Arduino based Laser Control

[John T]

Hi Art,
I don't know if this should be here or somewhere else.  You have posted a 2.5D cut of the celtic knot done with your laser.  Is it or will be be possible to generate gCode for a CNC machine to do the same cut?

I have been playing around with "knots" in Gearotic and can generate a dxf but it is just lines and has no z in it and the gCode doesn't seem to work for me.

John

[ArtF]

John:

  It will, hopefully by the end of the year. Celtic knots currently can only be output as STL's
and grey scale photos ( which the laser uses.). The problem is we have never had a GCode
module that can do engravings, or full 3d machining, gears are all 2.5D. SO the new
machining module will get the capability in the end to do 3d engraving, which is how bevels
and celtic knots will be done.

  Im not sure the order as yet, I suspect 2.5D will be redone to be much more powerfull, then
4th axis will be done with a simulator, then 3d engraving will be added as the last step. As of now
thats the plan for this year. Shoudl I finish early, then Ill be adding some more mechanisms or
calculators such as planetary calculators.

  2.5D recoding is almost done, it will probably be released in October, we'll go from there as quickly
as I can in the above order.

Thx
Art

[John T]

Hi Art,
Definitely not trying to be pushy - I just got lost on the trail of things.

John

[ArtF]

, Not a problem, it wasn't taken that way.  

I should mention though, that as of Thursday this week, Ill be
away on vacation till Oct 1st. Development starts again on Gearotic on
Oct 2nd.

Art

[tweakie]

Hi Art,
I don't know if this should be here or somewhere else.  You have posted a 2.5D cut of the celtic knot done with your laser.  Is it or will be be possible to generate gCode for a CNC machine to do the same cut?

I have been playing around with "knots" in Gearotic and can generate a dxf but it is just lines and has no z in it and the gCode doesn't seem to work for me.

John

Hi John,

Going back in time, Art created "Mach1Filter" which you could use to create the machining Gcode from the grey scale images of the Celtic knots.
If you are interested, I have described it in a bit more detail here http://openbuilds.com/threads/producing ... -free.380/

Tweakie.

[ArtF]

Wow, even I had forgotten that one Tweaky.. lol

Ill be making a new one soon..for the Knots and for other possible uses, one
with a bit more power..

Art

[tweakie]

Those are just the words I love to hear Art  "More Power"  ;D

Tweakie.

[DanL]

Hi art hope you had a good holiday don't reply to your back.
I am a bit confused about the pins you have set I am going to be using a Leonardo, I am not sure what pins to use for the lcd screen you have it down as A0-A6 is A6 digital pins 4.

all the other pins I can understand I will just use the one on the plan you did for what pins to use.

it will be 3-4 weeks before the parts show up so everything will probably change by then.

I have not change over to a Ti board yet as it will take a bit of recoding to get working as the way they do pwm is a bit different from arduino it will happen one day.

[BobL]

Hi Dan;

I do not have any of that information here in front of me, all of it is at Art's place. Hope you don't mind waiting until he gets back to get the answer, which should be towards the weekend sometimes? Sorry..

Cheers
Bob
>:(

[Amazon [Bot]]

Got this from line 50
//initialize the lcd..its on a0-a6 lines in my leonardo..

this is what worked for me.
Not pretty as I can not seem to write well with a mouse. ;D

I added the pot to control the contrast