by Peter Brier and Jaap Vermaas
Presentation available in LaOS SVN
Currently there are only Windows lasercutter drivers on the market, nothing for Mac and Unix
Collaborators
- Jaap Vermaas (fablabtruck.nl)
- Jerry Jacobs (xor-gate.org, electronics pcb design)
- Bart Bakker (mini fablab: offers system)
- Protospace (Siert, Jelle): provide laser system and coffee
- Thomas Oster (FabLab Aachen): VisiCut
The Idea
- Make software and hardware for laser cutters
- Allow you to JUST PRINT from any app
- Platform independent Linux, Windows, Mac
- Stand alone laser operations
Jaap: "Why should using a laser cutter driver be more complicated than a normal printer?"
The Technology
Software:
- Postscript based CUPS printer driver using PSTOEDIT for conversion to gcode-like-file
- VisiCUT, stand alone JAVA program for cutting
- Embedded firmware inside the laser with TCP/IP, SD-card, I2C display and stepper motor drivers
Hardware:
-
MBED: LPC1678 cortex M3 ARM (or LPCxpresso1769)
- Pololu steppers or external stepper driver
Software:
- - inkscape with CUPS LAOS driver
Requirements for driver: Have users think about the materials.
Making Test is. Always helpful..
Optional printer driver is heful for ivdr
Software ToDo list: (Making LaOS more user friendly for general FabLab users)
* Add installer to CUPS driver for windows (NSIS?)
* Make Visicut more user friendly (remove some bugs, less popup dialogs)
Testing machine: HPC laser LS3020 (~1500 euro)
but it can drive all kind of lasers (not only the cheap chinese ones)
Questions
-
Is there a SVG to SimpleCode script? If not, would this be usefull? Visicut does this, but it sends the result to the Laser, it does not save it as a file.