K40 UPGRADES

OMTech K40 Laser Upgrades

The Chinese laser often referred to as the K40 (40 watt) is an entry level CO2 laser at a magnificent price point.  They can be had for around $350 to $450 dollars depending on where you get them and how you get them configured.

I got mine from a place called OMTech for about $420.  It is also were well configured and has many upgrades already included.

Right out of the chute these things engrave and cut well although the 40 in K40 seems to be a bit of a gimmick.  A lot of the included laser tubes are actually 30 to 35 watts.  It’s really not enough to kick a fuss up over.   It’s just the way it is.  So that kicks off the upgrade discussion.  You can buy larger and more powerful laser tubes.

Once you use one of these things a bit and learn your way around one you’re going to want to upgrade some things.  While they do indeed come at a magnificent price point the old adage applies.  You get what you pay for.

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K40 Laser Milliamp Meter Mod

A K40 with a digital control doesn’t actually indicate actual laser power.  The only way to reliably measure the current from a laser tube is to add a milliamp (mA) meter to your K40.  While there are a lot of differing opinions on max power draw most agree it is somewhere between 18 and 20 mA’s.  Some people even pull short at 15mA to improve tube longevity.

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K40 MINI-GERBIL CARD UPGRADE

I recently bought a K40 Laser from OMTech. Most people use a free software mix for the K40 utilizing Inkscape and K40 Whisperer but there is a far better software solution (not free) called Lightburn. But a stock M2 Nano card will not work with Lightburn. We need to upgrade to an AwesomeTech Mini-Gerbil card.

I liked K40 Whisperer and was getting the hang of it.  It’s actually pretty powerful and it really is a good hunk of software but it just isn’t Lightburn.  No knock at all on K40 Whisperer intended.

Most K40 lasers come with a control card called an M2Nano which is not compatible with Lightburn.  The only way to run Lightburn on a K40 is to purchase a new controller card.  There are several options out there but I went with the Mini-Gerbil from AwesomeTech.  I just got the card and installed it and as always took notes while doing the installation and ran into a couple of noteworthy things that I thought was worthy of a blog.

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