Messages

1

General Mach Discussion / Re: My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: July 03, 2015, 09:28:15 PM »

Its done!!!!!!!!  
got it working. I was able to engrave at 5 IPM. I am using Inkscape plugin called "J tech photonics laser tool" which is a vector engraving plugin. which allow you to create a M3 & M5 command.

2

General Mach Discussion / Re: My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: June 30, 2015, 09:54:43 PM »

Thanks a lot ben this is very useful info. I have seen somewhere ppl using the z axis to control there laser. Are you aware of any engraving software that generate z axis G code for laser.
Also Just a bit confused though with you spindle laser setup so i am assuming it was a marking laser(visual zeroing) or was it a actually a laser engraving setup. If you use Z -.001 as OFF and Z.001 as ON. to control the laser how did you control the z axis then??

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General Mach Discussion / Re: My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: June 29, 2015, 08:28:39 PM »

Ok so from my BoB setting pin 17 doesn't work, whether its set in the "motor outputs" tab (spindle )or in the "Output signals" tab (output#1).
Here is what did work......
so it turned out that pin 16 and 17 are the load end of the relay on my BoB. So if i attach my multimeter to pin 16 & 17. I get an open circuit. But under "Ouput signal" tabs if i set the output#1 pin to 16. and then i turn the spindle, my multimeter showed that the circuit closed and relay led turn ON. I was even able to open/close the relay using M3 and M5 commands.
For the above senario if i use pin 17 instead of 16 nothing works. the relay doesn't close.
My setting in the "spindle setup" tab > Motor Control > step/dir control was check and pwm was not checked. Could you conform your spindle setup settings, and also what is ur BoB???

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General Mach Discussion / Re: My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: June 28, 2015, 04:23:12 PM »

I have attached an image of which pins are connected and which are not.
The link you provided i did went through it but it didn't work. I used a M3 and M4 command to turn ON & OFF the spindle. I also set the pin 17 as spindle output but as i put the multi-meter to the pin i got nothing then i tried 16, 14,8...... no signal on them. I also tired the M10 & M11 commands but no luck.  I have a feeling i am missing some very small or overlooking something maybe.
I have done a lot of research and come up lot of information but its just confusing or doesn't applies to my controller. Below are several links of my research 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Using-Zen-Toolworks-CNC-with-Laser-Engraver/?ALLSTEPS
--it shows a picture of the same kind of cnc breakout board as me being connected to a laser driver
http://buildlog.net/cnc_laser/mach_laser_power.html
--he shows three ways to control the laser with mach3
--spindle as laser
--collant as laser
--using mach3 pwm to control laser
--he makes a good point about using the M11P1 & M10P1 to turn the laser on off instead of M3 and M5
---Example
----M11p#      –  Turn on the output the laser is on, where # is the number of the output
http://www.buildlog.net/blog/2010/07/mach3-laser-cutter-setup/
--therse are instruction on how to setup this using the M11p1 command
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2gSFcrtt3A
--this guys connected an ossiloscope to parallel port and display the pwm signal using s1000 commands
http://openbuilds.org/builds/co2-laser.565/
--complete build of how to make a co2 laser with mach3
--it also has circuit and information on how to connect the pin 16 17 to laser input

5

General Mach Discussion / Re: My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: June 27, 2015, 03:32:08 PM »

thanks for the reply man!!!
I don't have a datasheet for the laser but i am attaching a the labeled picture of whats where..
Do you have a similar cnc breakout board as Mine?

6

General Mach Discussion / My 5 axis breakout board to 1 watt laser driver TTL Input

« on: June 26, 2015, 08:28:12 PM »

Hi,
I want to convert my cnc machine to a laser engraver. I saw a lot of video and article online where people did the same but with a different breakout board. So i went ahead a bought the laser kit. And I though i would be able to find some instruction online on how to do this. But I can't find any body who has the same cnc breakout board as me. This is the one i have: -
 

This is the laser that i bought :-


How do i have mach3 send the laser on/off signal to the laser driver pin. I have done some research and found that you can use the pin 16 and pin 17. On my board is the pin17 is on the right top corner land next one 16. But it is a relay pin from what i kw and how can you send a high freq signal on a relay. I am confused*
But any way, I try setting the spindle to pin 17 and then send in the M3/M4 command from mach3. But i didn't see nothing on the multimeter, which was expected. I also tired pin 16 as well same result. But how are ppl using those pins to switch laser on off???
Please help me mostly of the discussion or article that i found does't apply to my driver board it seems or the information is very scattered. I am stuck ??

7

General Mach Discussion / Re: 3d profile problem

« on: June 11, 2013, 01:59:02 PM »

where a weak parallel port requires 15us pulse widths to get reliable operation.

I will definitely bump it up to 5 or even more to see if that made a difference; but do you think that will add more time to your machining because let say I have 6000 pulses per min with each pulse staying high for 2us, but now it staying up for 5us, this add 3us to each pulse (could you explain the science behind it just curious )
Mean while as before i was machining @ 250inch for xy @ medium acceleration, and z at limited to 150 plung of 40
Now i simply changed machining speed to 100 in the mach software I got no errors
In your experience what would a reasonable max speed i should expect out of my machine (interested in machining engraving, 3d profile, high reliefs etc)
Specs are:
x z =nema 23 460oz
y = nema 34 600 something oz
lead scew= 5 start 2 turn per inch
backlash nuts on all axises

8

General Mach Discussion / Re: 3d profile problem

« on: June 11, 2013, 02:08:41 AM »

Increase the step and dir pulse width to 2 or more.

Could you explain the set & dir pulse width a bit more? what its purpose and what difference does it makes?

9

General Mach Discussion / 3d profile problem

« on: June 10, 2013, 07:06:33 PM »

Your fellow machinist is in trouble my friends, so I have been practicing machining some 3d profile; I using steroform as my material and trying to machine simple 3d geometrical shapes like pyramids, cones etc. So I have tried machining this pyramid cone file a couple of times; 4 times specifically. I have succeeded only one time with no mistakes, and other 3 times with a simple error cut on the top of the cone.(@ different place every time neither the same size or lenght).
In your opinion what could be causing this:
Some other information that might be helpful  ; My zaxis was behaving badly prior to this and the motor usually slows down while I was machining and lose its positioning, while the other two axis worked fine. Thus resulting in improper cuts on a big scale. I have got a new driver for z axis; but seems like the problem has only been minimized to a very large extent. Expect these small mistakes that the machine is making.
Also was running at 45000 kernel speed which took me to 250 to 300ipm @medium accelration, the for the step pulse & dir pulse i got [1 - 0] for all axis (don't know what that means).
I have took the kernel speed back to 25000 and machined @ 225 ipm for the last piece i machine, but still got a error in the machining piece (a small cut at the top).
Z axis mechanically seems to running fine.

10

General Mach Discussion / Re: cnc stepper motor problem

« on: May 31, 2013, 02:39:07 PM »

Are you losing Z position?
Hood

Yes as i was running a code I cuts well but after a while the motor started to slow down and showed vibration. so I stop the machine did a regular jog even though it was showing 150ipm on mach3 it was not doing 150, But it waited like 15min then tried it was actually running at 150.
Also while it was slowing down, z was losing it postion wasn't cutting right. I was cutting a 2inch piece and it started to go depper than that and thats when i stopped and realized. This has happened to me before but its like the next time I turn my machine it works fine for couple of hours then goes bad.

@rick yes the motor is getting hot but it a normal hot not crazy hot.