Hi Tweakie:
The 57CNC is used in Auggie pretty much the way it is used in M3. Same wiring except the Laser signal is a PWM.
When the PWM is off, the laser is off, and PWM isnt binary, it varies every 1 ms with the waypoints
. Im not sure
about M62/M63, you may want to ask Mat at PoKeys.
The only wire you need to add for the 57 is the PWM control , its about all thats different
. I can run my laser motions under Mach3 but cant control the laser properly.
The problem , once you start using variable power is that the photo or engraving data has to be used
by the plugin or program in real-time. Auggie loads it and uses it in realtime for the power levels. The
M62/M63 is binary and pretty inefficie
nt really in compariso
n. Its why Auggie was written, because cnc for
lasers just isnt powerful enough yet. Its probably why the Pokeys plugin cant do photo engraving, it would
have to mix cnc with photo processin
g.
Another advantage that Auggie has is that it can then turn on laser only for G1 motion, so you can turn it on
with M3, and no laser is output until motion starts, and power is then a ratio of desired power at a set feedrate
and the current feedrate. This smooths power over time and distance. Its my favorite feature, no worries about m3/m5 timing. you can leave it m3'd all day.. so long as no G1 occurs.
Mach3 will never catch up to that, though Mach4 may, but someone would have to write the photo
processin
g part of the plugin to vary the power and m4 doesnt have that capabilit
y as yet.
As to using Auggie, its pretty easy when you get into it, it has its bugs, but is pretty stable. Few of us
use it, but for laser its hard to beat. Too few to do proper Docs, but this site has a lot of the questions
on getting running in it. Scripting is a simple C and can even be put in Gcode, so you can kinda force
it to do as you wish if your machine is a weird one.
Anyway, if you go there, yell, we can guide you through any troubles, other than trouble swapping between mach3 and auggie( you often have to reconfigu
re the Pokeys when you go back to Auggie as it doesnt store your
settings, it allows the Pokeys to store them.) its pretty easy to use. The one benefit of only working on one
motion device.

Art