K40-SmoothieLaser Breakout Board

I have a cheap Ebay China 40W CO2 laser. Commonly known as the K40. The software it comes with is, “OK”. But I want to do more with it. I read online that there are some RAMPS 1.4 upgrades with Marlin firmware. But I HATE compiling and flashing the Mega 2560. It is a real PIA! Then I came upon SmoothieBoard. Its a 32Bit control board for lasers, 3D printers and CNC. And it you need to make a change to the settings, you just enter edit a config file on an SD card and reboot…. NO RECOMPILE AND RE-FLASHING!!

I need to connect the SmoothieBoard to my laser, replacing the OEM  control board. But the laser has a 12pin flat ribbon cable (FFC). So I made a breakout board! The board accepts the machine FFC and make its usable pins for the SmoothieBoard.

I went with the MKS Sbase Smoothie compatible board. It was a lot less money then the original Smoothieboard.

There is another board out there called the Middle Man Board. It does the same thing. I removed some of the outputs that were not needed, and made it much simpler.

Here are the Eagle Cad files for the board.

•  SmoothieLaser_breakout.rar

BOM:

• 1 PCB
• 1 FFC 12pin Female (PN A100331-ND Digikey.com)
• 1 4pin Terminal Bock (PN 277-1806-ND Dgikey.com
• 2 2Pin jumper header

Might want to pick up some JST connectors if you are going to use a knockoff Smoothieboard.

I will be selling board in my store if anyone needs one.