New domain, and boards are at the fab

Laser Converter V1.1

You may have noticed that the .blogspot part of the address is gone. We have moved to our own domain! Also, I have sent the next batch of boards out for fabrication.  I figured since I was sending out for new boards anyway, I would make a few changes.

We've sold out

Today was a big day! Chris' Circuits was featured on Hack A Day! We had a huge surge in traffic and all our laser converter boards sold out!

Looks like I will be spending the weekend at the post office.

For those who are still interested in a laser converter board, I will put up a pre-order in the products page for the next batch.

Thanks for the great response everyone. More awesome projects are in the works.

UPDATE: The pre-order is now live.

Holiday Fun!

Laser cut graham crackers

I've had a great response to my laser converter board. There are only a few more in this first batch so if you have been thinking about getting one, get one before they are gone. I plan on ordering a second batch but they may not be ready until January.

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a ton of fun with their laser cutters, I know I am. I wanted to post real quick and show everyone what I am up to.

Installing and using a CamBam post processor

Post processors are used to automate the creation of specialized gcode. In the case of a laser cutter, if you are using standard cam programs, their output is traditionally for a spindle type cutting tool. This means we need to make a few changes to how rapids and other features are treated. In a typical mill, when the tool wants to move to an X,Y point without cutting (a rapid) it typically raises up the Z moves to X,Y and lowers to cut. During the entire move the spindle stays on. In the case of a laser we need to turn off the laser, move, and then turn it on again. Our post processor makes these changes so the gcode comes out correctly for our application.

Configuring Mach3

Mach3 main screen

     I wanted to put together an easy to follow guide for configuring Mach3 to work with my converter board and other similar breakout boards. The exact pins used for each signal will vary from board to board. This example will specifically use the pin-out from the converter boards that can be purchased from my product page.

It's THIS easy........

Populated Controller Board

 I finally found some free time to populate one of the prototype PCBs I got in last week. I am very happy with the way they turned out. Once populated, it was so simple to swap out my old moshidraw board for this one.

PCBs are back!

The prototype run of PCBs I ordered are finally here! I am happy with the way they turned out. Now to populate them and test them out. Next I plan to post a video showing just how easy it is to switch to Mach3/LinuxCNC using my board.

CamBam post processor working!

Just a quick post to say I got a basic laser post processor working for CamBam. The picture below is of some gears I cut by using a gear maker in CamBam. With the post processor working there was NO manual editing of Gcode. I made the gears, created the Gcode, and cut in Mach3.

Gears generated in CamBam

I need to figure out how to export the post processor and I'll post a link to download. For those without CamBam, I need to either make a wizard for Mach3 or write a simple stand-alone post processor.

First Cut!

I was able to successfully fire the laser on my laser cutter through Mach3. I am very impressed with the cuts I am getting. At this point there is still a lot of manual editing of GCode to get the laser to fire at the correct places. I will need to write a post processor that will get me a file I can use without manual editing. But for now it works.

 

Converting a Chinese laser cutter to work on Mach3

I recently decided to purchase an inexpensive laser cutter from Ebay (Here). Once I got it, I quickly realized that I would be VERY limited in what I could cut. I set out to get the laser cutter to work with some more standard software. After some web searches I found that the tutorials all involved some modification to cabling or some other strange work around. I decided I wanted to design and build a drop in replacement that would work with Mach3 or LinuxCNC (EMC). Here is my first motion test of the prototype.

I have started the process to manufacturer a PCB. If there is enough interest I may put together a Kickstarter to get a large batch of these done and bring down the cost. I plan to run some cutting tests tonight check back to see the results. 

UPDATE: I decided that for now, I will just sell a few fully assembled boards a see how that goes. Boards can be bought here.

Soap Rocket

Okay, so I know this isn't an electronic project but I had a good time designing it and my kids had a great time playing with it.

The quad is finished!

With all my ESCs modded and frame complete it's time to fly!

This was my first time ever flying a multi-rotor aircraft so I think the updates worked really well. Sorry for the weird video I only had my friend's phone at the time and it kept hanging.

I have a lot of cool projects planed for the summer so check back often.

Flashing HobbyKing Birdie 30A ESC

I recently bought 4 Birdie 30A ESCs from my favorite online hobby shop, HobbyKing. I bought these ESCs for my quad-copter project I'm SLOWLY working on. When I received them I wasn't too excited about the lack of programming features and they just seemed to be a little sluggish. Not to mention they are actually 25A ESCs despite being sold as a 30A ESC. Anyway, I had heard that there was some open source firmware people were flashing their ESCs with that made them perform better with multi-rotors. After some hopeful web searches to see if anyone had any experience with these Birdies I came across a great resource for flashing ESCs. OpenPilot has a great wiki with tons of useful information for anyone wanting to try their hand at trying to improve their ESC's performance. Unfortunately, my Birdie wasn't on the list...... Oh well that just means I get to poke around and solve it myself. After looking at some of the PCB layouts that were supported, I found that the Birdie looked to be an exact replica of the supported RC MAX 18A ESC. I was in luck, that meant the standard tp.hex firmware should work for my model. A little soldering and a few minutes later my ESC was ready to flash.

The top side of the Birdie 30A ESC