Laser Open Source (LAOS)

First step towards engraving

jaap — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:26:36 +0000

Yesterday, Peter hacked engraving into the motion part of the firmware. It's not completely finished, but it looks promising!

Bitlair starts building 5 lasers

jaap — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:04:39 +0000

The Bitlair Hackerspace, Amersfoort (NL) started a project to build 5 huge flatbed lasers. They will use LaOS electronics and software to drive the lasers. Follow their project at the Bitlair wiki.

LaOS laser in Protospace / Fab Lab Utrecht

jaap — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:56:16 +0000

Protospace has sponsored LaOS laser for a long time by lending us a SUDA laser. Now their laser for daily usage (Epilog) broke down, which is an excellent reason to ask us to bring the SUDA back. So, from monday 26/3 onwards, Protospace will have a LaOS laser ready for use by visitors!

Presentation about LaOS Laser at HackersNL

jaap — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:47:35 +0000

The LaOS developers will be present at HackersNL #7,
march 29th.

http://hackersnl.nl/2012/2012-03-29-hackersnl-7/

LaOS for 3D printers?

jaap — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 21:03:48 +0000

I removed the electronics from my Makerbot Cupcake and replaced them with a LaOS board. Suddenly I have a Makerbot with display, endstops, smooth movements etc. Hardware-wise, our LaOS board is a drop-in replacement. But the software will still require some tinkering...

LaosLaser visits Fac Lab

jaap — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:04:42 +0000

Bart Bakker (minifablab.nl) and Jaap Vermaas wil be present at the opening of Fac Lab. FacLab is a new Fab Lab opening at the Université de Cergy-Pontoise in Gennevilliers (near Paris, France). We will join the roundtable about the future of Fab Labs and present our open source laser alternative.

laos hacking day

jaap — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:10:00 +0000

Today we (Peter, Bart, Harmen, Diana and me) did a reality check on the
laos firmware with menu support. Using the two HPC lasers from the Mini
FabLab and FabLab Amersfoort, we solved a large number of small bugs.

Hacking at the minifablab 18 feb 2012

The recommended firmware is now laos_server_menu. You can download the
binary from http://wiki.laoslaser.org/index.php/Firmware or get it from
SVN. Allthough this firmware still works without a display (set variable
"nodisplay" to 1 in the config.txt), using a display is recommended for
this version. This version works with the printerdriver and with Visicut.

To compile your cups driver for "laos_server_menu", you will need to use
the src-tftp directory of the cups-laos printer driver.

Todays improvements:
* TFTP port is now configurable in the firmware.
* improved accelleration code for small circles
* fixed many small bugs in the menu code
* changed positioning so that if you send the same job twice, it will
actually be send to the same position (even after a cancel or home).

Todo list:
* make jogging work smoother from the menu
* fix set origin button in menu
* add checks to stop motion outside the working area
* fix Visicut to run TFTP on a port > 1024 or hack Mac OSX so that
normal users can run Visicut to port 69.

Next on the whishlist:
* add routine for engraving images
* move to offline compiler

Bart, Diana and Harmen, thanks for lettings us abuse your lasers!

Some Pictures:

Barts LaosLaser control panel in action

Bart's Laos Laser in the Mini Fab Lab

LaOS Laser at school!

jaap — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:38:23 +0000

The LaOS laser project had it's first serious usability test: FabLab Amersfoort traveled with a LaOS laser to the Eemlandcollege, a gymnasium in Amersfoort. The laser was used to demonstrate of the possibilities of the FabLab to a group of 18 pupils.

During the demonstration, a design was drawn in Inkscape and then cut out with the laser. Afterwards, the pupils were asked to brainstorm about what they would like to make themselves using this technology. Next week, they will visit FabLab Amersfoort to realize their projects.

The most important benefit of using the LaOS laser? "If we would have used our other laser, the school would need to install Corel Draw on their computers. Now a free copy of Inkscape was sufficient."

Two new lasers running on LAOS

marieke — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:24:22 +0000

Today the Laser of minifablab and the laser of Fablab Amersfoort have the LAOS hardware implemented and can cut nice round circles!

New boards, and new lasers!

jaap — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:57:36 +0000

Bart just collected 4 new machines at HPC laser, which will be running LAOS soon. A new batch of PCB's has arrived, so we have 20 in stock for beta-testers!