Hey there. We are a small company, learning as we go so this will be coming from someone with not a whole lot of experience...please bare with.

We currently have a laser marking system that uses a scanner head which doesn't really work for what we want to use it for and would like to throw an XY linear stage under it and mark our parts that way instead.

The software setup (EZCad from China) is nice as we can import .dxf or other vector files or basically draw out what we want to mark and hit "MARK" etc.

This software also controls the various laser parameters. It seems like it only really works with scanner heads (galvos etc.).

It would be nice to find something equivalent that worked with xy linear stages instead (and controls the laser part)...it doesn't seem like that exists or if it does it is proprietary or very hard to find....or not that hard to find but hard to get all the right parts together etc....but if anyone has any ideas...that would be nice to hear.

The other thing we could do is just find a good XY stage/controller/software combo to throw under the scan head and just control the laser via EZCad which is not a big deal.

The thing is finding the right package...one that will work for us that is not too much of a pain to work with (since they all seem to run off of programing language). Digging around on the internet I have seen a lot of different stages and controllers out there from a number different companies...to the point where you really start to wonder who is really credible and good to deal with....and who isn't. lol

So far I've looked at Zaber.com 's miniature linear stages which are appealing to due to their size and cost...but the programming part looks to be a burden to deal with.

I've also looked at aerotech's stuff (at someone's recommendation) and they are appealing as they seem to be a company with good history, resources, support....and their controllers support G-Code....but the total cost I think will be quite a bit more.

The G-code capability is appealing to me as I've seen how my buddy (who has a Torchmate 4x4) uses it with his system after he generates the G-code from his CAD drawing in BobCAD-CAM....that is nice.

So I'm just looking for ideas and XY-Stage/controller combos that might suit us well if anyone has any ideas.



Part registration and alignment question:

What we have is a 4x4" flat square that has 20 parts on it that need to be cut out. These parts are already on the tiles, and their position may vary slightly from tile to tile.

Say we have a XY stage system already in place that we like.

Now we have registration marks on the tile for us to use to cut them out. I'm just wondering what would be a good way to go about placing each tile on the stage and having the position/rotation orientation correct so that the stage moves the tile under the laser in exactly the right paths to get the results we want.

Would like a 2 point laser guide system be good for that? Say just place the tile on the stage and line up the two dots on the tile under the two laser dots? That seems like it would be the quickest way to go about it.

Thanks.