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.