Well a little background, I have always wanted a laser cutter and engraver but after opening my own business, having kids etc I decided the best way to dip into this world was a £400 15w blue laser with acan laser board. What a mistake, worked well for about 2 connections and now never connects despite trying everything so after hunting I found laserweb and have now gotten deep in a world of awesomeness.
My problem is however I have bought a Arduino and cncshield from amazon to drive it all and get laserweb connected but cannot for the life of me figure it all out. I do apologise for the dumb questions but I gotta start somewhere so if anyone out there has anything to point me in the right direction, please do.
I’m dying to get it all working and get going with things.
Well it uses a proprietary board called acan with a acan a12 driver on the diode. It just will not connect to my laptop. So I bought a Arduino Uno and cncshield from Amazon in the hope I may be able to convert it to use laserweb. This is where my problems begin. I cannot for the life of me fathom this out and where to begin.
My expertise it
S thinking and drawing things up, not software. I’m good with the mechanical side but not electronics so any help massively appreciated. Fed up of throwing money at things. I need to learn more as also bought a useless woodpecker cnc and EleksMaker a3 pro.
Enough is enough, time to learn and build something that works. I love the look of laserweb.
@Roberbike I have read through this one previously thank you. It’s more a case of can I swap the boards and what needs to be done to them to get it working.
@daniel_borrill Well lets start there, share some pictures of the old board wired up and the new board so we can provide clear instructions on how to wire it up.
I am currently working on my own build of a 6watt uv laser using protoneer pi CNC board. It is very similar to the Arduino CNC board. I can also help you with getting grbl onto your Arduino. I have laserweb4 set up and the controls work so far. The laser is not yet powered so not sure if that works yet, but I do have motion control.
it shouldn’t be too hard if you get the mechanical part, that boggles most. most control boards can receive a on/off type of signal but since you bought the new cnc shield its more about connecting the axis motors and the laser signal to the actual laser. Don’t let the electronics overwhelm you, they are simpler than you may realize. I google most parts and have taught myself an amazing amount, plus groups like this help work out any kinks
Cheers everyone. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of help by everyone, something that seems rare in society these days. Anyhow, I managed to get Grbl 1.1f onto the arduino last night. Will grab some piccies shortly.
Acan board which I have 3 of but they just won’t connect to computer for some reason. It shows as prolific serial to com as connected but not in software.
I have 2 of these 15w max for extremely short pulses or average 8w. When it worked it engraved stainless nicely and managed a few dog tags but then turned off computer and went to use it a few weeks later and doesn’t work. Hence new board. I also have a eleksmaker pro a3 with the 5.5w laser.
The whole machine. I will spend what’s needed if I need bits but just really want a working laser set up to do some bits on. So thank you so much for everyone’s input here.
Ok
Step 1 pull out your stepper drivers.
Step 2 pull out all the little jumpers.
Step 3 decided what level of microstep you want. Full, half, 1/8, 1/16 use this picture to put the jumpers is the correct places for each. Fyi 1/16 will provide you with the best accuracy.
Step 4 pick which stepper drivers you want to use. You can use either. Just be sure to get the enable pin aligned correctly with this pictures help that shouldn’t be very hard.
Step 5 we need to clone your y stepper driver to a. You will need to add 2 jumpers in this picture. Also you don’t need to connect a z stepper driver as you don’t need it.
