GearHeads Forum

Posted: **Wed Jan 14, 2015 2:16 am**

Good thinking Art, you got the bases all covered for us, it's like you can read our minds

Posted: **Wed Jan 14, 2015 2:38 am**

I should mention that IF you should decide to press Slice with a few million slices selected, you can hit ESC
to cancel the slicing during the slice..

Art

Posted: **Wed Jan 14, 2015 10:11 am**

Art, saw the bit at the end of the video where you cut into a deck of cards and you put a g code into your laser to do so.
As I think we share the same make laser how do you get g code into that ?
All I can see is to load an rld file ?

Posted: **Wed Jan 14, 2015 1:30 pm**

Hi John:

Actually, I have 2 lasers. The one I share with you wont accept GCode, only dxf or rld's, ( and Im not sure what
the hell an RLD is..

In that laser I use only DXF's... so it wont run my playing card code. My second laser is a mach4 driven unit. When
Mach4 runs with Darwin, it will trigger my lasers output only in a g1 motion, not a g0. It will put out radiation at a
percentage of max power based on my S-Words command. It also only shoots one shot for each step pulse. (Which gives
me 250 shots per mm, whichis basically like having it on all the time when moving.

This makes laser cutting and engraving so brain-dead easy I have been doing a lot of laser work indoors with this second unit.
( this is all because its run by the laser control panel in another thread..). This means I havent been braving the cold of my shop to
work on the laser we share. My thought was the design of a 3d printer with a laser diode that cuts cards, and kicks them to a pile
kinda like a modified card shuffling machine. At .3mm per card they may be a bit thick though.. hard to say. And my automatic
card changer ( Bob) is probably not 100% reliable all the time. Ive been pressing CycleStart, when it stops he changes the card and says
OK, and I hit CycleStart again.. Ill need to build a card changer if I continue on this idea.. he's too expesnsive to feed..

Anyway, that why you cant load my code, its only for a gcode driven laser, and only if that laser can be trusted to cut only in g1
moves ( and as far as I know, mine is the only one in the world that does that..though I see 2-3 more in the works.
I have to say though, after using this for quite a while now.. this idea of shooting only when a step pulse is issued is a brilliant
way to control a laser ..should be a standard..

Art

Posted: **Fri Jan 30, 2015 7:13 am**

you just need to convert your other one now, I will finish mine soon just got to make some parts

Posted: **Fri Jan 30, 2015 5:22 pm**

I too have a 24X34 100W Chinese laser . It's interesting. The manuals a hard to understand but I have figured out quite a bit One thing I like about lasers is they are not as messy as my router. Here is a picture of a clock face that I recently cut.
Dan Mauch

ArtF wrote: Hi John:

Actually, I have 2 lasers. The one I share with you wont accept GCode, only dxf or rld's, ( and Im not sure what
the hell an RLD is..

In that laser I use only DXF's... so it wont run my playing card code. My second laser is a mach4 driven unit. When
Mach4 runs with Darwin, it will trigger my lasers output only in a g1 motion, not a g0. It will put out radiation at a
percentage of max power based on my S-Words command. It also only shoots one shot for each step pulse. (Which gives
me 250 shots per mm, whichis basically like having it on all the time when moving.

This makes laser cutting and engraving so brain-dead easy I have been doing a lot of laser work indoors with this second unit.
( this is all because its run by the laser control panel in another thread..). This means I havent been braving the cold of my shop to
work on the laser we share. My thought was the design of a 3d printer with a laser diode that cuts cards, and kicks them to a pile
kinda like a modified card shuffling machine. At .3mm per card they may be a bit thick though.. hard to say. And my automatic
card changer ( Bob) is probably not 100% reliable all the time. Ive been pressing CycleStart, when it stops he changes the card and says
OK, and I hit CycleStart again.. Ill need to build a card changer if I continue on this idea.. he's too expesnsive to feed..

Anyway, that why you cant load my code, its only for a gcode driven laser, and only if that laser can be trusted to cut only in g1
moves ( and as far as I know, mine is the only one in the world that does that..though I see 2-3 more in the works.
I have to say though, after using this for quite a while now.. this idea of shooting only when a step pulse is issued is a brilliant
way to control a laser ..should be a standard..

Art

Posted: **Sat Jan 31, 2015 1:41 am**

Dan:

Nice clockface..

Yes, I have to say I enjoy using my lase4r more than my cnc.. though each is handy in different cases..
I just got a small ceramic laser ( so I have 3 now.

), the small ceramic one is probably low power though they claimed
35watts on the sale.. Im betting 12 or so..

Just goes to show, you can never have enough lasers. lol

Art

Posted: **Sat Jan 31, 2015 2:07 pm**

Where do you find a ceramic laser? All I could find was research papers, laser holders, and tile engravers.

Kirk

Posted: **Sat Jan 31, 2015 3:06 pm**

Hi Kirk:

There was one on Ebay a couepl weeks back for 200.00 , I couldnt resit. It was a ceramic tube laser about 16" long, claiming 35 watts
and came with an RF exciter. Ill have it tested by next week, but the owner had a few and claimed this one was quite powerfull. From what
Ive read the ceramic laser last a very long time, and are very heat resistant. This thing is pretty cool. Im looking forward to playing with it..

Here's a photo of what one looks like..

Art

Posted: **Sat Jan 31, 2015 3:31 pm**

What will a 35w one do / cut ?

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