Shop update #354 (8-21-24) I killed my laser engraver!
My neighbor messaged me on Tuesday night and asked me if I could make some last minutes awards for a company fishing trip that he is helping to organize. I told him that I could and he sent me a terrible copy of his company’s logo so I asked him for a better one on Wednesday morning. He sent the slightly higher resolution one that afternoon and I was able to get a couple of sample ideas engraved and cut out. I started to make one more and the x-axis on my laser engraver started just stuttering when trying to frame the project. I did some investigating and found the problem.
This is the cable that controls the x-axis stepper motor. This is a first generation xTool D1 laser engraver and I could not find this part on their website anywhere. I finally emailed their support address and they got back to me at 11:40 pm on Friday night with a picture of the cable and a link to pay for it. I ended up ordering 2 x-axis cables and 2 y-axis cables to play it safe. I notified my neighbor of my predicament and that I wasn’t sure how long the cables would take to get here. His answer was to go on OfferUp on Friday night and he found another laser engraver about 15 minutes away from my house. I went on Saturday afternoon and tested it out with the owner and my neighbor paid for it. I am now the proud owner of a Creality Falcon 2 22 watt laser.
I will be making a comparison video soon between the 2 lasers.
For now, I just need to get his job finished. He wants 9 wooden medals, 3 each of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, and one overall winner plaque. He also bought a dozen little balsa wood boxes for the medals. I sized the medals to fit in the box and made spacer blocks in the back to hold the medal upright when the box is open. I pretty much spent most of Sunday afternoon figuring this all out and getting everything engraved and cut out.
Each medal got 3 coats of spray lacquer with a light sanding between coats.
He gave me the verbiage and a picture to engrave into the plaque. I spent most of Monday night experimenting with the new laser to get the settings figured out for engraving pictures.
We didn’t really have time to order any materials so we used the 1/4″ MDF that I had leftover from another project.
I got this engraved on Tuesday night by 9:30 pm and then gave it 4 coats of spray lacquer with a couple of light sandings between. He also asked me last minute if I could engrave the logo and year on the boxes too. I did a few tests and got the settings for balsa wood figured out. He ended up coming to my house last night around 10:45 pm to pick everything up so I didn’t get any good pictures of the boxes or the plaque. Hopefully he can get some goods ones at the fishing tournament.
