Hello folks,
I’ve been working with CO2 lasers quite awhile and have collected quite a number of very useful, well-defined features that could be put into a new high-performance, really smart laser controller.
But, one question here is the PC software side. I’d assume it would be best that it be LB-compatible. But aI don’t think it could be a generic G-code laser without defeating most of the features I’d like to implement.
I know it’s not realistic to ask LB to build special support for my developing project, of course. And my feature list is going to be changing constantly for awhile.
One of the most viable concepts would be to emulate an existing machine like a Ruida. I might have to start building new raster modes for graphics by always sending a graphic over as a grayscale and bring up a web browser to view an HTML page hosted by the controller that shows all the unique modes and parameters to try out.
At first this seems straightforward. Ruida’s transport format was proprietary, but its encoding was cracked long ago. But there’s much more that transferring a job over. Like accessing config registers. And it looks like even ordinary jobs may need at least some of that like PWM period to be available.
That may be too much framework to try to emulate. But I still want this to work as a DSP controller.
I’m not familiar with the other DSP controllers LB supports. Are any of them “simple” in that they have fewer config regs and/or a better documented list of everything the controller does?
I’d sure like to work towards an open DSP-type controller standard. I think the future is going to be for LB to do whatever CAD it can and designate layers for the work, but when you click on “Layer Settings” it just jumps to the controller’s HTML page or a plug-in script that LB isn’t responsible for supporting. On graphics, LB would just upload the raw graphic processed only by things like Mask. The controller would send back a “preview” version and LB would show that.
So, we won’t have to push LB to support buttons, data fields, and do previews for these new and evolving features.
But, anyhow, existing DSP controllers- any recommendations on what might be simplest to emulate?