I mentioned that I had mounted my camera on the z tower itself, hoping for some interesting video. It’s actually not that interesting, but here’s a sample anyway.
Okay, apparently embedding a video doesn’t work the same way as doing a photo. I was hoping to avoid having to upload to youtube, but I guess I have to. Be back shortly.
Let’s try this.
I just posted a video of burning one of the plaques.
Well I was very excited to get my laser hooked up to my MPCNC after seeing some of the nice work being done here but I’ve had a major setback. I finally got my housing design tweaked to where I wanted it, re-tuned my driver and was very happy to get a hint of that burning wood smell that I had been missing, I’m now learning that the USB motion controller that I have is great for wood work and camera intergration but sucks for driving a laser.
I only have one variable output and it’s for driving a VFD spindle which is fine but the problem is a one second delay every time my M03 command is sent with a different S parameter. Obviously this is a deal breaker. I guess I’ll be joining the Marlin / Ramps crowd in the next few days. Watch this heartbreaking video and feel my pain.
Such a bummer. I hate that fingers crossed moment after a lot of hard work and poof, no good. I have had plenty myself. I hope you aren’t out of the game for too long.
I have a Ramps board laying around and I can always borrow the Mega from my Prusa i3 so it’s not too bad. I’ll use my existing stepper drivers too. It is a bummer but I shouldn’t blame my motion controller board .I’ve been reading and now realize that mach3 has a delay built in to the spindle commands. There’s no practical workaround either.Very disappointing to see commercial software that’ s less flexible than open source. On the bright side, I’ll be able to document all of this in a nice walkthrough guide for a $100 laser option.
Karl- Awesome video! That is a really nice plaque for the Rodeo. I am sure the winner will be honored to receive it. Thanks for making such an nice informative video for everyone.
Jay
A friend of mine has built a dedicated laser-cutter-mill combo (opposite extreme of the MPCNC philosphy). He uses LinuxCNC to control that machine without any delay or other problems. He can cut vectors, engrave, burn raster images. He uses a 50 watts industry grade IR laser, not the simple chinese stuff, but something solid… Well, as a service engineer for a laser company, he as access to these toys.
Just to mention it…
Cheers,
U.
Karl,
not directly a solution for your surface-burn-stains-problem, although I heard someone mention the other day that a few brushes of soluble glass applied to the surface before burning may help - if the task is to clean the laser-cut edges of a cut shape from charcoal completely, soda-blasting is one option. Like sandblasting but using soda. Developed for the cleaning of the Liberty statue…
Cheers,
U.
Yeah I’ve used Linux cnc In the past and it runs very well. Not sure why they decided to include a non- adjustable delay in the spindle m code with mach3. Drives me nuts. I would go to Linux cnc but the motion controller I had is made for mach3 only. Oh well…
I work at a dental device manufacturer and we have some high power laser equipment here. Tiny 2d barcodes engraved on titanium. Incredible:)