LAOS Laser

So got there in the end - (apart from PWM which I'll do soon). Looking for some clarification about config.txt settings, etc.

I Re-did the config file from scratch from the information on:

http://redmine.laoslaser.org/projects/laos/wiki/LAOS_configuration_file

My current config is:

http://unicorn.drogon.net/config-07-19.txt

The area of confusion is the speeds:

• The motion.speed is the speed that corresponds to 100% speed setting in your drawing.

Which sounds fine - I'm guessing the 100% here is really the 100% I can use in VisiCut though.

Then there is the speeds for each axis:

• Note 1: x.speed and x.accel are used for fast bitmap moves

Is bitmap the same as engraving too? The trouble is, without PWM right now, it's too slow - setting it to 1000 produces an etch that's a bit too deep for my liking. (testing on 3mm acrylic for now)

And then there's the actual cut - I though I had it sorted, but now I need to set the speed down to 0.25 in VisiCut and that's still too fast.

I did find the table of speeds/materials on the Wiki: http://redmine.laoslaser.org/projects/laos/wiki/Materials_and_settings which initially looked great - but the speeds are now > 100 and since VisiCut works on percentages, it's hard to know what they really mean. (And this is just the page out of the HPC manual anyway, designed for their LaserDraw software - which worked well with these settings.).

And has anyone noticed some "spotting" when doing engraving? I can see the occasional micro dot at what looks like the end of the scan line - as if the laser gets turned on for a single pulse as it switches direction. I've checked for defects in the acrylic I'm using and not found any. It's not repeatable though.

So almost there - still some issue getting the settings just right, but I'm sure it'll work out OK soon.

-Gordon