Glossary of terms

ASCII

The “American Standard Code for Information Interchange” character encoding standard used to send text characters in binary format.

ATmega

The microcontroller controls the DriveBoard It is an Atmel ATmega328P chip that integrates a CPU and severarl Input/Output subsystems like a serial interface, PWM generation and analog-to-digital signal conversion.

backend

The Python code program that runs on the BBB board. It’s available on the ‘backend’ subfolder of the repository.

BBB

The BeagleBone Black board that runs GNU/Linux and the backend software and connects to the LAN via its Ethernet socket.

CNC

A Computerized Numerical Control machine, like the Lasersaur.

DriveBoard

The printed circuit board were all the control logic electronics reside. See the appropriate page on the LaserSaur manual

firmware

The C code program that runs on the ATmega microcontroller. It’s available on the ‘firmware’ subfolder of the repository.

frontend

The Javascript code that runs the LasaurApp in the browser. It’s available on the ‘frontend’ subfolder of the repository.

G-code

GCODE

A simple language that defines the atomic operations performed by the cutter. This ranges from movements, to the cut operations, to status request, to the (dis)abilitation of the various subsystems. See the specific page on the LaserSaur manual for further details.

Laser Tube

The CO2 laser generator which is the heart of the LaserSaur.

PWM

The Pulse-Width Modulation is a modulation tecnique where the amplitude (the height of the wave form) remains constant and instead the it’s the duty-cycle that may change from a period to another. The ATmega on the DriveBoard is able to emit souch kind of signal which can be used to control the power output of the laser tube.

XON/XOFF

A software flow control method which uses a pair of ASCII characters as a “semaphore” to control the flow of characters transmitted over a serial line.