Convert Laser

The purpose of this page is to document the conversion of our Chinese laser to use our preferred firmware, LinuxCNC.

Importing

See our page on importing the laser.

Why

Changing the firmware gives us a few advantages.

• As an organization, we strongly value open source and this gives us the option of using a full open source stack to go from design to cut.
• We have years of experience, training, and development on the current stack and have had a really positive experience with it.

Plan

The plan is to remove the controller and display panel that came with the laser and replace them with a computer running LinuxCNC, a I/O card, and a panel of our own design and needs. Our goal is to fit this all into in the new laser using the existing structure in a neat and beautiful way.

Software

Inkscape (Design)	Design Optionally, our KM-Laser Bundle
Custom Web interface	Upload to laser + CAM Name and link coming
LinuxCNC	Firmware to run laser

Hardware

Motherboard/RAM/CPU	2 NICS
Hard drive	Just big enough to hold LinuxCNC with some room left over for gcode and raster images
Power Supply	Something that supports 220v and will power the motherboard
LinuxCNC compatible I/O card	We chose a Mesa 7176E It cost a little more than other options but we can use the extra NIC on the motherboard instead of having to add a parallel port.

Progress

The electronics as they started.

Remove the top panel

The controller removed.

Searching through our well organized choas to find standoffs for the new electronics.

Mesa card mounted.

Brain wiring started.

Computer installed.

More to come....