Does anyone have a recommendation for a laser, suitable for the altmill? I’m based in the UK.
Thanks
I have a OPT Laser. They have kits specifically designed for the altmill and the longmill. Although that really just amounts to some interface cords and a mounting plate.
But it does work pretty well. I went with the PLH3D-XT-50 Laser. It is mostly an engraver though you can cut thinner stock with it. I don’t like last cut wood, though, do to the charing. Engraving on the other hand is pretty cool. I’m playing with it quite a bit lately.
I installed my new opt laser. i bought lightburn from opt laswer company. it is all installed and working, however my coordiinate system is not correct.
to jog the laser (spindle) to the right, it moves to the left.
also, as it jogs to the right, the X coordinate displayed gets more and more negative.
when i jog the Y direction away from home, the coordinate indexes more positive.
this is opposite from what Gsender indicates.
as a result, when i do a move to the middle of my work area, the laser tries to move out of bounds to the left.
i worked through many gcodes to correct the behavior, but that affects the controller which makes Gsender not work.
how did you get all the settings to work?
I created two macros (in Lightburn) to fix the coordinate issue. When using the laser, you click the “Use Laser” macro. Then when you are done, click the “Use CNC” and the coordinates get swapped back. Don’t forget to do this!
Other piece of advice, don’t bother using Lioghtburn without a mouse and kb.
Use Laser
$32=1
M104 Q1
G10 L2 P1 X1258.5 Y0
Use CNC
$32=0
M104 Q0
G10 L2 P1 X0 Y0
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Let me know how much luck you have. I’ve done some simple stuff with writing, etc. that has looked pretty good. I believe I used pretty near the 60 mm height +/- 0.5 mm or so with good results. 40% or less, speeds of 3,000 mm/min max. A lot of things I saw suggested to do more like 100-300 mm/min but that would take FOREVER if you’re doing a photo. I have a lot more fiddling to do. Here’s some of my tests:
