Wow, that’s awesome!
Well how’s that for a pleasant outcome. (Had to rework “happy ending.” Not exactly the same meaning as when I was a kid.)
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Is it possible to have a timer start a count down or show the time of notification? If you aren’t there in say 5 minutes, you forfeit your place. There shouldn’t be anyplace in the Space you can’t get to the lasers from in 5 minutes and the laser should not be held up just because you really aren’t available because you started something else.
Otherwise I think this is a great system and improvement.
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At this point there is a lot that is possible. I like that idea.
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It still translates to “pleasant outcome” !
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@patrickpleez1 as Laser Chair, has approved funding to build this.
We will be ordering:
Raspberry Pi Model 3 $30
Raspberry Pi 7" screen $60
Case for Touchscreen & RPi3 $28
RFID Reader $16
Power Supply 2.5A $11
for a total of about $150-160.
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@StanSimmons, @actionjackson, what is the preferred programming environment for building such applications?
I love this idea. Will someone be able to put their name in more than one queue at the same time? Many non-rastering jobs could be run on either the Thunder or the Lasersaur, depending on which comes available first. A lesser number of jobs could be run on the Zing or the others.
So a “first available machine” would be a good option?
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No, being able to sign up for a particular machine would be preferable.
If I have a 2*4’ sheet to cut and my name pops off the list because the epilog came up first, I’d be upset
Edit- and I can’t use the saur for most of my jobs either.
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Assuming I understand, in your example you would choose to wait for a specific machine.
@John_Marlow would choose to wait for the next available machine.
From the descriptions, it sounds like the ideal solution would allow the human to choose which cutter(s) they want to use then be assigned whichever cutter from that set becomes first available. In your example you would request a specific machine then be assigned that machine when it becomes available.
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“Simple matter of programming.”
A person cannot use more than one machine at a time. Let him put his name in more than one queue. When he comes up in any of them, automagically remove him from the others.
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I’m speaking outside my realm of expertise, but:
Is it possible to bage in, check a box of which machine is preferred (aka: “thunder”, “lasersaur”, “zing”, or “any” as options)? Would that be too problematic in terms of who is next?
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Since I haven’t done much programming since 1999, my preferred environment is COBOL. 
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I like that idea, and think it is doable, but it will be up to @actionjackson for the final implementation.
For rastering, Zing or Thunder are both acceptable; Lasersaur is not.
For larger stock, Thunder and Lasersaur are acceptable; Zing is not.
I do not at this moment know of something for the Zing and the Lasersaur but not the Thunder except maybe for “I’m in a hurry to get this done.”
So we really have seven options: any one of the three, any two of the three and a specific one of the three.
Very cool goings on!!
Would be bonus if we could have an in-house app that could push notifications to our phone when laser time is ready
An SMS text would be easily doable, as would EMail.
Edit: So easy to do SMS texting… http://textbelt.com/
$ curl -X POST https://textbelt.com/text \
--data-urlencode number='5557727420' \
--data-urlencode message='Hello world' \
-d key=textbelt
The thunder is faster, has a red dot (make or break for some cuts), is larger, can raster, has more power, and has a better curf.
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I think he’s just saying there’s no advantage that the zing and lasersaur share that the thunder does not have other than that everyone wants to use the thunder and not the other two, so it’s easier to get on them.
The thunder is clearly superior in almost every other way. Don’t have to fiddle so much with rastering on the zing to get a good result though.
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