Control plate for custom amp

I work pretty closely with my buddy Tom Deering and recently he asked if I could help him with the control plates for his amps. It involves some coated Lexan, reverse text, laser and cutting the plate out. The control plate in the picture is a little test, I will need some input for cutting the 1/8" Lexan for the control pot holes and outline. The cut needs to be as clean as possible. As you can see I still have some “spider webbing” going on with the laser, I adjusted the feed rate and got rid of a bunch of it on the first run. Open to ideas and suggestions…

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Yeah I believe it is on, Goode from Aspire and picsender to send it. Just little tweak in the feed rate helped quite a bit. I didn’t even think about using air with the laser. Have you done that?

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If you have the laser on during rapids you need to take a look at the post processor you are using with Aspire.

I don’t think there are settings specifically for on/off in the Jtech PP for Aspire. I’ll have to have another look at the settings for the PP, it’s very possible I may have overlooked something.

Depends on which PP you are using, but there are provisions in the PP for turning the laser off during rapids.

Look at the RETRACT rule.

Ill shoot that to you in the morning, thanks!

I’m not sure what I am looking for in the post processor, How would I adjust the on/off settings?

If you upload the PP you are using here, I’ll take a look at it.

Aspire-Jtech laser grbl-picsender

$0=10 (step pulse, usec)

$1=255 (step idle delay, msec)

$2=0 (step port invert mask:00000000)

$3=3 (dir port invert mask:00000011)

$4=0 (step enable invert, bool)

$5=0 (limit pins invert, bool)

$6=0 (probe pin invert, bool)

$10=115 (status report mask:01110011)

$11=0.020 (junction deviation, mm)

$12=0.002 (arc tolerance, mm)

$13=1 (report inches, bool)

$20=0 (soft limits, bool)

$21=0 (hard limits, bool)

$22=0 (homing cycle, bool)

$23=3 (homing dir invert mask:00000011)

$24=25.000 (homing feed, mm/min)

$25=750.000 (homing seek, mm/min)

$26=250 (homing debounce, msec)

$27=1.000 (homing pull-off, mm)

$30=255. (rpm max)

$31=0. (rpm min)

$100=40.000 (x, step/mm)

$101=40.000 (y, step/mm)

$102=188.947 (z, step/mm)

$110=8000.000 (x max rate, mm/min)

Those are the grbl parameter values. The post processor for Aspire will look something like this file.

J_Tech_GRBL_MM_v1_2.pp (4.5 KB)

The directory for Vcarve Pro is here (would be similar for Aspire - make the appropriate substitutions).

C:\ProgramData\Vectric\VCarve Pro\V8.0\PostP

Please forgive my CPU ignorance, but is this what you need?

+================================================
+

  • Grbl - Vectric machine output configuration file

+================================================
+

  • History
  • Who When What
  • ======== ========== ===========================
  • JTechP 03/28/2016 Added laser commands to
  •                 every line.  Changed laser
    
  •                 OFF command to both M03 S0 and
    
  •                 M05.  
    
  • PaulW 01/20/2016 turn Spindle off during rapids
  • EdwardP 11/02/2015 Written from Grbl_mm.pp but
  •                 set G20
    
  • EdwardP 11/02/2015 Commented out arcs as these
  •                 slow GRBL performance appear 
    
  •                 interpolated anyway
    

+================================================

POST_NAME = “J TECH GRBL (inch) (*.gcode)”

FILE_EXTENSION = “gcode”

UNITS = “INCHES”

±-----------------------------------------------

  • Line terminating characters
    ±-----------------------------------------------

LINE_ENDING = “[13][10]”

±-----------------------------------------------

  • Block numbering
    ±-----------------------------------------------

LINE_NUMBER_START = 0
LINE_NUMBER_INCREMENT = 10
LINE_NUMBER_MAXIMUM = 999999

+================================================
+

  • Formating for variables

+================================================

VAR LINE_NUMBER = [N|A|N|1.0]
VAR SPINDLE_SPEED = [S|A|S|1.0]
VAR FEED_RATE = [F|C|F|1.1]
VAR X_POSITION = [X|C|X|1.4]
VAR Y_POSITION = [Y|C|Y|1.4]
VAR Z_POSITION = [Z|C|Z|1.4]
VAR ARC_CENTRE_I_INC_POSITION = [I|A|I|1.4]
VAR ARC_CENTRE_J_INC_POSITION = [J|A|J|1.4]
VAR X_HOME_POSITION = [XH|A|X|1.4]
VAR Y_HOME_POSITION = [YH|A|Y|1.4]
VAR Z_HOME_POSITION = [ZH|A|Z|1.4]

+================================================
+

  • Block definitions for toolpath output

+================================================

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output at the start of the file
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin HEADER

“T1”
“G17”
“G20”
“M03 S0”
“M05”
“G0[ZH]”
“G0[XH][YH]”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for rapid moves
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin RAPID_MOVE

“G0[X][Y][Z]”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for the first feed rate move
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin FIRST_FEED_MOVE

“G1[X][Y][Z][F] [S]M3”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for feed rate moves
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin FEED_MOVE

“G1[X][Y][Z] [S]”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for the first clockwise arc move
    ±--------------------------------------------------

+begin FIRST_CW_ARC_MOVE

+“G2[X][Y][I][J][F] [S]M3”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for clockwise arc move
    ±--------------------------------------------------

+begin CW_ARC_MOVE

+“G2[X][Y][I][J] [S]”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for the first counterclockwise arc move
    ±--------------------------------------------------

+begin FIRST_CCW_ARC_MOVE

+“G3[X][Y][I][J][F] [S]M3”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for counterclockwise arc move
    ±--------------------------------------------------

+begin CCW_ARC_MOVE

+“G3[X][Y][I][J] [S]”


  • Commands output for Retract Moves

begin RETRACT_MOVE

“M03 S0”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output at the end of the file
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin FOOTER

“M03 S0”
“M05”
“G0[ZH]M30”
“G0[XH][YH]”

Not a problem. As posted here, that file has a problem with it, but I think it is a problem with the forum formatting.

At the “Commands output for Retract Moves” it should look like this:

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output for Retract Moves
    ±--------------------------------------------------

begin RETRACT_MOVE

“M03 S0”

±--------------------------------------------------

  • Commands output at the end of the file
    ±--------------------------------------------------

From your grbl paramters I can tell that you are running a version of grbl 1.0c without laser support. This is not a problem for doing engraving work, it should be fine.

In the Post Processor the “M03 S0” G-code command in the “RETRACT” section will turn the laser off (almost) and that command gets executed when you lift the Z axis to do a rapid move. The “almost” is due to a bug in standard 1.0c which doesn’t actually turn the laser off as it should, but sets the power level to the minimum value just short of off. Most likely you will not be able to tell that the laser is not off at that power level.

So, the problem that you have with laser etching between characters in your text is not a result of the issue I was thinking about.