[cstmwrks]

So far things are going very smoothly with my new PRO 4848. Now that it is working so well it's already time to start thinking about adding features. Having a laser for marking would be real helpful. J Tech is down in Texas and has a nice looking set up for Mach3 controlled systems. Right now the only hitch in what sounds pretty close to plug and play is there "tap" to send input to the laser control board is based on DB25 printer port.

I have the 800 model with smoothstepper plug and play package and there VFD/ spindle package..

I'm already using one of the relays to turn on dust collection but the second for coolant is idle. If I Take the logic input that runs the second relay and disconnect it, that could then turn the laser on and off?

[jueston]

i also have a pro4848 and am thinking about putting the jtech laser on it, did you do it and how did you wire it?

[cstmwrks]

i also have a pro4848 and am thinking about putting the jtech laser on it, did you do it and how did you wire it?

At this point I did not. First hitch was the JTech uses a tap to the printer cable to get data to the laser control board. I'm running the smooth stepper so that was out. Talked with Jay about using other inputs to control the laser but as best I understood it left control of laser power some what limited. You would use adjustments of feed rate as a means of "power" control.

Anyhow it hit the back burner on projects as I had more pressing matters to deal with. This one was starting to look a bit more involved than I could devote time to right now.

[jbvries]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Mine... I am just now recieving the parts for my CNCRP so mine is on my Zenbot, but it was easy as pie to set up and get burning. Granted I am using what I'm finding to be an archaic controller board with the (not so)Easy-CNC. It was easy to set up in my case.

Also, if the power factor is what's stopping you, you should really reconsider. This thing doesnt have a whole ton of power at max so at full speeds you are gonna be alright. I'm still dialing it in, but it sure is fun. I am an artist first and a craftsman second so that may also have something to do with my lack of concern for the power factor, but again at 2.8w max you are not gonna be doing much beyond an etch or engrave without some serious time involved. They even say at max cutting a 3mm piece of plywood is not the cleanest. For etching on an already custom cut piece, it is magic!

[cstmwrks]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not planning to cut anything. At this point the only project would be line art. No need for photo gray scale and not even as complex as what you show in the above image. Is the Zenbot run from MACH3?, how do you trigger the laser?

[nlancaster]

Question about this. Is it possible to setup something like this to mark cut board? Add code with an offset from the spindle to then burn markings like part numbers into boards?

[cstmwrks]

Question about this. Is it possible to setup something like this to mark cut board? Add code with an offset from the spindle to then burn markings like part numbers into boards?

Best I understand the answer would be yes. You would run the laser off the coolant relay. No power control, so how much of a burn you want would come from the speed rate.

[jbvries]

Yes, running Mach 3 using M03 for on M05 for off.

Yes, you could do that no problem. That etching I did was on some type of fiber board and with some glitches in the code causing the laser to pause after turning on. On and off is all you really need.

I can't wait to have it permanently affixed to my spindle on the Pro 4x2 so I can REALLY make and etch some cool creations.

The Inkscape plugin, although no longer supported by Jay, does the trick pretty well. Note! Read the fine print! If using Mach 3 you can't use the PicLaser software offered by Jaytech as the pulses are to slow for PicLaser.

Have fun, safe work, y'all!

-JB

[cstmwrks]

The Inkscape plugin, although no longer supported by Jay, does the trick pretty well. Note! Read the fine print! If using Mach 3 you can't use the PicLaser software offered by Jaytech as the pulses are to slow for PicLaser.



-JB

That was a point Jay did make in an email, pretty much any kind of "photo" type work is out of the question.

[jeffery926]

Jay is working on a DAC for varied intensity analog/PWM laser control so the Gcode generated with our PicLaser Lite & PicEngrave Pro 5 can be used to laser engrave photos with Mach3 & similar CNC controllers.

DAC | Search Results | J Tech Photonics, Inc.

[cstmwrks]

I hope he adds the ability to run from a smoothstepper and not just DB 25.

[jeffery926]

It just excepts step & direction signals and outputs 0-5v analog modulation or PWM from axis depths in a gcode, so it could be used in many ways. We have been consulting Jay on the design and our software engineer John Champlain that wrote these instructions with info how to build your own uses a smoothstepper with his.

http://www.picengrave.com/Pic%20Prog...ons%202015.pdf

[cstmwrks]

It just excepts step & direction signals and outputs 0-5v analog modulation or PWM from axis depths in a gcode, so it could be used in many ways. We have been consulting Jay on the design and our software engineer John Champlain that wrote these instructions with info how to build your own uses a smoothstepper with his.

http://www.picengrave.com/Pic%20Prog...ons%202015.pdf

OK.. took more reading time but I think things finally clicked.

From the JTech install instructions:
Attachment 295908

I got stuck on the DB 25 connection because they sold a break out board to tap into the DB 25 connection. So that part is a non issue. If I understand then, it is three connections from the break out board. One is just on / off and the other comes from the pulse sent to a stepper driver.

I use CNCRP's complete plug and play control box and VFD. So for me the issue has always been how to do a clean tap into the required inputs, and not have any major issues switching back and forth from laser to spindle.
So just looking at the M3 M5 command that I assume is being sent to the VFD by one of these four:

Attachment 295910

It would just take adding another wire to one of those outputs?

The break out board has an "empty" spot to control a 4th axis, so finding those outputs for the step and direction signal would complete the set up, correct? The rest would be done in a separate MACH3 profile.

As long as the VFD is not powered up then the only thing that would run is the laser. Some type of plug in connector could even be used on the box for a very clean installation.

[jeffery926]

You have it figured out.

[cstmwrks]

You have it figured out.

Well.. that was pretty easy. OK I'll have to get in touch with the guys at CNCRP for pin out info. I have there CRP550 "bridge" board and CRP560 panel-mounted IO breakout board. First attempts on there web site did not find much in the line of specs on these items. Does not mean it's not there... I'm just not finding it.

[dgage]

Please share your findings as I'd love to add laser capabilities to the CRP machine I'm building. Thanks.

[cstmwrks]

Please share your findings as I'd love to add laser capabilities to the CRP machine I'm building. Thanks.

I sent a message to Cory at CNCRP, Ahren is supposed to post some details here that should help anyone wanting to add the J Tech laser. At least as far as using the DAC and connecting it to the CRP550 bridge board and CRP560 panel-mounted IO breakout board.

[ahren]

We'll post some specifications on the CRP550 and CRP560 boards at some point -- we don't currently sell these as stand-alone cards, so the documentation we have created for them is just enough for us to use them internally, and isn't really thorough enough to share at the moment.

That being said, there are a couple ways you could go about doing what you want to do if I understand the DAC_PWM board you are using correctly. It looks like you need 3 outputs -- an enable, a step, and a direction. The CRP560 card (the one with the green headers you showed above) is set up with all of the bi-directional pins (2-9) configured as inputs (which is how we can have 8 input ports, an e-stop, and a spindle fault signal all on one port). The 4 standard outputs (1, 14, 16, and 17) are already used for a 0-10V analog output and the 3 relays on the card. As such, you can't really get extra outputs off of the CRP560 card, just extra inputs, which doesn't help you with the J-Tech.

However, you can get extra outputs from a couple places:

1) The CRP550 board. This board is just a breakout board for the motor outputs that simplifies wiring, and is run off of port 1 on the Smoothstepper in your system. It is mapped as follows:

Pin Function (re-assignable, but this is how our XML is set up)
2 X Step
3 X Dir
4 Y Step
5 Y Dir
6 Z Step
7 Z Dir
8 B Step
9 B Dir
14 A Step
16 A Dir

This card also conveniently passes through all of the IO on the second ribbon cable header. The ESS has enough current to drive most isolated outputs directly, so you could break out IO from this second ribbon cable header on the CRP550 board and use pins 14 and 16 for the STEP and DIR functions, and either pin 1 or 17 for your enable.

2) Port 3 on the Smoothstepper. This port is unused and is open for whatever functions you would like to use. This would be the same approach as using the pass-through on the CRP550 board, but you could do the use any of the output pins (1, 2-9, 14, 16, or 17) for your outputs.

In either case, probably the best way to physically access this IO is to get a small basic (un-powered) breakout card that just gives you access to all 25 pins. Below is a picture of a system we did recently with a little BOB like this that we used to drive an auxiliary lift table -- I've circled the cheapo Bob and the passthrough port on the CRP550 board in green. Dgage, we used the same BOB in your system to pipe 3 outputs over to your auxiliary relay box. We bought a small lot of these little things for odd jobs like this and can offer them for sale, or you can use any basic DB-25 breakout board and a DB25 to LPH-26 ribbon cable. If you needed to use the inputs on port 1, you'd probably want something more sophisticated than this, but for just 3 outputs this should be fine.

If you need an actual relay for the DAC_PWM board (rather than just a digital output), you can drive a small one off of pin 1 or pin 17. Alternatively, you can re-purpose one of the relays on the CRP560 board. The relays are connected via quick disconnect terminals, and are below the green terminal strip you referenced in your picture. Two of them are assigned to the AC outlets by default, so if you aren't using these you could remove the quick disconnects from the AC outlets and run these wires to your DAC_PWM board. The 3rd one is tied to your spindle control box, so don't mess with this one -- it has different color disconnects. Based on a cursory look at the DAC_PWM board, it looks like you don't need to do this though -- I think you can probably just hook a digital output up directly, and set the M03 output "low" to enable the laser (so you will likely want to set this pin as active low in Mach).

Cstmwrks, give us a call back tomorrow if you'd like to discuss this in more detail and we can try to help you through this. To avoid sending others down the wrong path, I don't want to say too much more in this thread until we try a few things out to validate my assumptions about the DAC_PWM board, but this should certainly be doable.

Best regards,

Ahren
CNCRouterParts

[cstmwrks]

Cstmwrks, give us a call back tomorrow if you'd like to discuss this in more detail and we can try to help you through this. To avoid sending others down the wrong path, I don't want to say too much more in this thread until we try a few things out to validate my assumptions about the DAC_PWM board, but this should certainly be doable.

Best regards,

Ahren

OK, thanks.. That is a good start to work from. The ribbon cable to a screw type BOB will work for the step and direction to the DAC. I'll check with J Tech but I think using port three off the smooth stepper for the M03 M05 signal would be the right path. Everything is a 5v logic signal to the DAC as I understand it.

[cstmwrks]

1) The CRP550 board. This board is just a breakout board for the motor outputs that simplifies wiring, and is run off of port 1 on the Smoothstepper in your system. It is mapped as follows:

Pin Function (re-assignable, but this is how our XML is set up)
2 X Step
3 X Dir
4 Y Step
5 Y Dir
6 Z Step
7 Z Dir
8 B Step
9 B Dir
14 A Step
16 A Dir

This card also conveniently passes through all of the IO on the second ribbon cable header. The ESS has enough current to drive most isolated outputs directly, so you could break out IO from this second ribbon cable header on the CRP550 board and use pins 14 and 16 for the STEP and DIR functions, and either pin 1 or 17 for your enable.

2) Port 3 on the Smoothstepper. This port is unused and is open for whatever functions you would like to use. This would be the same approach as using the pass-through on the CRP550 board, but you could do the use any of the output pins (1, 2-9, 14, 16, or 17) for your outputs.

In either case, probably the best way to physically access this IO is to get a small basic (un-powered) breakout card that just gives you access to all 25 pins. Below is a picture of a system we did recently with a little BOB like this that we used to drive an auxiliary lift table -- I've circled the cheapo Bob and the passthrough port on the CRP550 board in green. Dgage, we used the same BOB in your system to pipe 3 outputs over to your auxiliary relay box. We bought a small lot of these little things for odd jobs like this and can offer them for sale, or you can use any basic DB-25 breakout board and a DB25 to LPH-26 ribbon cable. If you needed to use the inputs on port 1, you'd probably want something more sophisticated than this, but for just 3 outputs this should be fine.

Ahren
CNCRouterParts

This is the feedback I got from Jay after he read Ahren's post, I shortened it to the more relevant info:
"I would try getting access on the second ribbon cable for all signals (Step, Dir, and Enable pin 1 or 17) "
"All you need is a strong enough +5volt signal to turn it on and off. "

So now it is starting to sound like a VERY clean adaptation can be done to any CNCRP break out box. There is already an empty DB-9 for use with a 4th axis. The second ribbon cable / break out board could be wired to a DB 9 port in the empty axis spot and you would connect to the DAC via serial cable. Everything could be made for easy install / removal so your not getting dust on the laser when it is not being used.