Fabulaser Mini Workshops 2021 @ Fab City Hamburg¶

This section of the starter kit is dedicated to the Fabulaser Mini workshops that will take place for Fab City Hamburg in November 2021.

Description and goals¶

The Fabulaser Mini workshop is intended as learning experience for the participants to learn about open source machine building and relative knowledge.

Specifically, during the workshop, participants will build, together with experienced tutors, a laser cutter machine from a kit of parts.

The building of the laser cutter, among others, will let the participants understand:

the basic design choices of the machine
what is laser cutting technology
how a laser cutter is made
how a laser cutter works
how to perform laser cutter maintenance and calibration
how to operate a laser cutter
how to troubleshoot laser cutter problems
the basic design techniques for laser cutting

The goal of the workshop is both to build 2 working laser cutter machines, and to train the participants while doing so.

Location¶

The workshops will be held at the following address:

Helmut Schmidt Universität \ Holstenhofweg 85 \ 22043 Hamburg

And in the following rooms:

6th, 7th and 8th of November 2021 at:
area: HSU Main Campus
room: “Aula”
room location: https://goo.gl/maps/xX6yTnBmhwz3Xobt8

9th and 10th of November 2021 at:
area: Building of Deutsche Rentenversicherung
room: 1E30
room location: https://goo.gl/maps/tqbeSZuhEWAnfcxj7

Access requirements¶

The access to the workshop should be reserved for members of Fab City Hamburg initiative, its partners and projects.

To register for the workshop please fill in the following form:

https://forms.gle/YEkYQW26ejCWSSFi6

To access the workshop locations, it is mandatory to register you name at the Helmut Schmidt Universität. To do so please forward your names to:

Piet Jarmatz from HSU, @piet:fabcity.hamburg

It is mandatory to show an ID card (eg passport) to the entrance of Helmut Schmidt Universität.

Contact info of local HSU team:

https://www.hsu-hh.de/hpc/team/

Dates, schedule and agenda¶

The workshop will be held in the following dates and times:

from the 6th till the 10th of November 2021.
every day from 9:00 till 16:30 except on the 10th from 9:00 till 12:30
lunch break is every day from 12:00 till 13:00

Following is the workshop agenda with approx times:

Saturday 06.11.21:
(9:00-9:30 - Room setup, only organizers)
9:30-9:40 - Gathering time
9:40-9:50 - Personal Introduction
9:50-10:00 - Introduction about laser cutting
10:00-10:10 - Workshop presentation
10:10-10:15 - Q&A
10:15-10:20 - Daily group division
10:20-10:30 - Machine parts and tools organization
10:30-12:00 - Hands-on assembly work
12:00-13:00 - Lunch break
13:00-16:50 - Hands-on assembly work
16:50-17:00 - Feedback session
Sunday 07.11.21:
(9:20-9:30 - Room setup, only organizers)
9:30-9:40 - Gathering time
9:40-9:50 - Introduction about CO2 laserable materials
9:20-9:25 - Machine parts and tools organization
9:25-9:30 - Daily group division
9:30-12:00 - Hands-on assembly work
12:00-13:00 - Lunch break
13:00-16:50 - Hands-on assembly work
16:50-17:00 - Feedback session
Monday 08.11.21:
(9:20-9:30 - Room setup, only organizers)
9:30-9:40 - Gathering time
9:40-9:50 - Introduction about laser cutting techniques
9:50-9:55 - Machine parts and tools organization
9:55-10:00 - Daily group division
10:00-12:00 - Hands-on assembly work
12:00-13:00 - Lunch break
13:00-16:20 - Hands-on assembly work
16:50-17:00 - Feedback session
(17:00-???) - Transfer to the new room)
Tuesday 09.11.21
(9:20-9:30 - Room setup, only organizers)
9:30-9:40 - Gathering time
9:40-9:50 - Introduction about Fabulaser laser safety
9:50-9:55 - Machine parts and tools organization
9:55-10:00 - Daily group division
10:00-12:00 - Hands-on calibration and testing work
12:00-13:00 - Lunch break
13:00-16:50 - Hands-on calibration and testing work
16:50-17:00 - Feedback session
Wednesday 10.11.21
(9:20-9:30 - Room setup, only organizers)
9:30-9:40 - Gathering time
9:40-10:30 - Final Hands-on calibration and testing work
10:30-12:30 - How to use and maintain Fabulaser Mini
12:30-13:00 - Final questions, feedback and cleaning up

Workshop tutors:

Daniele Ingrassia
Marc Kohlen
Liane Honda

Tools and consumables¶

The following tools will be used:

Screwdriver sets (cross, flat, small, big..)
Hex key sets, long type, wit rounded end
Hex key sets, short type, with rounded end
Hex key set, traditional
Spanner key sets (from 8 till 21mm)
Adjustable spanner key
Pliers sets
Electronics cutter (optional)
Box cutter
Wooden rulers
Wire strippers (optional)
Calipers
Engineering brackets (optional)
Clamps (optional)
Hot glue gun
Soldering station (optional)
electric drill/screwdriver (optional)

The following consumables will be needed:

20 liters distilled water
3 x paper tapes (masking tape)
Hot glue sticks
Super glue
cable ties (included in kit)
teflon tape (included in kit)
electrical insulation tape (optional)
test material (light plywood, acrylic …)
paper towels

Required protective equipment:

electrical insulated gloves (4 pairs)
goggles (for all participants)
corona approved masks
powder fire existinguisher

Files¶

If you would like to test the machine, please download and install the following software and settings. The machine is compatible with Windows 10, Mac and Linux systems.

Software/File	Download Link	For what?
UGS Platform	link	Launch laser jobs and operate the laser
Visicut	link	Used to prepare laser jobs
Settings	link	Setting file to install Fabulaser Mini in Visicut and machine general settings
Fabulaser manual, CAD and other files	link	Download the assembly manual and the CAD data if needed

Report¶

Action¶

Day 1¶

The first day of the workshop went through the planned schedule. In the morning the timing was pretty good, but a very long lunch break (because the absence of a close place where to eat).

Given the large size of the room, more than 100m2, we had quite lot of space to separate the 2 machine kits, tools and groups of people.

The organization was as follows:

2 machines kits were available, kit3 and kit4
given the 10 participants we decided to build 2 machines simultaneously
the two groups were split in two separated room areas to avoid mixing of parts and of tools (food was in between)
to each group the following was given:
a dedicated set of tools
a complete kit of machine parts (except chiller, radial fan and air filter)
the 2 groups were divided in 2 subgroups, to allow parallel building of different machine parts

Building time was at normal speed in comparison to kids. The groups spent more time carefully aligning the frame parts together.

We ended at the following stage:

assembled and attached Y axis
assembled bed
assembled X axis
assembled and wired AC and most of the logic electronics
assembled main frame with Y axis installed

During the day we had the following issues:

we found some manual lacks of labels or information
the separator panel was milled with wrong size (because of a shift of the piece during milling)
solution: to cut of the additional size from the top with a cutting knife and to enlarge the holes
one of the pulleys of the kit 3 is wobbling
we did not had a multimeter
we did not had all the spanner keys
we did not had good socket keys
M3 8mm capscrews were missing

Day 2¶

The 2nd day of the workshop required much less setup initially, letting the participants start at about 9:50AM. The guys brought some multimeters and tools themselves.

There were no major issues only the following:

missing fasteners:
some washers M5
M3 12mm
some pages of the manual miss labels or they use the wrong icon size

Important notes:

locktite can be given in the kit, as it is going to be useful for the tightening of all the set screws (from Florian)
belt tensioning by pulling the Y shafts is working great
it would be better to use precise shims (from Mo)
the laser power supply misses a reliable datasheet
the laser minus seems to be connected to Earth

Overall, the teams gained much speed in comparison to workshops for kids, achieving a very good status of being almost ready for the calibration.

Those the assembled parts and tested subsystems:

Y axis belts
X axis belt
Y and X motors
side panels
window
sensors and endstop
water system
backpanel
front panel
housing T-Nut

Below, some day 1 and day 2 pictures.

Day 3¶

We started the day 3 thinking we would be able to immediately start the calibration. But in reality, the laser tube and the mirror installation is one of the last operations, requiring a lot of different checks beforehand.

We spent good part of the morning (till 12:00 circa), testing all the relative subsystems:

AC connections
fuse and emergency button
DC connections
logic connections
stepper drivers
stepper motors
window sensors
water system and chiller (the water flow sensor is always leaking)
radial fan
air assist compressor
filter

Then, just after lunchtime, we did start the calibration process.

The machine belonging to Hofalab had a straightforward calibration process, because the frame was built carefully, spending a lot of time in aligning things. At the end of the Hofalab machine had almost perfect calibration in all the 4 corners. We anyway decided not to cut to be fair to the other group and also because we needed to end the day earlier for moving the machines to the room in campus nord.

The machine from Regenholz had a slightly more troublesome calibration, with some confusion about how to move the mirrors and the tube to center the laser beam to the laser head. The laser tube was moved to an extreme position, not allowing anymore any further calibration. The local team and my team did not know that the 2nd mirror can be moved horizontally in 2 dimensions, thinking there was something else wrong in the machine. After letting them know the problem was solved, and by the end of the day they managed to have an almost centered laser beam into the laser head.

The day ended with huge efforts to move from one room to another, with issues about parking, traffic, and heavy and late transportation to the new room. In general, we should always avoid any moving durign such workshops, especially to avoid losing the laser calibration because of it.

Day 4¶

The day started with checking again the calibration from the moving of yesterday. Both machine kept most of the calibration done, allowing to quickly start to test the machine motion and the firmware settings. The machine from Regenholz completed the calibration successfully during the morning, while the machine from Hofalab had the first successful cut.

I had to go with Lennart to visit the Fab City House location, and left the workshop to my team mates, that used this time to show how to use the machine to the people. Just before leaving also the machine from Regenholz was able to cut successfully the first pieces.

The day concluded with both machines being used to produce some predefined demos (eg logo), and with some quickly made designs, like the Fab City Hamburg logo.

We went all together to dinner after the workshop.

Day 5¶

During this day we sorted out the last questions and workflows on how to use the machines. Both machines were running fine and many new designs have been cut with it. The workshop participants acquired much more knowledge about how to use the machines.

Below, some pictures of Day 3,4, 5

Checking the water chiller flow