New Laser - Weike LG6040N

[Matt McCoy]

Hey everybody,

I'm setting up a Weike LG6040N with a 90W tube, chiller, air-assist compressor, and exhaust.

http://www.wklaser.com/pro_182.aspx

I have a few stupid questions:

1) Would a 15A outlet be OK?
2) Should I use the screw on the outside of the housing to ground the machine or is the 3-prong power cord sufficient?
3) There is a silicone sleeve that I assume slips over the entire tube to help prevent strike on the red wire. Am I safe in this assumption?

Thank you!

[Bill George]

Hey everybody,

I'm setting up a Weike LG6040N with a 90W tube, chiller, air-assist compressor, and exhaust.

http://www.wklaser.com/pro_182.aspx

I have a few stupid questions:

1) Would a 15A outlet be OK?
2) Should I use the screw on the outside of the housing to ground the machine or is the 3-prong power cord sufficient?
3) There is a silicone sleeve that I assume slips over the entire tube to help prevent strike on the red wire. Am I safe in this assumption?

Thank you!
The Specs on the website say 1,000 watts which equals about 9 amps on 115 volts not counting any power factor losses. That wattage does sound low for a 90 watt tube. I guess you would need to look at the machine nameplate to find out for sure. Lot of discussion on here about machines coming in wired for 230 volts when they were ordered as 115 volt.

My machine, same brand as yours, has been working fine since May 2014 with just the U ground in the outlet. Assuming your house is wired to Code and the ground wire is actually connected in the machine and in the outlet, the wiring ground should be all you need.
There was discussion on here about adding a ground rod, but there is no guarantee that ground rod is at the same potential as the service panel one. In fact NEC Code requires all ground rods on the premises be bonded together as one. Ground rods driven at difference places will have varying Ohm meter readings to a given reference point.

My machine came with the silicone sleeve that just slipped over the HV connection end of the tube.

[Matt McCoy]

Perfect -- thanks Bill.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Be careful Matt, some of the Chinese machines have a ground line on the real panel that isn't actually connected to anything.(Weike do tend to routinely do this leading to no effective path to earth in the event of a problem)

cheers

Dave

[Lucy Lee]

1)Would a 15A outlet be OK? not sure for your question.
2)we need a ground wire
3) There is a silicone sleeve that I assume slips over the entire tube to help prevent strike on the red wire. Am I safe in this assumption? you are right

[Matt McCoy]

Thanks for the replies.

Space is limited in my shop, so I had to set this up in my garage. I plugged the laser, chiller, and air compressor into one 15A circuit and the blower into another. The ground appears to be connected and I'm using the wall outlet. I used the silicone sleeve as well as the piece that slips over the tube that looks like a shot glass.

It sounds like an airplane hanger when I turn on the blower, so I'll have to look into a replacement and a DIY scrubber after the new year.

[Dave Sheldrake]

so I'll have to look into a replacement and a DIY scrubber after the new year.

Have a look at Dan's scrubber (Dan Hintz) great guy and knows his stuff about building them :)

cheers

Dave

[Matt McCoy]

I've looked that over and I appreciate Dan sharing his plans. My eyeballs almost fell out of my head when I was looking at extractors/purifiers in tandem with the yearly cost of replacement filters, so DIY scrubber it is. I do have experience with this one:

https://www.inventables.com/technologies/large-carbon-hepa-air-filter-purifier

It works very well and is whisper quiet.

I like this project too, but unfortunately the OP hasn't added his BOM yet:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?222440-My-DIY-Laser-Air-Scrubber

The blower that came with this laser is a beast, but really noisy.

[Bill George]

Matt what I did with my "came with the laser blower", is I have it setting on a piece of packing foam about 1 inch thick. Moved it away from the work area but still close enough the hoses worked. Really cut down on the noise.

[Matt McCoy]

That's exactly what I did too. I've decided that I will build a hush box to go over the blower. I slapped together a plywood one with foam insulation, that I had lying around, and it's a good start. I didn't crack open the SPL meter, but it apparently helps quite a bit. The MK II version will probably built out of MDF or plywood with a drywall inner layer and insulation. I've added these to noisy compressors before and they knock the sound down to about the level of a refrigerator.