metalnwood

Well, kind of depends how clean your cuts you want and how thick you are cutting. I would put laser and water jet ahead of plasma myself and mostly put plasma down to where cost is more important.

No they don't. You can get lasers that will but the laser that we all have which can be used for engraving all not do aluminium or steel but it obviously will do acrylics, timber etc.

That is a shame, if you need the time for yourself fair enough. If it's other commenters putting you off then that is bad luck for everyone else. I didn't see the comment but I can add that I personally wouldn't care if this was drumming up business and neither should anyone else. There is room in this hobby for anyone to help out anyone else at whatever level they are able to. There are a few guys here with lasers, some will want to profit, some are able to occasionally make parts for little more than cost and they all help out a segment and no one is making a fortune. Don't forget these guys have outlaid substantial amounts of money so they can give you any service with a laser.

When you are referring to needing to refocus on the distance, this is usually told to office workers staring at computers all day because their eyes are working to focus on the close objects. Staring in the distance allows the eyes to relax, focusing at effectively infinity is very easy on the eyes. The OR is the same, because of it's optics you are essentially focusing at infinity and it is relaxing on the eyes, even though it is physically very close. I don't know of any harm caused by this effect by itself, you do it when you are sleeping for 8 hours a day.

I did have the paint but I can't find it right now, I buy just samples as they go a long way. The only issue is being in New Zealand we have different brands of paint that won't mean anything to you. Peter, I don't know what 70% speed is as I program mine in mm/s. I would guess that the speed you are using is too fast. You should be able to use a much slower speed, For 3mm, off the top of my head I may go with about 20mm/s and adjust power to suit that speed for a single cut. Acrylic gets a nicer edge cut when gone over slowly. Also, using 100% power on your tube can drastically reduce it's life. Most say for the tubes used in these lasers to keep it 80% and under.

The power on mine is not huge, I do want to cut but I also need to engrave so I went for about the most power I could get away with while still getting good engraving results. I think the tube is ~ 95W. I don't specifically remember the parameters for that cut, around 20mm/s @40% Something like that.. If it didn't cut all the way though and the edge looks like that then I would check your focus. What if you try and cut something like 3mm mdf? Are there any shadow lines when you cut, like double cut lines? Is the line thats being cut razor thin or wider? if you think your optics are aligned you can put some paper down and activate the laser for a short period of time, raise and lower the bed until you get the smallest hole. Then check that your gauge you use for focusing matches this height. For engraving, you can be in or out of focus by a reasonable amount without necessarily noticing if you are new to it. Cutting on the other hand will suffer more. So the engraving might be good enough to make you think the focus is ok but cutting can be shit.

Painting the white parts of the lasermax is a lot easier than getting a decent hard and long wearing paint job on top of white acrylic. Also the lasermax or similar does give superior engraving.

The interface you are going to select is the keyboard, then you can use the keyboard interface to send key commands from helios to your application, triggered off touching the buttons on your helios profile.

Also, are you sure that the machine is optically aligned properly and that you have the focal length correct? I.e. the height of the lens to the workpiece is correct? On page one of this thread I have some big res images of the sas panel, you can see the engraving and the edges, which have only been painted, no cleanup done after the cutting, just the isopropyl clean on the engrave. Here is what it looked like on the laser to give you an idea of speeds etc on the material I am using.

Bidirectional depends on the machine. I think I run about 300-350 for speed, 20 for power with bidirectional on and I get good engraving. You will always get better without it on at the sacrifice of speed. if your machine is up to it you can still get good result with it on, I do to the point I don't really bother with it off. I do have my backlash set measured using a dial indicator, this needs to be done to run bidir on. That edge cut looks awful, I would suggest it is the material causing you the issue. It looks a lot like the gravograph I tried that was only marketed for rotary engraving, not laser. Air assist on usually helps for everything but I hook mine up to a large air compressor so I get more air than I would off the small pump that often comes with these things. Still, whatever you have air will improve it all. You must use air for cutting or you risk fire as well as a bad cut. Isopropyl alcohol is excellent to wipe these down after engraving, the dull white engraving will turn bright white after wiping it with a cloth.

If it cost you $5 is won't work :) I know the lasermax stuff works, I also know that one by innovative plastics ltd also works well. One that I know doesn't work well is by gravograph after trying it because it was cheaper! While the supplier told me that it was laser able after looking up the specs it says it is for rotary engraving. You you either have some really bad stuff, in which case you cannot do anything about it or you have something that was meant for rotary engraving and not laser engraving. If it says suitable for laser/rotary or just laser then it will work for both. If it says for rotary engraving only then it may engrave well but it will most likely melt when cutting and give you a very messy edge. Thats what I suspect is happening to you given you are working with cheap material. Otherwise, put the power on something reasonable like 50-60% and see how slow you need to go to get a cut. It could be you have too much power while cutting too slowly.

The main difference is that DCS doesn't document and over time has not treated their data as something for other people to use. The end result of that is that things change without notice and things break. What we get from DCS is basically the same as what we can get from xplane, the difference being that plane will take more care not to screw their api to have adverse effects for 3rd parties. Their gui to setup the export does make things easier as we have all the scripts to write to achieve the same thing, otherwise as I say, the main difference is we need DCS to respect a little more that people use the export data and want some consistency with it.

If I was going for a real pit using projectors then I would definately go for a screen configuration like Zahry has here http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=122853 I think a curved screen would be the way to go. I have run four screens in DCS, 5760x1080 with another 1920x1080 screen for mfd exports etc. With a 7970 and an i5@4.5 I was getting 30frames most of the time capped at 30fps. Thats an idea of what you could expect, I guess with more processor and better GPU you could get more. I don't know how much of an fps hit you get with the warping software required for multiple projectors on a curved screen. Projectors have the same number of pixels to push as screens but you are going to work with a larger FOV. I.e., I had 3x1080p 42" screens giving me just short of 180 degrees. You will have 270 degrees. So, while you are pushing the same resolution you are rendering more objects and scenery so that will impact the frames but to what extent I cannot say. Looking at your pc specs I would say you need to upgrade to get the most out of a 3xprojector setup with 270 fov. If you can go more aggressive on the OC to at least 4.5 that will help and I do not know the current state of DCS and it being able to utilise your 690 as an SLI card. IMHO, to do it justice I would be looking at a 780ti with 6gb ram as you are looking at at least four screens for your config. Currently there is no 780ti 6gb but there is talk about it, there is a very expensive titan black though. Very expensive.. At least in NZ $$ I like my new nvidia cards over my ati cards but I don't like the 3gb in my 780ti when 4gb is default in the high end and cards. castAR is something that on the surface his potential, should be nice for a 270degree wrap around screen but I don't think the reality is that its lower res pico projectors will give you what you want.

I believe it is a leetro and I am using laser cut 5.3 - from memory, I actually don't spend much time in the program at all. Once you get the hang of it you won't need to visualise things in 3d unless you want to. If you like the cad side of things and have the time it's not really an issue and you can do it for the fun of it. It you are not doing it for the fun of it then you will find after doing a couple panels you will have the feel for it and not need to see it in 3d. What I do is this. A few pictures attached. I think you can do this in corel but as I say, from what I have seen the dxf output is not good and I think this is what you are seeing in lasercut, the bad dxf output from corel. I am using vectric products because I also use them with my cnc and they work perfectly for drawing the laser stuff. I import the pdf and then I assign all layers in his pdf to different layers in the software, then I align them all superimposed on top of each other. I can use the layer tool to turn off the layers I don't want to see when working on individual layers. So I can turn on the backplate, light plate and front to see that all cutouts are concentric etc. If it looks tight I sometimes add a switches layer which has basic shapes whose outline are the sizes of the switches. I can then put them in place to see that they don't touch each other. We only care about the xy plane for making things fit so this works well. Some pics of what it looks like in mine. I also assign each layer colours so when I export them as DXF they retain the colours so that when lasercut reads the files they are already set up for engraving and cutting, nothing to do there except download to the laser and press start. To do what is taking you a lot of time, i.e. making everything join up I use a 'join' command with a tolerance of practically nothing, e.g. .01mm. Thus, if something has a profile made of many small segments this will join all the segments with one push of the button. There is a pic showing that. The file named electronics shows some rectangles that represent the switches, they are only there so that I can see what space they will take up and make sure that any places I put holes for leds will be accessible. Easy to do and no 3d required. the file 'join.jpg' shows the simple command to join the lines together. When I load up his PDF files they are already fine, I don't have to join them and this is why I suspect you have some software that is creating the problem for you and I am looking right at corel as your problem, I have seen more than a couple people go to CNC houses with corel draw created DXF's with this same issue. When I save my dxf from vectric or solid works they do not require any changes at all in lasercut, they are ready to go right away.

Yikes, that sounds terrible. If you want to I can export clean ones for you, the software I use will import those pdfs and give you perfect DXF's, no trouble at all. I don't mind spending 15 minutes doing the files you want to work with if it's gone to take you that long per file. My machine is also running lasercut, I don't do any design in it I just load up the dxf from my other software. pm me if interested and I will give you an email for where to send the files you want done. As I say, if it's going to save you hours then I will do it for you.

Why did you take the PDF and turn it in to a sketch up model to then take to the laser? Doesn't your laser software take the pdf directly or can't you get some software to read the pdf and output a dxf from that? For someone else I think I used a couple of his files, including the cmsp and it only took a few minutes to get it ready. One thing to note as I have seen it from other people, coreldraw can have rubbish dxf. When you say 'weld the polylines' is corel outputting lots of individual lines instead of arcs or bezier curves? I have seen cmc machines run slowly from coreldraw dxf's because it can generate some really strange files.

Yeah, easy mistake to make when we have to talk inches to these yanks.

I am just going to guess you mean 0.097" :)

I used three layers. The top being laser max, the middle being the light plate and serving as a spacer. The backplate for mounting. The backplate was black, the centre was clear and painted white so that light which gets inside it bounces around more evenly for better illumination. these are the steps, pictorially.

When my wife wakes me up in the pit because I blacked out evading a missile, thats when I will say a little too much immersion for s simulator.

It could probably be done. I was working on a project that had many thousands of dollars of optics and the had an optician do some designs for a component or two. I mentioned to him about dome projection and what could be done using optics for correction for the use of simulators. He said it wasn't a really big deal, most of the cost was getting the one of lens made but even then it isn't as bad as you might think.

This thread is getting out of hand. I think the topic is worthy but maybe better suited to another thread so it feels more neutral. BTW I know Flim has flown many hours as a commercial pilot and I know he is moving over to the 737 from other aircraft. I know people with more hours who have to go through the same thing going from boeing to airbus, it happens all the time. Not that you have to take my word for it either :)

There is certainly room for both types of systems in the future! I don't think anyone needs any convincing as to where they should go, most who are looking at this kind of thing know where they want to be and what would suit them. Up until now a large projection system has been the holy grail for what is actually achievable for us flight and racing simmers. With things like the oculus rift we now have options and these options have drawbacks, each has pro's and con's. Some can live with one and not stand another and some might see an advantage in having both. It would surprise me a lot if someone who goes down the front projection path with a set up like simpits is selling doesn't get an oculus rift to try because the outlay is nothing. I could see myself using both if I had the money and space to fully utilise both properly. There are a lot of guys building pits with real instruments and buttons. The OR is not practical for them unless they change their direction. A front projection screen like this looks like a very nice way to go for dedicated pits and those that want more than monitors but don't want to go the VR route. Having said I think they are both great, I still think there is confusion between the two about what is coming. I think Oculus have been very up front about the issues that face VR headsets and have said well ahead of time what problems need to be solved to make it practical for a wide audience. Zahry, all the things you pointed out in the first post are things that Oculus have acknowledged and worked on. Reports say that many things have been addressed or improved a lot. The DK2 kit I am getting is a 1080p version and they have said the CV1 will be higher than that. While not confirmed it would seem logical that it is a 1440p screen. It seems much more likely than not the CV1 will be higher than 1080p. There are a couple of other points that relate to eyestrain etc and what can actually hurt your eyes. A brighter screen cannot give you long term damage, at least not for the amount of brightness we are talking about. The OR uses collimated optics so that the eyes are in a relaxed state. This gives you less eyestrain than looking at your monitor or a projector up close. Collimated optics are in many professional systems. The issue of depth of focus and everything being in focus is not an issue for just the rift, any screen, projector etc has the same problem. In fact with the new screenshots from EDGE with DOF this could suit the OR well as where your eyes are generally, in the centre, is in focus while other items are not. This effect does not work on a projector where you can look around with your head and most of the view will not be in focus because this is not where the centre of the 'computer' view is. I have not seen a triple screen application other than iracing which allows for track ir and the three screens to stay in synch. In DCS, unless it changed recently, showing three separate views results in a lot of distortion at the seams if you change your vertical view. If you don't use three screens then a single screen has way too much distortion at the edges to work well for a 180 deg+ screen. Also projectors only have a finite resolution the same as the OR, projectors will improve as well as the screens available to the OR. If the screen on the OS is 2560x1400 then that is around 1280x1440 per eye. Minus some wastage. Two 1080p projectors with wastage of around 15% will give you around 1300x1080 pixels for the area you will see at any one time sitting 1150mm from a 180deg screen. We are not that far off with the OR and the density of pixels in the centre is slightly more. Both projection and the OR are going to continue to serve simmers for a long time to come. I can see that the OR will turn some people from projection to the OR, the kind of people that are happy with the compromises. For the rest that are going to this extreme, they will stay with projection. I doubt very much that you will lose any amount of genuine customers to the rift but I do believe the rift is in a better state than you are saying ;)

I would say it would be a cold day in hell before you could reliably lean forward and press the correct buttons just going by the view in the rift. I think us rifters will be stuck with the mouse until some complimentary technology is released to help us.

I would get the hog, it will make the gaming experience much better flying the A10 than the graphics upgrade. When you then have the $$ for a new gpu you will then be able to get a much better card for the $$ than you can right now.