Using the pass through doors on my Laser Pro

[Cathy McCullough]

We had a customer bring in some wood slats for a park bench to engrave. I need to use the pass through doors on my LaserPro engraver.
When the door on the front is opened the 2 safety switches will not allow the laser to fire. Is there a way to bypass them? If anyone has an
answer it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Randy

[Scott Challoner]

The switches are magnetic. The magnets from name badges work very well for bypassing them.

[Chuck Stone]

Yep.. I keep two magnets on the front of the machine. When I need the
pass through I just stick them on the interlocks.

One thing to be aware of .. the rear panel is actually part of your exhaust
system.. so once you remove that, you won't be removing as much smoke.
I have a window fan to help draw it away. Nothing killer, just thought I should
mention it.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hi Randy,

I don't know anything about your working environment but remember using the pass through turns a Class II laser into a Class IV.

cheers

Dave

[David Somers]

So.....the pre-newbie comes up with another question?

I assume when you use the password it is for one of two reasons. The first would be to permit you to use some stock that is larger than the working bed of your laser without having to go through the trouble of cutting it into sections that would fit the table. The second would be to engrave or cut a design on stock that is bigger than your working table. If the design was bigger than your table size this would obviously require that you do the job in sections, sliding the substrate forward for each section.

If you are doing that, what is the best way you have found to get the sections aligned correctly? Or do you generally try to do your design so the sections create a natural break in the design that is more forgiving of a bit of play in the alignment?

Dave

[Dave Sheldrake]

Hiya Dave,

If you have a start and finish point in the same place (so the last part of the first cut is the start of the second cut) it's pretty easy to get stuff to follow on. I tend to use the flatbeds if stuff is bigger though rather than the Pass-Through so that gets me 2.5m x 1.5m to play with.

cheers

Dave

[John Bion]

HI David,

Because I have 600mm X 900mm beds, I have to do this sometimes. The longest I have done so far (was this month) - a six foot hight measurement board. This is simpler if the object is of a uniform width/hight. I tape small blocks to the front and rear of the table, either side of the board I am engraving to align the next section. Because of the size of my workshop, on a 6' board I have to do two sections in one direction and two sections in the other direction, this adds complications to alignment, especially if the graphics do not allow for slack. I draw a bounding box which does not actually cut but gives me a visual indicator via a test outline, that I am square with the previous engraving, I also use a 'test fire' to check my squareness.
I would love to hear from others how they go about this as I do find it fiddly - as a man of simple brain.
Kind regards, John

[David Somers]

Thanks Dave and John!

This is interesting. The engraver I was considering is also a 900x600. And initially the thought of a passthrough seemed like a great idea, but I kept wondering how you would move your substrate and still keep your engraving/cutting design continuous if that is what the burn called for. This is interesting. Anxious to hear other people's approaches as well!

John,

One of my favorite sayings is from "Winnie the Pooh." "I am a bear of very little brain and long words bother me." I suspect we are on the same wavelength in that regard! <grin>

Dave

[Dave Hutton]

I know this is am old thread, but I saw a very interesting write up by rabbit laser (on their website) which explained in some detail how this can be set up in software (engraving on longer objects through pass through doors). A bit over my head tbh but looked like it worked fine.

ive book marked it for when I'm intelligent enough to grasp it :-)

dj

[David Somers]

Great!! Thanks Dave!