You'll be AMAZED what this tool can do! LONGER 40w+ and IR ruby laser review + pedal sharpener build

now I must warn you if you watch this video all the way to the end you're likely to want to buy this tool that is the new 40 watt and infrared module by longer so then let's see what we can find wrong with it so this machine is called the longer B1 for my regular viewers this may look for familiar that's because we've actually reviewed this before in fact we built this table in it did a bit of blacksmithing as well and actually designed the top using some assistance from AI we cut all these pieces out individually and then inlaid them together and then to finish it I gave it an epoxy pore and to be fair this has been in my house for a while now and it's gotten a lot of use although my children are very creative actually use their craft knives on it and uh ended up scratching the surface which is unfortunate but this is all done with a third 30 W module and if you'd like to see that video it'll be in a link in the description but as a quick recap let's just look at what I like and what I don't like about this model but the first thing I like about this is how cost effective it is bear in mind this is not Black Friday yet and it's already £500 cheaper than the xtool D1 I'll put links to these in the description right so things I don't like are the way these cables are arranged these cables are bending over too acutely which will make a break eventually and also the ports are susceptible to dust getting inside not only that but the controller could do with moving upwards so you've got more space underneath for large pieces of wood something that I really like though is that the feet are adjustable in height that way if the laser is half on half off a board say rather than the laser being slanted I can adjust this to fit something else I didn't like was the fact that these pins on the back here are all exposed that creates a risk of shorting so it's worth just covering that with a piece of plastic but what I do like is that the laser modules have a pushin connector for 6 mm pipe this is pneumatic pipe that I've linked to my compressor so my air assist comes from my main compressor line to an onoff switch to a needle valve regulator so I much prefer that system because I believe that the pumps that actually come with the machine are not very good these pumps work fine they're just not as good as a compressor line so before we get started in the testing I must mention some health and safety these lasers are extremely dangerous by rights what we should have is a full enclosure that also has active extraction that's taking all of the gases out and away from your workshop and fully enclosed because if that layser glares off anything and it catches your eye you are blinded for life so longer of course does sell the enclosures plus extraction kits but if you're feeling confident and you want to save some money you absolutely could build your own for the purposes of demonstration I'm just going to be relying on the supplied safety glasses and keeping my workshop well ventilated but I highly recommend that you invest in the correct safety precautions right so we're going to begin with testing the 40 W module and with that we're using our standard test boards you can see how well the longer 30 W did at 200 mm per minute but what we really want to know is how it performs against other 40 W models so it appears I've R out of room on my test board so we're going to try with a brand new piece we'll see what the settings are on this and then we'll try another Square on the test board just to make sure it matches and to highlight one of my favorite features you can see I've adjusted the heights of these three legs so it's sits nice and level to me this is the great thing about these open Gantry systems is they're very portable and you can move them on any size board okay so glass is on let's begin the test so it looks like a good result from what I can see look at that so that's all the ones that just fell out cleanly but as you can see there are others that want to come out as well let's have a look at the back side and see what's going on so as expected the 500 mm per minute and 100% power was just hanging on so this is class is 9 mm hardwood ply but as you can see it's about 8.5 mm so some laser experts will say that that's too burnt for their liking and they're absolutely right this is not the point of this test for much cleaner Cuts we're going to go a lot faster and do more power glasses all right let's have a look at that then that's that square there as you can see that pops out however that was done at 450 mm per minute so that is a little bit less on the original material but I'm glad to say that the new material can cut nicely so that stuff is just standard hardwood play from my local DIY store so when it comes to the cut Valley what I've been doing is taking the price of the machine and dividing it by its cutting speed so if we go conservatively we've got $1,250 divided by 450 mm per minute that gives us a rating of 2.7 so that makes it second place compared to the Falcon 240 wat that was 2.6 if we go by the 500 mm per minute we're at 2.5 making it the best value yet but that rating gets even better if we buy this in the Black Friday deal so before we look into this infrared module let's do what we normally do on this channel and build something interesting so it's hard to use the honeycomb on these large boards so I'm just going to put some washers down instead that's to create just a little gap between my table and the wood so I've got my high gauge down I'm just going to drag it lightly across the board and just check that we've got an equal Gap all the way around and by the way you don't want to move this around very fast manually cuz it'll actually generate electricity in the stepper Motors and you could fry your board so make sure just do it gently so I'm using lightburn for this and as you can see I've got all my parts lined up ready if you guys want to have a go at building this device there's a link in the description I'm going to start by cutting out one of these big pieces I think so I'll arrange that about there okay I think we're ready for the first cut I've set the machine to 2,000 mm per minute 100% power we're going to do seven passes and this is the same 9 mm thick board all right let's build this oh [Music] is this all going to fit though oh look at that did you hear that little squeeze listen to this oh yeah [Applause] right then so concerningly the last Parts didn't quite cut all the way through so I conducted some new tests and with just 400 m me per minute we still weren't getting full burn through so I've turned the laser upside down and taken the nozzle off and I was just having a closer look at the lens here now fortunately the lens does have protectors on it I've given it a clean but it looks pretty good to me so I'll put this back on and see if it's done any better let's see if that works again now right I conducted another test and this is what I found it's quite simply a variability in the wood you can see this is 7.85 that's the original testing board if we go with the p pie that didn't cut very well and measure that see that's just over 9 mm now I panicked for a moment there thinking that I might have overcook the your laser head cuz you'll notice that I'm always using this on 100% power and it's absolutely not advisable to do that because if we overcook that laser head it's ruined so provided you're not in any rush you can actually run this at just 70% power you just have to go about a third of the amount slower now I'm always running at 100% power cuz I want to see how much the diode degrades that's why in all my other build videos I've kept the xtool d140 wat and I'm always running at 100% power for no other reason I want to see how long it lasts so that's most of the parts what I'm just going to do quickly is tidy up the edges using this beving tool so as you can see that Tides it up immensely [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right so let's assemble this then for right so I want to cut another part now out to this Mankey MDF it's proximately 18 mm thick and this is really going to push the laser to the max cuz this stuff's very hard to cut well we're off to a very good start that's 40 passes and we've got a nice hole there so now I'm going to Simply Mark the screw holes and then we'll cut out the main shape [Applause] right so I let that run for 50 passes and as you saw underneath it was actually getting full penetration on around about 15 passes so it's hard to know why it's still holding on just see if I push down on it NOP let's have a look underneath you can see it's still holding on by just the tiniest little Slither this is exactly the same as what we saw on the Falcon 240 W so let's see if I can't free It Up by just cutting the last remaining bits did it there we are you can see it's pretty much done it just the absolute faintest part just holding on that looks like a very good straight cut look at that put this together now I think right then I'll begin to clamp this to the bench just like so so have a large bolt and a bearing and that connects through the main wheel here another one on that side oh that's great it's just started raining I think I've spotted my first mistake already ready I need to somehow fix that not to worry I think I know just what to do so the reason why my bearing was a little bit sloppy as you can see is cuz the curf offset was set to the outside of the hole rather than the inside the curf offset is for the thickness of the laser so which side of the line you want it to be on basically I also found that there was a little bit of slop for the bolt in the bearing so I cured that by just using a bit of shim steel and just did a a couple of coils around it this is just a bit that I had left over from doing the Tesla turbine but you could easily use like a fizzy popc can or something just to tighten up that Gap but anyway rather than remaking this whole piece I've just cut out some retainer plates there we are that spins nicely now so it's time to add the drive wheel you can see I cut a 12 mm square hole to accept a 12 mm Square shaft the only issue is it's very tight fitting so for this I'm actually using two hammers I'm using one as a bit of a bump stop on the back so that Parts together as well as with a few spaces I've actually made a few adjustments to the design already this part now goes on the end here squeeze it on with a clamp and now we're ready for the final part so to create transmission between the two wheels I've decided to use TP drive belt you may remember that we tried to use this on our 3D printed sock knitting machine that wasn't the right application for this but I think on this machine this will work perfectly so if we pull the belt around you can see I've cut it short about an inch so all I'm going to do is join these ends together and then we'll stretch it back over the wheels to do that I'm just going to pull it off the belt hold them here like so and then I'm just going to use a lighter to melt the ends and taking my time and I'm just watching the ends go nice and glossy that should do then with that little excess I'm just going to use side Cutters to just trim it off you could use flush trim bits that's fine but I find leaving just that little bit of reinforcement guarantees it will never break at that point the thing about TP is it stretches before it breaks and now I can put that over there we go so as you saw I created this pedal design this is a very simple Rock motion as I can demonstrate just like that now the problem I've had with this pedal is that instead of it working it would just twist which was really annoying so I'm scrapping this design and I've come up with a new one so I've redesigned it and cut these parts so it actually took me around about 15 minutes to design and roughly 15 minutes to cut so I've then beveled the edges again and now we're ready to assemble [Music] did [Music] there we are let's fit it so I'm going to attach this just on this crossbar under my bench and for now I'm just going to use some clamps and then to connect it I've simply got a split ring which is bent over using a pair of pliers and after testing out with just the one pedal decided to add a second so let's connect these up then so on the end of the wires I've put an M8 bolt and you can see the wires wrapped around a little spacer between two large washers there we are that one's attached moves freely and then on this side I've done something a little bit different I've cut out these spaces to make a bit of a handle there we are so now I have the option to hand crank as well as Pedal Power and now that should be finished so before I start demonstrating this machine it's probably worth mentioning that you can win the longer 40 WT plus the infrared laser for just a fiver so by entering you're enabling me to create honest reviews and create projects that you can build yourself wow the sun's really in my eyes right now but what I was also going to say is that I can ship these internationally be aware that you'll have to pay Postage and any custom fees if you win right so let's give this a spin so this specific size and thread of Bolt is on purpose that's because it's the exact same size as a grinding disc attachment and now we can hand crank with sanding pads now before I reveal the true purpose of this machine I need to Tri up the face of that MDF wheel cuz as you can see there's about a millimeter or two of it not being true so I'm going to use this little gouging chisel and see if we can true it up [Music] that is much better so you might guess what I'm going to be using this for now but as it stands the blade on my multi- tool has gotten very blunt indeed I demonstrate a cut with this piece of paper yeah that is as blunt as it gets so first of all I'll establish a new edge with the 120 grit just here there we are much better so of all the things I've shown you today I highly recommend these These are sanding pads that go all the way from 800 to 5,000 grit and now that I've tried these I will always be using them so I'm going to go straight from 120 grit to 800 grit so just 3,000 grit you're getting a razor edge already and the last one 5,000 grit wow so that's still pretty good just as it is so what I have is some standard Polishing Compound again all these bits will be in the link in the description I'm going to load up the MDF wheel all right now this is where having the uh foot pedals will come in handy CU I want to be able to operate this with both hands on the blade like that right then let's see how sharp that is now like butter well that will do me now this begs a deep question we can do all kinds of things with one of these lasers but what can't it do so this laser has a wavelength of 450 to 460 nanm that means it's excellent for cutting and Engraving wood and as we've tested previously excellent for marking stainless steel also we also used the 30 W laser to cut black acrylic but what we haven't tested is clear acrylic Copper Brass or aluminium that's because on these materials the blue laser doesn't work and that's where the infrared laser comes in let's give it a try let's compare some fine engraving on wood so that's the fine detail on the 40 W module and as you can see those numbers are only 2 and 1/2 mm tall that was doing it 10% power 2,000 mm per minute so now let's switch to the infrared module pull the cables out the back take off my Air Supply so I'll tell you something else that I don't actually like about this machine and that is these tiny little knobs here it's too small and fidly right so let's slot this in so interestingly the infrared has its own little laser dot now that's going to be really helpful but as expected it doesn't Mark Wood at all it's not on the right wavelength let's do the same test again on stainless steel with the 40 W module let's see how that turned out so in my opinion the details quite good considering how small the detail is can the infrared laser do any better well that was interesting so as you can see the level of detail is drastic that line is much thinner these were both done at the same speed 2,000 mm per minute at 100% power bear in mind This is 40 W and this is only 2 WS right so this acrylic block is 50 mm thick out of curiosity let's see if the 40 W will cut it and then we grave [Applause] it right interesting that was 40 passes at 2,000 mm per minute and we've cut maybe about 6 mimet or qu of an inch so I'm going to try that again but at 100 mm per minute and maybe about 10 [Applause] passes all right so I left that for a total of 20 passes looks promising hey well now that is super impressive as far as to show off the focal length of this laser these 40 W lasers are incredible so then how about engraving this stuff let me show you a bit of a closeup so that was just at 10% power at 2,000 mm per minute and again considering how small it is I'd say the level of detail is phenomenal let's try the infrared on this then okay that looks good but I'm going to try it again but a bit slower I didn't quite get it fully on there but let's have a look close so again the detail is phenomenal but it's come out really white on that one this is the infrared 2000 mm per minute and there is infrared it just 500 mm per minute so that looks excellent so what's the 40 W laser like with Pur backs well that looks interesting so didn't really mark it as much as shatter the inside of it that's uh an unexpected result I was expecting it not to do anything at all but there you go now maybe that's something to do with the purity of the purse backx itself so let's try the infrared on it then right so that has surprised me that has so it doesn't have appeared to have done anything it's just the tiniest little cracks just there and I'm surprised because I actually cut this piece out using a CO2 laser which is a very similar wave frequency so I thought the highlight of an infrared laser would be to engrave acrylic but apparently not so next with the 40 W module let's try copper well as expected nothing now let's try the infrared on copper well that looks like it's come out perfectly that is lovely if you're wondering why the number two isn't connected I think that's more to do with the file than it is the laser engraver think I needed to change some settings in light bur to get that to connect okay so let's try a bit of brass then okay so it kind of worked on this one but not very well so as you can see it's only discolored it it's not marked it really at all so then let's try the infrared on brass well that's cool but the level of detail on that is even better each letter is just 3 mm tall so you can see I've put little internal details as well now I would even say that's even finer than the hair of a werewolf I mean human what am I saying so lastly aluminium [Applause] yeah that has not marked it in the slightest let's try the infrared on aluminium so I guess that at 2,000 mm per minute we just have another go a bit slower well that's interesting so on the left was 2,000 mm per minute and on the right was just 500 mm per minute personally I don't see a big difference if I'm honest but that's amazing to honest opinion then who exactly is the infrared laser for well I would say it's anyone who wants to do fine Engravings on nonferrous metals and believe it or not it'll also do gold silver and titanium I don't have that so I can't show you but for those materials what you would normally use is a fiber optic laser those are a lot more expensive and they only have a small working area so let's say you wanted to work on large brass plaques or you wanted to do lots and lots of plaques all together at once and having this size laser it's probably ideal now going back to the 40 laser is this a practical application well actually being a fabricator who's worked in manufacturing I'd say it does have an application so for example let's say we Ed the laser to make templates just out of say 6 mm plywood I could then use those templates with a flush router bit and cut all those parts out far more efficiently that would make it a far more costeffective option than buying say a CNC router but let's say you're into metal work like I am I've often had steel parts cut by an external company which can cost quite a bit so to prototype the fitment of all the parts before I make that order is actually quite a good idea but what I want to hear is your opinion on the matter let me know what you would use a laser for and if there's anything that you'd like me to show you and if you're interested I've started a patreon page which I'm going to be providing lessons on how to use the software including all I know about lightburn and CAD design so if you'd like to support those projects and do check it out you know what I want to make some Clockwork escapements next time maybe a gravity powered light or something but until next time can I encourage you to stop being a watcher and instead become a doer get out there in the real world and Forge for yourself a life worth living and I'll see you in the next episode bye-bye that's so cool

Channel: Joshua De Lisle

Views: 40,048

Keywords: Joshua De Lisle, laser, laser engraving, CNC, laser engraving machine, laser engraver, DIY, stainless steel engraving, metal engraving, 3D printer, stainless, 10w, 20w, amazing, industrial, manufacture, wow, wifi, how to, set up, machine, how do you, tutorial, design, designer, cad, cam, cut, wood, metal, acrylic, desktop, cheap, affordable, best, top, 40w, co2, etching, inlay, home, diy, homemade, workshop, make, maker, craft, longer b1, b1, LONGER, stone, AI, longerlaserb1, infrared, IR, ruby, pedal powered, hand crank, new

Id: Aj8C8NJ8Rm0

Length: 30min 20sec (1820 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023