Harbor freight blower. Not sure if it was part of a larger set that we just pulled the blower off of.
@TLAR suggested we ask @TBJK if he might have a squirrel cage fan we could use for pulling air instead of a horrid fright replacement again.
I would highly recommend going to a squirrel cage blower. They are very readily available, inexpensive and reliable. We would need to know what kind of cfm we need. I would also say we should get a new one. I probably have some laying around my shop but do not know the integrity of them. Looking at Grainger, they have many available today. Also I can check with another vendor of mine who is not far from the space for additional pricing but we need specs
Ultimately it is @merissa call since she is the current chair.
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The blowers we’ve used in the past are around 1500 CFM.
This is exactly what I suggested to Pearce last night at the Space!
(also said Tim was the guy to ask)
We have been buying Horror Fraught dust collector systems fairly cheap and getting surprising service life out of them. I think this one is over a year old. The one thing they have over a squirrel cage, is that nothing that gets sucked out of the laser workspace is going to hurt them. When we changed over from the grizzley blower that died, we found a foam core wing partly obscuring the ductwork from the FSL. If that, or some balsa, or maybe some thin ply had made it to the impeller, it wouldn’t have hurt it at all. Not so sure about most squirrel cages.
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It would likely be out of balance & be heard. Chicken wire or smaller mesh would be a nice safety factor in any case.
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“hardware” cloth is readily available at “real” hardware stores and possibly Tractor Supply, and is very economical.
It is a welded wire material available in several sizes - 1/4", 1/2" etc (square openings in the mesh). The material is very handy for screening debris etc, and doesn’t require anything special to cut etc - i.e. it isn’t rocket science.
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That’s the name I was looking for. I couldn’t place it at the time.
Slices like butter with an oxy torch or a plasma, but can totally be cut with a cutoff wheel.
Also, if we’re going to put in a hardware cloth screen, we should likely step up the fan assembly to 1800 CFM or so.
Normal everyday tin snips will cut it easy, no air, batteries or electricity needed…it has been years (decades) since I’ve had a ‘need’ for it. very “maker” friendly but leather gloves are a good idea to reduce the sharp ends from puncturing a finger or hand - but we have band aids for that too.
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Thanks Tim! I think that’d be a good thing to try, but to get things back up and operational as soon as possible I think we’ll replace with another dust collector style blower for now.
I’m in Houston till late late Sunday, but have talked with Luke and Pearce and approved laser funds being used for a replacement.
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We are on the way back with a replacement just to get them running again. If anyone would like to replace with a better version, please do. A better fan system would be awesome, especially since we are looking to expand.
We got the replacement plan from HF for an extra $10 so if either one of the current ones dies we can just swap them out for free.
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Zing and saur are back up and working. Blower has been replaced with new model.
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One part acquired in the new blower system!
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I am still having the same issues that I was having before…you can see the dark, burnt circles are what I’m getting today. clean cut circles are what I was getting previously. Same settings used for all of the circles. What would be causing this?
Definitely looks like it’s out of focus. The lenses and mirrors all looked good. I’m not the most familiar with the zing so I wasn’t able to do a full check on it
Since Pearce was able to cut and raster engrave with no problems, it could be that your settings need to be tweaked. Every time you use any of the lasers, you will most likely have to tweak the settings to various degrees - because the condition (cleanliness) of the lenses will most likely be different each time depending upon how long it’s been since they were cleaned last and what types of materials have been cut since the last time they were cleaned.
I will be closing out the related ISSUE thread tomorrow; but, will leave this discussion thread open so maintenance plans can continue to be discussed if needed,