How to upgrade your CNC or engraving machine for the work with a Co2 laser tube.

In this article, we’ll tell you how to upgrade your CNC machine for work with a СО2 laser tube.

Your ordered kit will include:

Mountings for a CO2 tube
A set of mirrors
A set of lenses
An electronic box to connect the ignition unit to the machine circuit board.
Regulated legs for the machine.

Co2 laser assembling process

First of all, we need to remove the acrylic holder of the laser. When dismantling the old mount pay attention to the way the rollers are installed. After you have replaced the mount for an aluminum one, it is important to install the rollers in the same way. In some machines, the plastic slots to the left and to the right of the roller differ.

After that we install on the aluminum plate a holder for the nozzle and the 3d mirror and fasten them with the screws from the kit.

Then we install the nozzle. We fix it to the 3d mirror using two screws as is shown in the picture. (Pay attention to the mirror position! Install it as shown!)

The next step is intallation of the 2d mirror. At first, you need to undo the two screws holding the portal on one side. Then we install the mount of the 2d mirror as in the picture and tighten the screws back.

We fix the 2d mirror to the holder with two screws. Don’t tighten the screws too much, because we’ll still have to adjust the position of the mirrors.

To install the holder of the 1^st mirror, we need to put two nuts in the grooves of the machine. If your machine has legs covering the frame edges remove them, position the nuts and then get the legs screwed up back again.

The holder of the 1^st mirror consists of two parts. We fasten the first part to the nuts in the grooves. Try to tighten this part as vertical as possible.

Now we connect the 2d part to the 1^st one. The picture shows how to do it.

Then we install the 1^st mirror. Unlike the other one, it is fastened with one screw only.

After the mirrors intallation, we get to the fastening of the CO2 tube holder.

There are two holders for the tube. Their installation is similar, so we’ll describe how to install one of them.

The tube should be installed in such a way that the laser beam going out of it hits the 1^st mirror. Our kit is designed for the following arrangement of the components.

For one holder of the tube it is necessary to put two nuts in the upper groove of the machine frame.

We tighten the aluminum plate to the nuts. (Pay attention to the hole for the supporting leg. It should be on the opposite side of the machine.) Don’t tighten the screws too much at this step as, most likely, you’ll have to move the laser tube holders when you install the tube.

Further, we install the plactic part of the holder on the aluminum plate, as shown in the picture.

Everything is done now. The machine is ready for the CO2 tube installation and connection.

We insert the tube into the holders and get to its adjustment. This process is described in another article.

We have some ideas concerning the machine upgrading, which we plan to share with you. Soon we’ll tell you how to install cable channels on the machine. This will help avoid cable damaging during the laser operation.