First let me congratulate you on the fine build log you created on the buildlog.net web page. It looks like you and I are very close in the time span of getting a machine in operation. I started with an ebay 40W engraver. It came with the Moshidraw software and a controller that would accept the print job over the parallel port and then raster it. I played with this software for about 1 day before I decided to junk the whole thing. I tore all the chips off the controller and wired my own Allegro chips to the lone remaining parallel port connector. I already owned Mach3 because I bought it for a mini-mill that I run with it.
1. We can agree that the raster engraving program in Mach3 is not yet adequate. It needs help from a smart programmer.
2. Mach 3 works quite nicely for vector cutting. I was using the Z direction bit and very shallow Z movements for my laser ON/OFF control. I know that you and others have used the machine codes.
3. I can't get Mach3 to raster worth a damn. If you use a machine code to turn the laser on and off it momentarilly pauses as it runs the VB script. I think that it might be more advantageous to use the Z direction bit because it is loaded into the trajectory planner ahead of time. That being said, I'm still not getting good results.
4. I thought that perhaps EMC2 on Linux would be better. I have tried it but I still get odd results. I find that the M64 and M65 commands still pause the motion of the X sweep. I've got people telling me that I need to use the G64Px.xxx code to smooth out the motion, but for some reason I can't see any change in behaviour of the EMC2 run whether I have this code set or not.
5. I contacted LinkMotion and downloaded the Virtual CO2 Laser Driver. I have it set up on my Windows XP machine with the proper speed, RAM, PS2 Keyboard and mouse, etc. I am able to jog my X and Y stages and fire the laser, but when I print from a document to this new "virtual printer", it throws out an access violation warning(tried to write to some odd memory address) and crashes the linkmotion software. I only get 15 tries with this demo software, so I'm just about expired. I think I need to junk it and go back to testing EMC2. The linkmotion "virtual" printer software was going to be $600 if it worked. I am not opposed to spending that kind of money if I get a reliable result, but right now it is not working.
I have two other threads going on two other forums, but the answers aren't coming too clearly.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93949 http://www.linuxcnc.org/component/optio ... 6/lang,en/Please jump in on any of them if you have anything to add.