It seems at least one member of Toronto’s HackLab collective may have actually grown tired of laser-cutting. Jed wrote up some code turning those high-end onboard servos into sound synthesizers. I guess it’s true – you really can make just about anything with a laser cutter, even the Super Mario theme =P
10 thoughts on “Mario theme on a laser cutter”
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Matrixsynth had this most awesome post recently, it’s an entire orchestra:
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2009/04/queen-bohemian-rhapsody-old-school.html
Usually stepper motors are used on laser cutters due to their superior precision. I don’t know of servos ever being used.
Servos are faster and can be more accurate when you implement proper feedback loops. Steppers are generally “dumb” and don’t provide feedback on missed ‘steps’, etc. However, the servo’s and controller boards are generally more expensive. With the Epilog, I think only the Zing has steppers, the rest are servo.
You’ll find both servo and stepper motors on different sorts of CNC machines– lasers included. Which is “better” is a flame-war sort of question, but stepper motors are usually chosen when price is the main consideration. On the Epilog lasers, for example, only the lowest-end model has stepper motors.
This reminds me of:
http://tim.cexx.org/?p=633
a cnc-machine playing MIDI music, it can play chords by using multiple axes simultaneously.
He has also released a python script to convert MIDI to Gcode!