The 20w and 40w lasers include a cooling fan the pulls air from the top of the unit, past cooling fins, the out the bottom. When the laser is working on wood, especially cutting 3mm basswood, there is a lot of smoke created. Even with a 4" inline fan pulling air out of the enclosure (in addition to the little enclosure fan) the chamber fills with smoke while cutting. That smoky air gets pulled through the laser to cool it and quickly causes the fan and cooling fins to clog with smoke dust. There has to be a better way.
The best solution is drawing clean air from outside the enclosure. I found a model on Thingaverse for a cap/shroud that adds a hose adaptor to the top of the laser / cooling air inlet, but I’ve been unable to find a suitable hose. Everything I’ve found so far is too heavy and rigid. My next option is simpler and involves making a small filter to attach to the hose adaptor by wrapping furnace filter material over a small wire birdcage and zip tying that to the hose adaptor. We’ll see how that works.
Currently, I have to disassemble and clean the laser after each project that includes a lot of wood cutting / engraving. My last project was a 13 layer clock (13x 300mm/2 sheets of 3mm basswood) and that nearly choked out the cooling fins in the laser completely. Cleaning is a pain. Simply blowing out with compressed air doesn’t get the job done. It takes a lot of Q-tips, pipe cleaners and alcohol to get the job done.
Hey! I’ve just printed this fantastic solution and the back lip that holds the unit on impedes lowering the unit. Was this designed this way - or do I have a different model bracket on my Ray or something?
I have an Artisan and the tab on the back of the cover (with the screw holes) is too thick to permit flush mounting of the mounting plate so I cut the entire tab off. The ‘topper’ for the laser housing (covering the cooling air intake) turned out to be a snug enough press fit that I don’t need to screw it down. If that cover is binding on the Ray the solution may be to simply grind away the interfering part of the shroud.
I removed the enclosure fan and bought a simple tube fan with an extension hose. This sucks the air very efficient and with an almost 15 feet hose, i can simply get it off the room where the device is located. Together with the air assist the perfect solution for me for an affordable price
I have a similar setup. It pulls the smoke out of the enclosure in a minute or two after the cutting is finished. This is a great way to improve venting but doesn’t prevent the laser cooling fins from getting gunked up with smoke dust. The only way to heel the laser internally clean is to provide an external source of clean air.
