Lightobject.com Support Forum

I posted this on another forum, but haven't gotten any replies. Hopefully, the users here will be willing to share their thoughts and experience with the LO AW608 DSP unit.

I have had a laser machine for a few years now. I got it from my previous employer in an auction. It is a ULS Optima. It has 12x18" travels, and an adjustable height table, which I added a stepper motor to drive it. It had a 25w RF tube that didn't work. I stripped the laser tube, and all electronics, and retrofitted a 40w Glass laser and PS from LO, 6560T2V1 Stepper drives from LO, Breakout Board from another vendor, and run it with Mach 3.

As with most that use Mach 3 to run a laser, I want better rastering performance. I have been eying the AW608 for quite a while now. Thinking about pulling the trigger, but have some concerns.

Is Lasercad very user friendly? I use Vcarve Pro to generate my Gcode, and love the program. Awesomely easy to use, and I'm pretty fast with it. I'd hate to be fighting with new awkward software. Do most of you draw in Lasercad, or just import DXF's from Corel or other? Is there anywhere I could find more info on the program? I'd love to watch some Youtube videos of it in use. I have searched, to no avail.

How do you transfer your files to the machine? USB from PC, flash drive, or? Does it just use a print driver?

Do any of you have experience with driving a Z axis with the DSP? How about the auto focus function? I fitted a laser sensor to mine that shoots a beam parallel across my table, right at the focal point of my lens. Lower the table, place workpiece, raise until it breaks the beam, triggering a relay closure. I'd like to integrate that into the DSP, if possible (it basically acts like a mechanical switch).

Have any of you ever played with a rotary axis with the DSP? I have one I'd love to get working on my machine. Not sure if it's feasible with the DSP though. Perhaps, switch over the leads to the Y axis motor?

Is the setup fairly straightforward? Things like setting steps per inch for the axis, limits, etc?

If you don't mind sharing your thoughts or experience, I'd greatly appreciate it! I realize this is a lot of questions for one post. I use my laser quite a bit, and want to be as informed as possible when I get the DSP unit, to minimize the downtime and learning curve to get running again.

Best regards,
Jonathan

Hi there
ok I did quite a few conversion of mostly K40 laser machines with the LO DSP. the performance in regards to cutting and rastering is as excellent as you can. the software ( lasercad) is simple enough and still very sophisticated and you can send files from CorelDraw, autocad directly to the machine via USB or Ethernet connector. you can also import pretty much any usual file format for instance I import picture for super engraving in BMP directly then dither it in lasercad and engrave it this can give you even a sub 3D if you got a very good picture with excellent grey.
the Z-table can be directed directly from the DSP over a stepper driver and autofocus.
the stepping are actually done with the stepper driver which are fully supported from the DSP.
I hope this will help
greetings
waltfl

Millnturn wrote:I posted this on another forum, but haven't gotten any replies. Hopefully, the users here will be willing to share their thoughts and experience with the LO AW608 DSP unit.

I have had a laser machine for a few years now. I got it from my previous employer in an auction. It is a ULS Optima. It has 12x18" travels, and an adjustable height table, which I added a stepper motor to drive it. It had a 25w RF tube that didn't work. I stripped the laser tube, and all electronics, and retrofitted a 40w Glass laser and PS from LO, 6560T2V1 Stepper drives from LO, Breakout Board from another vendor, and run it with Mach 3.

As with most that use Mach 3 to run a laser, I want better rastering performance. I have been eying the AW608 for quite a while now. Thinking about pulling the trigger, but have some concerns.

Is Lasercad very user friendly? I use Vcarve Pro to generate my Gcode, and love the program. Awesomely easy to use, and I'm pretty fast with it. I'd hate to be fighting with new awkward software. Do most of you draw in Lasercad, or just import DXF's from Corel or other? Is there anywhere I could find more info on the program? I'd love to watch some Youtube videos of it in use. I have searched, to no avail.

How do you transfer your files to the machine? USB from PC, flash drive, or? Does it just use a print driver?

Do any of you have experience with driving a Z axis with the DSP? How about the auto focus function? I fitted a laser sensor to mine that shoots a beam parallel across my table, right at the focal point of my lens. Lower the table, place workpiece, raise until it breaks the beam, triggering a relay closure. I'd like to integrate that into the DSP, if possible (it basically acts like a mechanical switch).

Have any of you ever played with a rotary axis with the DSP? I have one I'd love to get working on my machine. Not sure if it's feasible with the DSP though. Perhaps, switch over the leads to the Y axis motor?

Is the setup fairly straightforward? Things like setting steps per inch for the axis, limits, etc?

If you don't mind sharing your thoughts or experience, I'd greatly appreciate it! I realize this is a lot of questions for one post. I use my laser quite a bit, and want to be as informed as possible when I get the DSP unit, to minimize the downtime and learning curve to get running again.

Best regards,
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan

Is Lasercad very user friendly? I use Vcarve Pro to generate my Gcode, and love the program. Awesomely easy to use, and I'm pretty fast with it. I'd hate to be fighting with new awkward software. Do most of you draw in Lasercad, or just import DXF's from Corel or other? Is there anywhere I could find more info on the program? I'd love to watch some Youtube videos of it in use. I have searched, to no avail.

Its pretty userfriendly, but count on doing anything than basic shapes drawing and setup in another software. I myself uses Vcarve or illustrator. There is a problem with the Vcarve->LaserCad conversion. You can export as ai from Vcarve and import in LaserCad, but the colors doesnt follow along. No problem if you only have a few engraving lines, just recolor them in LaserCad. The other solution is to export as dxf, import in illustrator and export again. The reason is that dxf straight from Vcarve->LaserCad messes up the curves.

How do you transfer your files to the machine? USB from PC, flash drive, or? Does it just use a print driver?

By USB or network, pretty flexible. USB is more stable though.

Do any of you have experience with driving a Z axis with the DSP? How about the auto focus function? I fitted a laser sensor to mine that shoots a beam parallel across my table, right at the focal point of my lens. Lower the table, place workpiece, raise until it breaks the beam, triggering a relay closure. I'd like to integrate that into the DSP, if possible (it basically acts like a mechanical switch).

Should be pretty straight forward to setup. The DSP has a port for that switch, runs 24v. Once the relay is triggered the DSP backs of a set distance.

Have any of you ever played with a rotary axis with the DSP? I have one I'd love to get working on my machine. Not sure if it's feasible with the DSP though. Perhaps, switch over the leads to the Y axis motor?

Can remember to have seen anyone using this with LaserCad. There are some options for a U-axis.

Is the setup fairly straightforward? Things like setting steps per inch for the axis, limits, etc?

Yup, pretty straight forward. If you have messed around with Mach3, this should be easy for you.

If you don't mind sharing your thoughts or experience, I'd greatly appreciate it! I realize this is a lot of questions for one post. I use my laser quite a bit, and want to be as informed as possible when I get the DSP unit, to minimize the downtime and learning curve to get running again.

Go ahead and order one, you wont regret it. We run a company based on two machines retrofitted with these DSP's. They are not perfect, but you learn how to work around the quirks and I dont think there is another better option available.

I have fully refurbished a Gravograph LS600 with a AWC608 and it works great with the original Gravograph's rotary attachment, setup was fairly easy and quick.


If you need any help with your setup, ask away!

Hermes Sandoval.

I'm coming from working with LaserPro and Universal machines and I will say that I'm very impressed with this controller and the conversion on a k40 machine.

To the person that said you can only do basic work in LaserCad. Yes, that's right but CorelDraw is the industry standard for doing laser work on machines like this. I think of LaserCad as a driver not a design tool.

I have an older version of Corel (v10) but I just save most files as .ai and import them in LaserCad. Super easy and works great.

I use my machine around 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. I love it.

I don't think you will find any better for the price and also the backup that you also get here on the forum. The people who seem to be here the most are the ones that had the most trouble getting it set up so there will be answers to just about any question you can throw at them.
Marco does his best but he needs to run his business and do trips to China to source the best products for the rest of us.
The programmer has done a HEAP of work on this controller over the past 3 years and it has blossomed into a very good little product. It still has a bit of quirkiness to it but you will soon get the hang of using it and to be able to cut AND engrave in the one file is a godsend to me.
My last controller was good but you had to opt out of the program after engraving and then load it back in to do cutting.
Probably the hardest part for me in setting it up was getting the limits right. So many different was to do it.
I use mine in software mode so I just use the mouse for all the functions on screen. Dead easy.
I like it so much I bought 2.
Get Corel Draw to do your cad work. Use LaserCad just as the driver. It's really good (Corel) and the tracing part of the program is worth the initial buying price. I have bought $400 tracing programs in the past that don't even hold a candle to Corel.
I don't think you will regret buying one.
Rich.