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.

 

Like most people who use Mach3 to run their laser cutters (See links at bottom of page), I have set up my laser output to output#1. Then I can use codes M11P1 (on) and M10P1 (off) to control the laser. These codes execute at the beginning of the next line of code so you have to always have a line of code following either of these codes. These codes work perfect in the case of turning the laser off during a rapid G0 code but require an additional movement at the end of the program. To solve that, I still use the standard M5 code (which executes immediately)  to turn of the laser at the end of the program.

I hope to get the completed PCB in sometime this week and can get some tests on the final single board solution. I plan to make this project completely open source and have a more detailed write-up on using the board once I get it to the point that I feel comfortable with the complete process.

Really happy with the cut qualtiy

 
Inspiration and information for this project:
Stephen Hobley
Andy Slater