K40 Air Assist Mount (laser cut)

thingiverse

I made some changes to the original design after using Version 1 for a while, and I ran into some issues with the positioning of the hose. The smoke being blown across the machine was not going directly towards the extractor as it should be, plus the ties I had put in place kept vibrating out. I used bluetack temporarily to keep them in. In the revised design (marked in red), I moved the hose so that it blows back towards the rear of the machine. It takes a bit more effort to set it up this way, but I think it's worth it, especially if it stops the occasional excess hose from getting in the way. To bend the hose, I just gave it a few shots with a kitchen blowtorch while holding it with pliers - some matches would probably work too. The rear shield for the K40 is also there to prevent the wheels from catching and pulling on the hose. I changed the side spacers slightly, but they pinch in the middle and have holes for zipties. It's a bit tricky to get the zipties in, so there might be room for improvement on Version 3 (maybe adding something to help with aligning your mirrors). I only made this out of clear/red acrylic because that's all I had lying around - something less brittle is recommended. This is the white V1 version of this thing as I'm out of the white acrylic I was using. In short, I got a fancy air assist head for my laser cutter and it wasn't great, so I made this to try and improve it. There are plenty of 3D printed attachments out there for improving your K40, but not many you can cut on your own cutter. It basically takes an aquarium 5mm (7mm outside) hose from your air pump and holds it near the cutting head of your laser. In my first cut, this fit together quite well until I took off the paper from the acrylic - you can either use some zip ties or wire like I did or remix this a bit to make it tighter. If you're remixing, I also made the space for the hose open on the side for accessibility, but in the next version, that should just be a straight enclosed hole. I have some intention of extending the hose side vertical spacer to do something with holding the hose lower down, but I'm not going to get back to this for a little bit, so consider it V1 and encourage others to improve on the design.