Re: added laser cutter to my mill (pics)

This is a little off the cuff but here goes:

To turn the laser on and off, why not define another axis, an
imaginery axis really. Before a cutting move such as G01 just send
what equates to a single pulse to this axis, to turn it off send two
pulses and have your little uP interpret these. This would need
some sort of post processing of your gcode but it would be super
simple for someone to write a little program to do it. I think this
would also mean that the turning on and off was done in the same
time frame as machining i.e by the real time bits. Perhaps it is
even possible to intergrate the switching into the single move, so
if you were going to move in X,Y to make the cut you effectively
define a 3D move but rather than in X,Y,Z it would be in X,Y,L where
L is the laser axis. So the laser would be turned on the moment the
moves started and if you were real clever about it you might be able
to use the pulse rate of the imaginery L axis to control laser power
so that at the start of the move the power would be less and the
same at the end.

Another possibility is to use the TurboCNC to control your machine,
you get the source code for $20 and it is an excellent little
program. You (or a friendly sort) could modify it to work as you
desired.

or words to that effect

Graham

p.s. You lucky swine!!
p.p.s Nice use of your luck!!
p.p.s If you can reduce power tell me how much/little is needed to
cut 1/64th ply ;)