I know that there are several options out there for good controllers for the K40 type lasers. I am wondering if anyone has used a 3D printer main board to control their K40.
I ask because I am looking to get a K40, and I have seen a few used options. I assume they would have an old style board. I am not interested in spending as much for the board as I pay for the K40.
I have a bunch of control boards on hand, just wondering if I can use one of them.
Some of the first laser boards were based on the Arduino running GRBL. Anything is really possible depending on your skills.
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What sort of boards? If they are RAMPS style boards based on the ATMEGA256 then you can run the latest version of Marlin or GRBL-Mega on them. Marlin will control a CNC just as it will a 3d-printer. My mini CNC used a cheap RAMPS board and grbl-mega for a year without problems.
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Hi,
Alternatively you can also use a (very cheap) ESP32 board to embed FluidNC to control your laser.
Have a look here : Retrofitting an old laser engraver | Hackaday.io
I designed the control board. Cannot be simpler nor cheaper !
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I’ve had the stock M2 Nano in my K40, a Smoothieboard clone running Smoothieware and I’ve had 2 other 3DP boards in it running Remora firmware on the 3DP boards and LinuxCNC on a Raspberry Pi.
So there are many options beyond what I’ve tried/done it just depends on your skill sets and/or ability to research and learn.
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Smoothie Board has been working swell in a salvaged Glowforge.
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Salve io uso una mks dlc32 per la k40 mi consente di usare lightburn