Turn Your 3D printer into a Laser Engraver in 5 Minutes
For many 3D printer users, they know what a 3D printer is and what it does. Maybe you are a beginner who just started to use a 3D printer, and feel excited about everything about the machine and printing your favourite models, or a person who already mastered FDM printers and wondered if they can do something more interesting with a printer. The fact is, as DIY 3D printers, they can be modified to different machines that can benefit us. In this article, I will introduce you to how to turn an FDM 3D printer into a laser engraver. Let see How we do it with a 500mW Creality laser module in a few minutes.
What is the Creality Laser Kit
Creality Laser Kit is one low power laser engraver that can be attached to a 3D printer. The laser beam has 500mW power and 445nm lightwave. It can burn soft materials like wood, paper and plastic.
This laser module has three strong disc magnets. Therefore, it is suitable for 3D printers that have iron nozzle cover, which includes but not limited to Ender 3, Ender 3 Pro, Ender 5, Ender 5 Pro, etc.
Laser Specification
| Heat sink Material | Aluminum |
| Output Power | 500mW |
| Wave Length | 445nm ±5nm |
| Voltage | 12-24V |
| Beam Shape | rectangular (focus adjustable) |
| Life Time | >8,000 hours |
| Working Temperature | -10℃ to 50℃ |
| Laser head weight | 110g |
| Applied Materials | Paper / Wood/ Fabric/ Plastic/ Leather/ Foam / coated metals |
Laser Installation——Two Steps
1. Circuit wiring
Warning: Make sure the power is disconnected when you do the following operations.
1.Open the controller cover and find the port for
2.Slowly take out the connection and replace it with the laser cable.
3.Close the cover and orgnize the laser cable.
2. Laser head setup
Prepare
- Read the guidebook before any laser job and fully aware of the danger of the laser beam.
- Download laser test codes from the website or create your laser code.
- Well-ventilated environment. •wear safety goggles and masks ( in some cases).
Startup Warning: Make sure you are wearing the safety goggles before repower the machine! The laser may be on for a couple of seconds during the booting process!
Setup
- Attach the laser head with the magnet side to the fan cover
2. Place a test board on the hotbed and move the laser head above it.
3. Use the [Fan Speed]to turn on/off the laser( 0= OFF, 1=ON)
4. Slowly rotate the nut until the beam is focused( little dot). You can see burning marks on the test board.
5. Manually move the laser to set up the XY origin. (bottom left corner of the workpiece)
6. Run a test code.
Notes:
- No need to change printers’ firmware in order to run the laser kit.
- Arranger the cable, make sure it’s not in the way of any moving components.
- set the laser height between 100-250mm from the hotbed.
- Do not press “auto home”. We do not need the printer’s home position.
Software
Open the App, import image (JPG)
set up the parameters
Save the file to the FT card
These will be all the basic steps for running a laser kit on 3D printers. If you have any questions, please leave comments below.
Related Post: Install the Laser kit on Ender3 V2
8 responses to “Turn 3D printer into a Laser Engraver (Basic)”
My laser unit came with a buck converter integrated into the cable. It worked on my Ender 3 for about 5 minutes before it burned out with a puff of smoke. Creality won’t give me any specs on this board and can’t tell me where to purchase another one either. Does anyone know the power/current requirements for using this on an original Ender 3?
[…] Turn 3D printer into a Laser Engraver (Basic) […]
I can´t open in mac, crealityworkshop in mac another program??
crealityworkshop only has a Windows version.
some alternative?
But works well in Linux Mint 20.3 wine
Will this work the same with the Creality CR-6 SE 3D Printer?
Only Ender printers are listed above. Why is that?
it’s only because that the engineers haven’t text the later lit on Cr6 Se yet. Laser kit works great with the lower Marlin version but has some bugs on Marlin 2.0 and higher.