ddulmage@cdp.UUCP (12/16/90)
Hello. I'm posting this here as I have had a lot of email requests for this info, and some of it has not reached the people that have asked for it. >I am interested in whatever you can tell me about your laser >plotter system. Hello. My laser cutter is built around a Techno "AutoCad Replicator". It is built very similiar to the large linear translation stages that you would get from Klinger, etc. for optical applications. My table has a working area of about 10x15 inchs although they are available up to about 4x4 ft. It is run from a small card cage that holds its own cpu and stepper drivers. The system is programmed over a serial port by very simple ascii commands. There is software available that can translate dif. plotter motion descriptions into these ascii strings. In place of the z axis on the mill, I have a sheet of 1/4 alum. that serves as a bed for the piece that I am working. Mounted next to the table is a small <20 watt CO2 laser. The laser is manu. by Synrad. It is VERY compact (would fit in a brief case!) and runs off of 110v or even 28vdc. It is water cooled and/or air cooled. Water cooling is just a dribble (about a quart a minute). The laser can be directly modulated via a TTL input. This is a PWM type modulation to control power. The laser is mounted to a rail, at the end of which is a 90 deg. turning mirror and a focussing stage with a lens. This lens then sits above a corner of the work piece at what would be your plot origin 0,0. I had to write a small basic (eeeww) prg. to format and filter my Acad plot file data as to accomodate the switching of the laser instead of a pen lift. I then just send it out thru a teminal pgm. to the mill. This had to do with fact that because I do not have a z axis on the mill, its cpu would take that axis out of the final move and refused to ack. an internal ttl line that I wanted to use to sw. the laser. If I would have included the z axis stepper driver (but not the actual stage) the cpu would take care of this line automatically. The whole system cost under $9000.00 to build. Its been very reliable, and has an amazing amount of torque (had to back it down before I lost a finger or something.) Oh, once you have sent a plot to the mill cpu, you can recycle the plot from the mill just by pushing a button. It's cpu has about 32k of internal ram (you can add more, battery backed if needed). If you use their software, it runs as an ADI plotter direct from Acad so you don't have to bail out when you want to run a plot. Doug Dulmage Techno: 516 328-3970 Synrad: 206 483-6100 Me @ ChromaTek:612 935-8134