What is the tide in laser controllers in 2009?

[Konstantin]

Hi.
I have been slacking from my cnczone duties and thus lost a bit of touch about the lasers.
I remember there was supposed to be a Solustan solution for the MPC6515, is that right or I am crazy?
Tom Winters was promising something for the MPC6515, have anything been materialized in that regard?

As I gather the components for my laser table, I wonder what should I use to control the laser, obviously raster is very much desired. I own a copy of Mach3 and will use it for what is capable of meanwhile I get something more robust. The MPC6515 cost about 600 bucks though I am not sure if it includes LaserCut with it.

So, please fill me in the details about the laser trends.

[Groover]

I think the MPC6535 is interesting but at about $850 it's a bit more expensive than the MPC6515. I heard the price would be about $780 for MPC6515.

If you have a source for the lower price please let me know. They might have the MPC6535 too.

[lasersafe1]

I finally got fed up with the Mach3 game and just purchased this:

http://www.lightobject.com/4-Axis-DS...oCad-P321.aspx

It is sitting on my desk right now as I sit and research the latest in the cnczone forums.

To tell the truth I don't know exactly what I have. Supposedly this thing is more advanced than the units shipping in most engravers now and is to be installed in the higher end engravers in the future. It does not need LaserCut 5.x to run. It can work stand-alone and store files to be engraved/cut by downloading from a USB memory stick. It can also be run through a visual basic script that can be installed in CorelDraw or AutoCad. You can tell it to do both raster engrave and vector cuts within the same file. I will update this thread once I have it running.

Beyond this I know of two major advancments in the works for running lasers:

1. Henry at FullSpectrumEngineering.com is working on a propellor based driver for laser engravers that will make the laser look just like a USB connected printer to your windows software. It will be very reasonable in cost. < $200 USD.

2. Bart at buildlog.net is working on a very nice Xmos controller that is planned to be open source. He is doing a great job and it is coming along quickly.

[lasersafe1]

As promised, I am updating this thread. I finally got the controller running with a little help from Marco at LightObject.com. This thing is GREAT!

Here is the video of the controller in action:

YouTube- LightObject DSP.avi

YouTube- LightObject DSP.avi

[oneeye]

If u want a top , buy a DSP controler, Marco have it, and two JMC drivers PSD5042 , this way ya machine is run like any topline USA or european machine.