OMTech 60 W Laser: Improved Lighting

The OMTech 60 W laser arrived with an LED strip light under the gantry:

That works reasonably well, if only because the pool of light travels with the gantry, but it’s always behind the area where you’re (well, I’m) setting up the Thing To Be Cut. An overhead can lamp with a warm-white CFL bulb contributes the yellowish foreground lighting, although I cast a big shadow when leaning into the cutter.

Adding three COB LED strips along the sides definitely improved the situation:

The glare will require shades along their top, but that’s in the nature of fine tuning.

I got 24 V COB LEDs to match the cutter’s power supply and reduce the overall current along the strips, but upon further inspection the OEM power supply seems under-specified for its job. The XY stepper drivers each draw 3.5 A peak, the Z (they call it U) axis driver is set for 5.1 A peak, and the knockoff RuiDa controller also runs at 24 V with an unspecified current.

Rather than stress the OEM supply, some rummaging in the Big Box o’ Wall Warts produced the 24 V 2 A power brick shown in the first picture. The previous owner had cut off the no-doubt specialized connector, so I had no qualms about splicing in a 5.1 mm coaxial power plug.

On the other end, I amputated the AC line plug, crimped on a pair of ferrules, and inserted them into the AC power barrier strip inside the electronics bay:

Yes, that little smudge in the middle of the brick is an Genuine Embossed Apple logo, so you know it’s gotta be good.