Map Coaster

    Inspired by Dr. Chris Harrison’s Laser-Cut Map project, and since I have a laser cutter myself (because why not), I decided to make my own Pittsburgh Map Coaster, and probably another one for Shanghai. I’ve been living in Pittsburgh for about 6 years now and there’s definitely a part inside me that belongs to Pittsburgh.

    Instead of starting directly from OpenStreetMaps, I decided to work with mapbox which takes data from OpenStreetMaps. The major reason behind this is that it provides a lot of styling options, which allows me to create a binary map without much effort.

    Pittsburgh Map in Binary Colors

    The original PNG is at a resolution of 8000×8000, but I don’t think the software that came along with it can handle that. So I will be supplying a 2000×2000 image to the laser cutter instead.

    Now this looks great. Time to engrave.

    Engrave away!

    The first attempt is at 40% power and 100mm/s speed.

    Laser Engraved Pittsburgh Map Take 1

    This looks great, but it engraves too deep and burnt the wood a little. So I’m lowering power to 30% and upping speed to 200mm/s. I also circular cut the product with 60% power and 10mm/s speed.

    Higher speed + lower power + circular cut
    Close up
    Used as a coaster