GearHeads Forum

Glen:

Ive considered a lens as well, in fact I made a small stepper up/down for the lens
from the guts of a cd player.. and I may have to try that at some point as well.

Art

Art
I bought a K40 like Moose had done.
I wanted to become familiar with running a laser first so I wasn't starting out blind on a new machine.
It also made sense since the laser and PS alone cost about what the machine cost.
As they die I will replace with better parts.

I am going to use one of the steppers from the K40 for my Z. 

I will control the steppers with a G540 left over from a upgrade on my router when I went to 80v, G203 with a vital system's Hicon control and Mach4.

Got the router up to 640 ipm, but the machine is to lite.
Had to limit it to 400ipm to keep it from moving across the floor.  Little misses wasn't to keen on anchor holes in the garage floor.

Trying to figure out the best approach for control software until Auggie is ready for a try.

Thanks
Glenn

Glenn:

Yeah, there really isnt much is there? Mach3 would drive it as a on/off type of laser device.. which isnt bad, but
I dont know of anything as yet that will deal with the lasers efectively .
Art

Glenn Davina wrote:I bought a K40 like Moose had done

Check out the K40 G+ group.

Did you get the LaserDRW or Moshidraw controller?  Mine has LaserDRW and a Corel plugin.  The software is essentially undocumented and quirky, but it's usable and will help you develop more patience.

Kirk

It's alive  ;D

just wanted to show a couple of quick clips of Auggie running a script on the pokies57cnc


https://youtu.be/lHeLpvVxDTQ

https://youtu.be/iq8yRNFL-kw

this is not the exact code but gives you an idea of a looping routine

for(i = 0; i < 2; i = i +1)
{
Engine.RapidTo(1,1,1,X);
Engine.RapidTo(1,25,-1,X);
Engine.RapidTo(25,1,1,X);
Engine.RapidTo(1,25,-1,X);
}

Moose
Thank you for the link.
LaserDRW. 
Have made a couple of things so far.
Etched some glass and did a rubber stamp for my wife.
Etched 20 wooded canteen faces for a charity for the local college alumni.

The company I currently work for bought a DSP controller(LO-RD5) for me to try out since I am doing some stuff for them from home.
Made a single sided board so I can go back and forth between controllers if they want it back.  [url]http://www.lightobject.info/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2889[\url]
Not really excited about it either though it does work and the documentation is a little better.  No hasp to run the software either.

Ya-Nvr-No
Looks great, my gantry not near as cool looking.

Moose
Should mention the RD5 DSP won't let you do grey scale if you have a CO2 laser selected.

Glenn

Glenn:

I wonder if its a co2 limitation..or if its more that co2  lasers can be tempermental at triggering in lower power
levels.. mine wont turn on under 20% for example..

Art

Art
Here is what Marco over at Light object posted.

I was told that the R5 support "gray scale" engraving but when I tried it on regular CO2 laser, I didn't see the effect. I talked to Mr.Xiao and he told me that the feature only available when running "RF" laser. The delay on CO2 won't be able to show the grayscale effectively on the engraving.

I was half tempted to try the RF setting with out pre-ignition, to see if I could do grey scale but not sure what it would do to my tube.  My tube fires with the controller set to 9%.

Glenn

Glen:

  I suspect highly the problem is one of nonlinearity, something one could conceivably
correct for with proper calibration but with no guarentee's of performance which would
likely vary form tube to tube. I base this suspicion on the way my laser works, where the on/off
is very fast with as much as over 1000dots per inch, so hysterisis doesnt appear to be
the issue, but Ill bet linearity is (based on linearity tests Ive run on my glass co2 laser
vs the rf one..)...
  Ill be facinated to hear how that works out on co2 tubes vs the rf tube Ill be initially
hooking up. I also have 2 other co2 lasers, one glass and one ceramic that I can eventually
attempt to control to see the effect...

  There are other ways to get get scale though without varying power, simply varying speed
and frequency would provide a decent grey scale as power is in linear proportion to speed
in its effect. Sounds like lots to play with when we get going. 

  Art