Sunday, February 26, 2017

Inexpensive Arduino Uno R3 clone that works!

Inexpensive Arduino Uno R3 clone that works!

If you have worked with Arduinos, there is an issue with the USB to serial chip used in most clones. The company that makes the genuine chips, FTDI, put some code in their drivers that would make them useless unless you used older drivers. So buying clones can be a crapshoot, although it is getting better now that other chips are available and the clone makers are not using the counterfeit chip as often. For the record, the Arduino is an open source product and anyone can manufacture them under the proper licensing.
I purchased a few boards from Amazon and they are reasonable and work as advertised. They actually come packaged in a box. The price is under $11.00 US.
I have loaded GRBL 1.1f and have run it on the bench without issues. Looks like a great fit for the K40.
https://www.amazon.com/Elegoo-ATmega328P-ATMEGA16U2-Compatible-Arduino/dp/B01EWOE0UU/ref=pd_sim_147_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01EWOE0UU&pd_rd_r=ZEYPRNG789E58BXQZHF3&pd_rd_w=RJtQj&pd_rd_wg=GF9yK&psc=1&refRID=ZEYPRNG789E58BXQZHF3
https://www.amazon.com/Elegoo-ATmega328P-ATMEGA16U2-Compatible-Arduino/dp/B01EWOE0UU/ref=pd_sim_147_3?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B01EWOE0UU&pd_rd_r=ZEYPRNG789E58BXQZHF3&pd_rd_w=RJtQj&pd_rd_wg=GF9yK&psc=1&refRID=ZEYPRNG789E58BXQZHF3

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Another laser alignment guide!

Another laser alignment guide!

Well an electronics blog had another bland link to the K40 laser world. I checked out the blog and did not find any new info on the K40 but did discover a great link to a laser alignment guide that has a lot of pictures and explanations on how to optimize the mirrors. This is a great compliment to the floatingwombat link.

http://justaddsharks.co.uk/support/laser-beam-alignment-guide
http://justaddsharks.co.uk/support/laser-beam-alignment-guide

Saturday, February 4, 2017

PC Stick Computer for laser control

PC Stick Computer for laser control

Asus VivoStick PC TS10

The reason for this particular model was the price ($86.00 delivered from Amazon) and because it comes from a reliable PC manufacturer, it comes with a legitimate version of Windows. Windows licensing seems to be a problem on the Chinese clones.

Bottom line is that it works like a champ. It can be used with or without a monitor to be a headless unit which would be nice for the MAC users. Most of the complaints are due to issues with speed and lag. The unit I received had an older version on Win10 installed and needed quite a few updates to be up to date. It would have been quite useless while updating. Now it is snappy and very useful. In fact I am writing this on the unit now!

Downsides? Glad you asked! Stock internal SSD has only 32 Gig and after update and cleanup, leaves about 14 Gig available. You can always attach an external drive for more storage or use cloud storage. Need a monitor that has an HDMI input or video adapter to use standard VGA.

https://www.asus.com/us/Stick-PCs/VivoStick-PC-TS10/

A great unbiased review here
http://www.computershopper.com/g00/desktops/reviews/asus-vivostick-pc-ts10?i10c.referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.computershopper.com%2Fdesktops%2Freviews%2Fasus-vivostick-pc-ts10
https://www.asus.com/us/Stick-PCs/VivoStick-PC-TS10/