With the help of Cory, Ahren and Jay over about half a dozen phone calls, a path to setting up a laser diode on a CNCRP machine has been figured out. It applies to pretty much any machine with MACH3 and a smooth stepper. I have the CRP800 control box and I just wanted to be sure I did not mess anything up. Also, I did not want to do any kind of trade offs that would limit future options like a 5th axis.
First off, this is a simple on / off set up. Jay of J Tech said that the most simple way to control power is with feed rate. PWM and MACH3 still has issues. A DAC would give 256 gray scale control but the next gen version will not be ready for a few months. The current version has issues of it's own, so I figured I'll just wait.
For a bit over $20.00 Cory at CNCRP sent me a ribbon cable and a BOB. The 3rd port on the smooth stepper is empty so the ribbon was plugged in there and the BOB was attached to the side of the power supply with velcro.
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After checking the WARP9 web site I went with pin 18 for signal ground and pin 17 for the signal. I suppose you don't have to get a ribbon cable and BOB, one could just use a friction connector that fit over the two selected pins on port 3.
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How you feed the signal to the laser driver is pretty much your choice. Knowing that it will be a long time before I set up a 5th axis, the empty spot in the case was filled with a DB 9 and the 2 wires from the BOB are soldered to that.
The MACH3 set up is easy. Made a copy of the XML file and named it LASER, then open MACH3 with the laser profile and go into plugin control and use the box in the upper right to set port 3 to output.
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So I went with flood control to activate the laser. Using any part of the spindle control causes a delay in triggering the laser. Tried it and got to see for myself. Flood control wins.
On the output signals I just shut off all the relays as they are set up for running 110 volt stuff through the CRP800 control box. I enabled output # 4 port 3 pin 17.
Why did I shut off the other relays? The laser and driver are static sensitive and my plastic suction hose is REAL close to the laser driver. I just don't want to accidentally turn some thing on that is not needed in laser mode... and vice versa.
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So on the spindle set up, the spindle relay is disabled. Mist / flood is enabled and set to output # 4 and delay 0. Ignore any other odd bits of set up shown in the image, that is leftovers from tinkering with PWM.
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I'll go into the rest of the set up of the laser and driver later. I'm still putting some finishing touches to it. I've made it so the driver and laser can be removed or installed in less than a minute. They don't need to stay on the machine when doing work with router bits. The installation takes into account that the laser has a narrow field of beam focus and every time you put the laser on you don't want to spend time tuning the beam again. Even with different material thickness you use the auto Z touch plate to set the laser hight.