Joe Walmer
10-24-2015, 12:18 PM
My mercury has been down for almost 2 years now and I am in the middle of making my own laser so I have a smoothieboard motion controller. I tried looking at the several options to get the old laser working but putting a glass tube in I always assumed I would have to get new motion controller etc. That means either buying servo drivers and trying to figure out servos or changing to steppers etc. I am lucky there as I could just bolt nema 17 steppers in place with a few holes drilled and tapped. I went as far in my planning as tearing down the whole xy system and starting from scratch just keeping the laser enclosure to start with.
While researching the smoothie board info what they have people do to Chinese tubes is hot wire the TTL on signal to on all the time and then they just send a pwm to the power on the psu. I wanted to have a separate pin for turning the laser on and off and have the power a constant but he swore 100's of people do it with no ill effects.
So this has me thinking well if they can all do it then I should just be able to unplug the BNC connector going to my synrad RF laser tube and the tube with a glass tube then just hook up the bnc with pwm to the pwm power connector on the PSU and jump the TTL on to always on. Its the same thing smoothie does exactly so I am really hopeful.
So I ordered a K40 laser machine of ebay for 367$ when it gets here I will pull the tube and align it in my GCC mercury machine and hook up the pwm laser line to the k40 psu. I should then be able to keep my drivers software etc and just find a setting to cut 3mm acrylic 100% of what I do so no engraving I am not worried about it. This is all based on the fact When I normally send a job with 80% to my RF tube all it does is durring the actual instant of cutting it sends a 80% duty cycle through the bnc connector. Same exact thing smoothie does on a cut move it sends a pwm on a move with no cuts it sends 0% or what ever you send as a idle or throttle voltage 1% usually on rf tubes. so even if its sending a 1% to the glass tube psu they only really fire a glass tube above 10% so I am ok. I am basically just fooling my GCC into thinking it has a RF tube hooked up.
If this works I will then gut the entire k40 insides and make a new smoothieboard laser in it. I will use the entire inside though not just the left compartment. I already have v wheels and open rail and steppers etc to make the whole x/y system. A stationary bey/honeycomb table is ideal for me as I never change the height of what I work on I cut 1/16" and 1/8" sheets only so a z system actually is in my way so I am lucky.
While researching the smoothie board info what they have people do to Chinese tubes is hot wire the TTL on signal to on all the time and then they just send a pwm to the power on the psu. I wanted to have a separate pin for turning the laser on and off and have the power a constant but he swore 100's of people do it with no ill effects.
So this has me thinking well if they can all do it then I should just be able to unplug the BNC connector going to my synrad RF laser tube and the tube with a glass tube then just hook up the bnc with pwm to the pwm power connector on the PSU and jump the TTL on to always on. Its the same thing smoothie does exactly so I am really hopeful.
So I ordered a K40 laser machine of ebay for 367$ when it gets here I will pull the tube and align it in my GCC mercury machine and hook up the pwm laser line to the k40 psu. I should then be able to keep my drivers software etc and just find a setting to cut 3mm acrylic 100% of what I do so no engraving I am not worried about it. This is all based on the fact When I normally send a job with 80% to my RF tube all it does is durring the actual instant of cutting it sends a 80% duty cycle through the bnc connector. Same exact thing smoothie does on a cut move it sends a pwm on a move with no cuts it sends 0% or what ever you send as a idle or throttle voltage 1% usually on rf tubes. so even if its sending a 1% to the glass tube psu they only really fire a glass tube above 10% so I am ok. I am basically just fooling my GCC into thinking it has a RF tube hooked up.
If this works I will then gut the entire k40 insides and make a new smoothieboard laser in it. I will use the entire inside though not just the left compartment. I already have v wheels and open rail and steppers etc to make the whole x/y system. A stationary bey/honeycomb table is ideal for me as I never change the height of what I work on I cut 1/16" and 1/8" sheets only so a z system actually is in my way so I am lucky.