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Messages - Tweakie.CNC

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6901
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 04, 2011, 05:30:53 AM »
ntlaser,

Within Mach disable PWM spindle control.
When I refer to your pin#9 I am referring to the pin#9 from the computer's LPT parallel port.
Configure your pin#9 to the Digital Trigger and set active low.
Ensure that pin#9 is not configured or enabled to any other function within Mach.
Connect pin#9 to the PSU’s “TTL(L)” terminal (see earlier diagram).
Set the potentiometer mid travel for testing and adjust as necessary but make sure you don't set it too high and exceed the tubes maximum current specification. If you don’t already have a milliamp meter (0 to 30mA) connected in series with the earthy end of your laser tube then you should obtain and fit one.
Make whatever safety interlock, water flow etc. connections to the “WP” terminal of the PSU.

Shades are achieved within the Engraving plugin by varying the Pulse Repetition Frequency (not PWM) on the digital trigger output. A PRF of 100% would be equivalent to maximum power and a PRF of 0% would be equivalent to minimum power. In practice the Engraving plugin never gets anywhere near to a 100% PRF (see my pdf document for values related to feedrate http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=12444.0;attach=26734 ) but manual control of the maximum tube current can, to a large extent, compensate for this.
The manual control of tube current can be adjusted at any time during operation to achieve the appropriate laser power for the job in hand. A multiturn potentiometer with calibrated dial is good because the adjustment is quite fine and the dial enables the correct settings to be recorded so that they can easily be used again at a future date for a similar job.
The Engraving plugin, as mentioned earlier, controls the laser’s output power by adjusting the PRF and this, in turn, is directionally proportional to federate and pixel value (high federate = high laser output power : low federate = low laser output power : no feed at all = laser off). It’s really just as simple as that.

I hope I have explained all your questions.

Tweakie.

6902
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 03, 2011, 12:53:09 PM »
ntlaser,

From what you have said and after looking again at all the possibilities I think it is definitely a delay issue, but perhaps not as I first thought.
Looking at your double image - if the laser was fired late then the left image would be created during the right to left movement of the axis. The only way in which the left image could be created during the left to right axis movement is if the stream of trigger pulses started early or in other words there is a delay in the start of the axis movement. This would also hold good for different feedrates altering the spacing between the two images and could also explain the non-linearity in your earlier Micky Mouse double image.

I have attached a revised diagram of how I think you should consider connecting your laser PSU and Mach. (Ignore PWM control of laser current and set it manually for both Engrave and Cut operations).

Tweakie.

6903
General Mach Discussion / Re: Program hanging
« on: June 03, 2011, 12:49:46 PM »
Isn't this the reason programs should finish with a null line such as % ?

Try adding % as the last line.

Tweakie.

6904
If you EBay "Enclosed Limit Switch" there are many different types of complete plunger switches at low prices, maybe there is a suitable type there that you could use to replace your existing switches.

Tweakie.

6905
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 03, 2011, 07:18:53 AM »
As I see it the Digital Trigger should be set Active Low and the assigned output pin# should be connected to the laser PSU TTL(L) input and this is where the laser is turned on / off.
Are you switching the laser on / off a different way to this ?

Tweakie.

6906
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 03, 2011, 07:03:27 AM »
Another question comes to mind - How exactly do you control turning the laser on / off ?
Where do you connect the Digital Trigger output ?

Tweakie.

6907
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 03, 2011, 06:47:43 AM »
It is difficult to see exactly what is happening from those pictures but it could (as I said earlier) be related to a delay in turning the laser on and therefore vary the spacing of the two images with changes to federate. What I was hoping to see was if each of the two images was created by alternate line scans (one image created by the left to right scan and the other image created by the right to left scan).
Going back over earlier posts in this and the other related thread, I think it would be a good idea to investigate the PWM laser current control aspect. I never managed to succeed with the Mach PWM control and it’s a long shot but perhaps this is what is causing your problems.
As a test, would you consider the following?
As I understand it, you have a board which converts the Mach spindle PWM signal to an analogue voltage from 0 to 5 Volts which is in turn connected to the laser PSU (IN and GND terminals) to control the maximum laser current.
Try disconnecting this board and connecting a potentiometer, as attached diagram.
Set the potentiometer to mid travel (never set it to maximum unless you can monitor the tube current to ensure that the makers maximum recommended current is not exceeded).
Turn off the PWM function within Mach and then repeat the same test as you did before.
I don’t know for certain but Mach really has a lot of work to do running this plugin and it may just be too much to ask for it to generate the PWM as well.
Either way this will at least rule out one possibility.

Tweakie.

6908
General Mach Discussion / Re: Write Wizard
« on: June 03, 2011, 04:39:24 AM »
Widpyro,

There are quite a few but "Stick Font" came to mind. http://www.ncplot.com/freetools.htm

Tweakie.

6909
Hi AB,

1) If you wish to travel at 10 units per then your line would be G01 X00 F10 (the F is the feedrate).

2) You perhaps need to consider microsteps (if set) in your calculations.
    Al,s excellent calculator can be downloaded from here  http://www.machsupport.com/forum/index.php/topic,16315.0.html

Tweakie.

6910
Show"N"Tell ( Your Machines) / Re: The Laser Project.
« on: June 02, 2011, 01:52:24 PM »
This is the result I get from the above image settings.
The scan starts bottom left and it can be seen from alternate lines that there is a slight delay where the laser turns on and another slight delay where it turns off. This delay is so small that it makes no difference to the quality of photos or other images processed by the plugin.

Tweakie.

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