What's the best strategy for controlling a laser? My machine uses 2 axes to move the laser optic to the right position. I've got this much working satisfactorily. Now I need to control the laser power. I was planning to use a 3rd axis for this, let's call it Z.
My plan was to use the sign of the Z position to control the laser-enable signal, and the magnitude of the Z position to control the laser power. But maybe this is a stupid idea... I don't know. For example, let's say I wanted to cut/burn a dashed line. It would be preferable if the optic could keep moving at a constant speed, and the beam would just turn on and off at the appropriate positions. Would I be able to do that if the beam was controlled by the Z axis position? This thing moves pretty fast.. maybe 25 to 30 inches per second, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to turn the beam on and off with enough precision. Later, I'll need to compensate for the linear velocity of the optic, so that it burns with less power when it is moving slowly. This will require computing the real-time velocity vector in x-y space and using that to control the laser power. Neil ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What happens now with your Lotus Notes apps - do you make another costly upgrade, or settle for being marooned without product support? Time to move off Lotus Notes and onto the cloud with Force.com, apps are easier to build, use, and manage than apps on traditional platforms. Sign up for the Lotus Notes Migration Kit to learn more. http://p.sf.net/sfu/salesforce-d2d _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
