Please keep the equipment clean! (Blitzen dirty)

Just a reminder to all that cleaning up your mess is part of the deal when you do work at the space. Yes, we do have a monthly cleaning meeting on the laser equipment, but that doesn’t mean we’re your housekeeper.

I noticed Blitzen in this shape yesterday, which is pretty bad for a laser cutter. Some kind of black, almost greasy feeing char/residue all over the inside. Note where I removed the tape you can see what it looked like before this job from hell.

You’ll find cleaning supplies around the area for your use too!

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What do you mean - you want the user to Pay $50($35) / per month Plus the laser time fees AND clean up after themselves???

Don’t you think you’re being a little unrealistic ?

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What time did you see this yesterday?

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Absolutely right. :wink: New laser fees will be $10 per use plus $5/minute so we can have on-site cleaning staff ready to spring into action when you’re through.

Or we could just have a 24x7 membership for $220/month like this:
https://www.hexlabmakerspace.com/membership-and-donations/

Or $190/month like here: (and $2.50/5min of laser cutting time and $75 for the required training class to use them)
https://artisansasylum.com/membership/

Or you could use a laser cutter at a library and have to reserve it 4-5 weeks in advance (free though):

Lets not ruin a good thing everyone!

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Good that Team Laser has alternative solutions in the works that does not unduly impose on members habits.

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I would like to thank @motopilot for the user log that records logins.

  • Makes it quicker to locate camera footage. I have identified a member whose material might have created that residue. Will contact him.
  • Makes it possible to ID frequent users and compare if they have Laser Basics on record. As of May 1, we will be tying logins to the Active Directory. We want to give a heads up to our most frequent users so that they can verify their LB training.

Which gives us a range of corrective action. Example: if I could not reach the member above, I would have Stan suspend their access to the laser computers. That will cause the member to voice concern to someone somewhere and will eventually get them to me. For on the spot re-education or a re-take of Laser Basics. I plan to post on our bulletin board “X-number of users had suspended logins and x-number had to re-take Laser Basics this month due to [insert reason here].” I strongly suspect that if the Laser community knows that suspensions are real, we will see more accountability.

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Worst case would be the RFID interlocks that Robert Davidson is installing in Wood Shop.

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Is there a learning point for the rest of us about some specific material - either to not use it (unless it’s already on the Hateful Eight list) or to be forewarned that it will require post-cleaning?

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The LV interlocks can tie directly to the lasers. They are ready to be installed.

The primary concern I have is does laser have a good list of people trained in the Woodshop going to use the delta to validate the list of approved users. I would recommend the laser do a similar thing setting up 1 to validate the user list.

As well as an administrator just goes to the user and can disable there access to the laser or the machine can be put in maintenance mode where all users are locked out while under repair.

I am not sure if DMS is going to be a test bed for billing but I am also monitoring Off - On - Running time and can tie that into billing so that people are billed correctly for usage. This is not a phase 1 feature.

Since the laser needs a computer logon to operate, it is fairly easy for us to restrict machine logon to people who are in a specific “laser trained” group. There’s another way, but I won’t mention it here. Locking an entire computer from use while a machine is down is also possible.

We’ve been tracking logons to the laser machines for the last couple of months. We are comparing that to the current “laser trained” group and will reach out to anyone that we’ve seen recently using the machines who isn’t in the group to either add them to the list, or get them trained.

We’re currently working on a new wifi enabled timer for the lasers. It will automatically track cumulative “laser on” time while you’re using the machine, displaying total amount owed as you go along. It will either reset automatically when you logon to the computer, or have a reset button you can press when you start your session. It might have another button you can press for help, which will alert team laser via discord to help you out. Since it is wifi enabled it can send the usage data to a back-end database for tracking, and since we also know who is currently logged on to the machine, we can put the user and usage data together.

The spec for this is still being developed, so any/all ideas are welcome.

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Frequently when I use the Zing I “audition” the path without the laser firing. Please make sure that the cumulative time isn’t just path tracing, that it’s actually laser firing.

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This is sort of a tangent monitoring the use of a tool

Not linked to the user but to how much the tool is used It would be helpful
to know for maintenance and such, it would seem to me

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There’s a relay on the control board that is supposed to close when the machine is in use. If it closes even when doing non-laser movement, we’ll then use a current sensor on the actual laser tube wires to know when it is firing.

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