About 2 years ago I purchased an X-Carve Pro 4x4 at an estate sale. Great deal, lots of learning, and now its working well. About a year ago I purchased an Opt Laser XT8 40w diode laser with the intent of upgrading my x-carve pro. To say its been a struggle is an understatement. Inventables has taken the position that if you open their controller box, it voids the warrantee. They have also stated to me in my attempts to get help that they do not believe in any laser mounted to their CNC’s, regardless of the brand. To take it a step further, I was looking to use the x-carve flood or mist port to run the remote arm function of the opt laser PLH3D-CNC adapter pro (this is the interface between the CNC and the Laser). I couldn’t find any information on it, and when I reached out to inventables just to ask how to use that port they noted that they had no information on it and had never tested it. Wow.
Here is what worked for me.
1. Use the opt laser X-Carve Pro Laser Upgrade Setup Guide found here https://optlasers.com/manuals/X-Carve-Pro-Laser-Upgrade-Setup.html. It is pretty accurate with a couple of caveats.
The mounting plate shown is no longer used. The old one mounted to the side of the spindle in front of the x-carve pro’s dust collection boot. The current one offered to me is a split ring that mounts to the bottom of the spindle and puts the laser in front of the spindle instead of to the side.
Initially I fought this and tried to find an alternative, but in the end have decided this one works pretty well. I’ve changed my 2 ½" dust boot to a 4 inch, and 3d printed a dust shoe that attaches to the xcarve-pro dust collection fitting. I can turn this to draw dust from the spindle, or smoke from the laser.
a. Wiring. I used the option to include a 3 way switch to shift from the spindle to the laser. Note that in the opt laser instructions they describe the controller to adapter cable as having white (pwm) and a brown (gnd) wires. The cable I was sent had red (pwm) and black (gnd).
i. They recommend a you tube video by Last Leg Woodworks -- "
Laser Add On for X-Carve Pro CNC" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW86IDAvqgY found here. I strongly recommend this. In general it is right on.
ii. This is where it got difficult. When I set it up exactly as per the manuals and the video, I was getting bad burns. Couldn’t modulate the power below 20% and have it fire, and the xcarve doesn’t move fast enough to keep it from burning deep holes when I was trying to engrave.
Inventables wouldn’t help, and opt laser tried but they didn’t have access to the specs of the xcarve controller.
iii. Enter AI – I used AI several times to help me figure out the wiring. Long story short, the yellow PWM wire that input into the AI1 terminal of the VFD was not the expected 0-5v as all the documentation expected it to be. Therefore when it was connected to the adaptor pro pin #2 PWM input it wasn’t performing as expected. This wire on my system is a 0-10v analog wire. When attached to the adaptor pro ANG In 10V pin it works exactly as it should.
iv. Opt laser support also recommended that I switch the adapter conversion mode to a base frequency of 10khz. This is done by holding the arm/disarm button while turning on the adapter pro with the key. Navigate through the menu to advanced settings, and then through the advanced menu setting to ADV 4/4, ANGIN MODE: PWM10K ADC. Select it and then save and exit. Here are the steps:
