Laser guide to setup parts

[DennisCNC]

Take a look at this site, toward the end of the first page and on the next page you will see how the router has a laser guide line to show you were to put the slab of granite to be cut. Any one see anything else similar that might possibly be incoperated in to Mach 3?

http://www.stoneadvice.com/gallery/CNCinmotion?page=1

[ger21]

This will project you're g-code file onto your table. http://www.carterproducts.com/produc...id=16&cat_id=7

[DennisCNC]

^^ That is one cool thing!! But there is no price on the site, so that means it's in K's.

[mikie]

Thats a cool unit. The problem is you need a bit table to get the gantry mechanism out of the way as it projects the image.

Maybe someone will come up with a projector conversion post one day on CNCZone

/Mikie

[DennisCNC]

What about the things that were used in school a long time ago to put on the overhead projector to dipslay the computer screen on the wall?
Any one know what they are called?

[pcroxford]

transparencies?

[Evodyne]

Originally Posted by DennisCNC What about the things that were used in school a long time ago to put on the overhead projector to dipslay the computer screen on the wall? Any one know what they are called?

Hmmm...let's see...I graduated high school in '80 and at that time there were still no 'puters in my school system. So that would be, what, a long, long, long time ago? We really did use transparencies back then! And we were darn happy we didn't get those stinky blue mimeographed copies. Whew! Now that's old! You young whippersnappers...'puter this and 'puter that.

O.k, silliness aside, your thinking of the LCD screens that set atop the overhead and displayed the whatever was on the PC monitor. Today there are some real small, relatively cheap, consumer LCD projectors too.

Sincerely,

The Ancient One

[ViperTX]

Generally the aspect ratio kills the accuracy of displaying the LCD onto a CNC table.

[chuckknigh]

Ovation is the brand of the ones I have. I have several of the panels. Always called them "lcd computer projection panels" every time I found them on eBay...and they always came up.

-- Chuck Knight

[cowleym]

Wow I like the look of the laser projector, might have a go at making one of those, could make a good addon to my plasma machines.


Cheers

Mike

[Hirudin]

Originally Posted by ViperTX Generally the aspect ratio kills the accuracy of displaying the LCD onto a CNC table.

What do you mean? A projected picture is not distorted. The pixels in the center of the projection will be nearly-identical in size to the pixels on the outer edge of the projection. The only thing that would make them different sizes would be aberrations in the lenses and the pixels being slightly different size on the LCD(s)/DLP.

Think of a projector as a reverse camera - when you snap a photo the outer edges of the photo are not distorted (unless the lenses are flawed).



I think a projector would probably work just fine, depending on how much accuracy you need.

To make the calculation easy lets say your table is 32" by 18" and your projector is 1080p/i (1920 x 1080 pixels).

1920 ÷ 32" = 60 pixels per inch
1080 ÷ 18" = 60 pixels per inch

So, the greatest resolution you could get in this example would be lines that are ~17 thousandths of an inch thick. I'd say that's enough for lining stuff up by hand.

The cheapest I've seen a 1080p projector was $1200.