Shenhui Mods

[George M. Perzel]

Hi gang;
A couple of suggestions for those with Shenhui and similar lasers.
See Pic 1- a mod to the laser head to allow air to flow to the bottom of the lens and also to the workpiece. Tube is a bent piece of 1/8" copper tubing epoxied or screwed in hole in bottom of L shaped push-to-lock tubing connector.
See Pic2,Pic3- a plastic insert found in lo0cal hardware store-works great to hold down thin material pieces on Shenhui type steel honeycomb table-just the right size to firmly fit in honeycomb hole yet easy to remove. For bigger pieces such as warped thin ply, drill a 3/8" hole near center in waste area and use plug to hold ply down.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!
Best Regards,
George
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[Ralph Y Thorne]

George... you are a genius!! Thank you

[walter hofmann]

hi george
what kind of compressor you are using because if you use this setupthe air stream will be split one part in to the cone and another part in your new nozzle which is correct, but in order to help you out with less the a big compressor you need to close the cone entry and direckt you nozzle down toward the workpices this will prevent the clogging of the lens and also remove all debrie and fog from the work area.
with this setup you can use any small airbrush compressor.
greetings
walt

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Walter;
I am using a Gast oilless (quiet) air brush compressor-plenty of air for both tasks. I found that with just a nozzle directed at the workpiece, smoke or debris can still get into the bottom of the lens-can burn and adhere to lens and ruin it if not removed quickly. By the way, the plastic insert holdown does not need the nail part.
Best Regards,
George
Laserarts

[Uros Sovilj]

Nice modification. I will certain use both. Thanks for sharing.
regards

[Rodne Gold]

Great work George , I must get some of those plug thingys - a good hold down solution.
Walter , As to air assist , we have found only decent sized compressors give air at the volume and pressure we want for our machines , mostly we use air assist at "strong blast / angry hiss" levels for everything.
We bypassed the cone and just directed air at the cutting point with an open tube , easier to clean the lens that way
For some reason , cone only air assist gave us bad results both at the piece and with the lens getting dirtier than having no air assist. I think some dort of suction vortex forms using cone only. I will try the split system, like you have.
I also removed the 1/2 silvered mirror red dot thru optic system assembly as it seemed to interfere with best power etc and some beam scatter seemed to be hitting the diode itself and melting its lens - or there was some sort of metallic spatter on it , only affected my 80w machine and I ditched it all after 2 diodes went west. 20% faster cutting after it was removed. I also now use the table to focus rather than fiddle with the lens to last mirror tube distance (as I believe it throws out alignment)
Im gonna try the beam collimators/expanders from one of my dead explorers on my 80w Reci machine in the new year and finally get to grips with what all the options in the driver do.. I open on 11 Jan , so will fiddle that week.
My other intended mods are
1) Replace those awful red "emergency" switches.
2) Put a breakout connector in the machine itself for the rotary attachments , instead of having to disconnect Y and conecting rotary at the mainboard itself.
Otherwise , the machines are great , they do what they say on the tin at an affordable price.