GCC Mercury driver download - where?

[Peter Boyford]

I have been searching the web very minutely without luck. It seems that GCC has released a new driver for my Mercury laser that allows for multiple autofocusing layers in a single job. But I can't find driver downloads anywhere...

Help?

Best regards
Peter

[Richard Rumancik]

Usually they want you to contat your dealer to get new drivers and firmware. Jorlink has some drivers and firmware on their site but I don't see anything new there. LaserPro NA (www.laserprona.com (http://www.laserprona.com)) has drivers but it is for "members only" - you need to get a password from your dealer.

If you bought used you should be able to get a dealer to adopt you so they can supply the driver and firmware to you.

I don't know why they don't make the drivers and firmware freely available like the drivers for most peripherals. Many years ago GCC was rather "secretive" as to what changes and bug fixes were done when they changed the driver and firmware, and they were reluctant to provide new drivers unless you had a "demonstrated need" for it. I never could figure that out and I don't know if that has changed.

I am wondering how this on-the-fly autofocusing works. Do you define targets in the file for it to refocus on? You would need to be careful that there was material present at the point it decides to refocus. If it happens to refocus on a location where you just cut a hole your autofocus won't work and you will crash your carriage. Let us know what you find out about it.

[Peter Boyford]

I wonder the same thing - which is why I want to try it out myself with the updated driver.

I'll naturally use extreme precausion.

Best regards
Peter

[George M. Perzel]

Hi Guys;
OK- I give up- what possible application would something like that be used for? I can see that some award type items may have multiple levels so you do them one at a time. I can think of many other things I would prefer in a new driver- group rastering, vector line width expansion by refocusing, etc.
Best regards;
George
LaserArts

[Richard Rumancik]

George, I agree with you; I can't see applications for what I do and I don't actually use autofocus at all. I would be paranoid about the machine doing autofocus incorrectly and damaging itself.

What I would like to have is DYNAMIC OPTICAL AUTOFOCUS. This would be used primarily for vectoring, when the sheet is not 100% flat. It would dynamically raise and lower the table while cutting so as to maintain focus. You could tell it the maximum amount it is allowed to deviate from the initial setpoint (to keep it from going out of control.) The "probe" would be optically-based, non-contact.

Unfortunately it probably is not practicable have this feature for rastering, as the table would have a difficult time making adjustments with the rapid carriage travel. But if there was a "block" of raster text, like a batch of nameplates, conceiveably it could focus, raster a block, and then continue to the next patch of raster text.

OR: it could scan/sample the workpiece first, make a rough topological map and store it in memory, and then tweak the z-axis as best as it can on-the-fly to improve the focus.

[Robert Ray]

My new Laserpro C180 has those drivers, letting me auto-focus for each of the 16 colors, but I have yet to play with it.

I just figured out a use for it though...
If I have 2 different materials loaded, say 1/32" and 1/64" plywood, I could setup the power profiles to autofocus when black is done, then later autofocus on say green for the other material.

I will play with it tonight as I need to do a lot of small run stuff for a few weeks.

I got mine from Kurt Koser at Laserprona.com

-Robert Ray

[Scott Challoner]

I've used it a couple of times. Last week I was rastering acrylic after lowering the bed .080". When I went to cut it, it wouldn't cut with my normal settings because it was so far out of focus so I clicked "Autofocus" on the red pen tool and it refocused before cutting.
I would rather that you could type in an offset per pen color since normally I would focus a little into the acrylic. It shouldn't be too hard to put in a software limit so I don't accidentally tell it to drive the table too high.