LaserWeb/Smoothie Performance on K40
I have a question for the Community??
With regards to the LaserWeb and Smoothie combination when doing image rastering is each pixel sent down as a single GCode Block or is the whole line sent at once??
What is the performance of the Smoothie board on the K40.
A) How fast can i raster assuming a pixel density of 75 pixels / Inch in Y??
B) Is there a limit to the number pixels I can send per line or a limit to line length??
C) Can I raster at full Laser power of the K40 or do I need to throttle the power.
D) Does the LaserWeb software work well for true Grey Scale or do I need to dither my images??
Thanks for your Help
Nick
@Nick_Williams B) The combination of Beam diameter in setting plus the image dpi C) You can raster at full power, the intessinty will depend on the speed D) yes true greyscale > look at our master engraver @Alex_Krause profile for some of his work
You will need to click to enlarge the pictures… the scaling of the previews make them look horible
Yup that’s why I call my friend @Alex_Krause a Master
@Alex_Krause
Awesome work:-)
Me HUGE Dr Who Nerd 
So for this work, What was
A) you Head Speed?
B) DPI
C) Did you use the full range of the of the 40 watts or did you limit max power??
Again Very Nice
Nick
Pretty much all engravings I do on wood are done at 7ma max but for this one I think I scaled it between 5%-70% with laserweb @ 7ma max power set… dpi is done between 300-500 dpi that is set in gimp photo shop before I import. Dot size was around .125mm which sets your “scan gap” in laserweb. No dithering pure grayscale engrave… if you filter the laserweb group by show and tell and go back about a month you will see a post from me about the original image I used and what the image looked like after I ran it through gimp.
+Peter van der Walt OK, Perfect send down each line as Base 64. I know from experience sending down each pixel has it’s limits.
Is there a limit to the length of each line??
Is the whole line sent down prior to starting the raster line??
I was an original backer of the Smoothie board on Kickstarter. It is sad to admit but I have never used the controller:-( I am considering bringing it on line with either my K40 or my Full-spectrum Laser both have been converted already to use grbl which works perfectly for vector work but the CPU processing power limits its ability to do image rastering.
My question is this, my Smoothie board is a rev 1 is this still fully compatible with the LaserWeb project or will I need to upgrade to a different Smothie Board??
Thanks again for the Info
+Peter van der Walt Thanks again one last question. Will I have any problem using a Smoothie Rev 1 board??
@Nick_Williams are you saying you purchased one of the original boards they offered to kickstarter backers when they first released smoothie boards?
Yes, That is what I have before I go down this road want to be aware of any problems with the original boards??