Topics

1

LazyCam (Beta) / Raster text

« on: March 17, 2012, 09:58:48 AM »

Hey guys,
I'm trying to make some little keychains on my laser cutter. I have my design in a dxf file, with both the outline and text in it.

What I'm trying to figure out, is how I can tell lazycam to raster the text, and cut the outline? Is there a way to do this in lazycam? I had a look at the manual but oculdn't really find anything specific about it.

Cheers,
Dan

2

LazyCam (Beta) / LazyCam double tracing?

« on: March 07, 2011, 03:22:01 AM »

Hi, I have found that with a few dxf's I make in Sketchup, LazyCam seems to generate gcode that retraces the same part twice, but at a very slight offset. It only does it for some parts, however i'm not quite sure what could be causing it.

Cheers,
Dan

3

General Mach Discussion / Need help with basic understanding

« on: February 19, 2011, 11:11:28 PM »

So I recently completed my home made laser cutter.

Ive been generating gcode in various software, however sometimes the software will output the Y coordinates in the - values, and sometimes it won't. My table at the moment is setup to work in + coordinates, however why is there all this variation? Is fixing the -'s as simple as just removing all the - symbols from the gcode? Which brings me onto my next question.

Sometimes the output is upside down, mirrored, backfliped, frontflipped and whatever other orientation you can think of. Usually I can fix the mirroring by switching the axis around (Making X Y etc), though that is tedious, and can lead to my table smashing into the limit switches if I forget to switch it back when I do something else.

I think what I'm not understanding is how the coordinate system on a XY table actually works, and how software produces the g-code with coordinates. For example, if I draw a 10cm diameter circle in Adobe Illustrator, export it as a DXF, import it into Lazycam, then into gcode and into mach3, will the circle at the end actually be 10cm diameter?  Any help is appreciated

Also, how do you calculate how many steps per mm the machine is? I am using 200step/rev steppers, connected to These pulleys: http://ausxmods.com.au/t5-pulleys/15t5-27-6.35mm-bore-timing-belt-pulley
With this belt: http://ausxmods.com.au/t5-timing-belts/t5-16mm-wide-open-timing-belt
Running at 1/8 microstepping.

Cheers,
Dan

4

LazyCam (Beta) / Vector Tracer

« on: February 19, 2011, 04:25:36 AM »

Hi, so I have an image here I am trying to get into gcode. I open it up in lazycam, and the output looks pretty good, however when I click OK, it goes to looking terrible?







Cheers,
Dan

5

General Mach Discussion / Steppers out of sync and skipped steps?

« on: February 17, 2011, 06:18:55 AM »

Hi, I've finished the X axis on my DIY laser cutter (I keep calling it Y in the video!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lepq-4LaV4g

I explain it in the video, sorry about the video being so dark, didn't realize until after I had filmed it.

Basically, I have 2 belts to move the X axis, with 2 steppers on each belt (4 steppers in total)

2 of these steppers are wired onto channel A on my controller board, and slaved.

Now for some reason, my steppers occasionally seem to loose steps, and the right side of the X axis seems to loose significantly more, and eventually they get so out of sync the carriage comes off the track!

The steppers have plenty of torque, and don't make any kind of noises to suggest they are skipping steps, they are set to 1/8 microstepping and 200 steps per in Mach3.

I have tried increasing the dir and step pulse durations with no success. One theory I have is that the computer is occasionally provided with a background task, which causes the parallel port to loose priority and miss steps, while Mach3 is still counting.

Anyone else have this problem?

Cheers,
Dan

6

General Mach Discussion / Doubling up output?

« on: January 15, 2011, 02:43:22 AM »

Hi, for my DIY laser cutter, I am going to use 4 stepper motors for the Y axis, and 2 for the X. The 2 for the X I have already tried with my CNC controller and Mach 3, and they work beautifully. However, reading the specification sheet on the stepper driver chips, they are only rated for around 1.5A continous each, 2 steppers just falls under this limit, however 4 seems like a bit too much for 1 driver.

My CNC controller is just a generic 4 axis Chinese board, however I was wondering, is there a way to have mach3 output Y axis pulses to 2 sets of pins? I don't htink there is, and if not, I can simply connect the step and dir pins from 1 chip to the other, but if I could do it in software, no point wasting solder

Cheers,
Dan

7

General Mach Discussion / Mach3 and laser?

« on: January 10, 2011, 11:21:55 PM »

Hi, I'm currently building a laser cutter, and making great progress! Instead of copying a whole thread, if you'd like to know more about it, I've got a thread going here: http://laserpointerforums.com/f57/my-holiday-project-d-58283.html

Anyway, I have a question about using mach3 to control a laser. I have a 4 axis CNC controller board (Generic Chinese one), and it has a spindle relay. It works, however it only turns on when you start a program, and off when the program stops. I can see that the Z axis is what I actually need to control the laser, but I'm not sure how. Also having mach3 able to control the power thru PWM would be nice, however just simple on/off is fine as well.

I'm lost here, and very new to this, so any help would be appreciated

Cheers,
Dan