10 watt diode laser??

[naijin]

Hi there, I wish to connect a 10 watt diode laser to my cnc router, currently I have a home made router , uc100 and using uccnc with Gerry's screen 2017, all is working great, I want to connect a laser and wish to know
what the requirements are as far as the hardware is concerned, do I need to buy another driver board for the laser, what power supply to use, how to connect it to z axis and any other additional information I need to know before going head first?
any info or advice will be greatly appreciated, if anyone out there done a similar set up I would like to hear from you.
Regards
Nick

[Robertspark]

laser diodes like to have a constant current supply, the hotter they get the more current they draw, and in turn get hotter until they give up.

check that a 10W laser diode is actually a 10W laser diode (outputs 10W of power) as there seems to be a lot of myth about and fakes..... I've seen 10W quoted as the power supply rating.... but the output rating of the diode being a lot lower than this..... or a peak of 10W (what just before it goes pop?.... for a short duration???)

the higher powered laser diodes I've seen require a PWM signal 0-5V and this tells the laser control board what output you require.

the higher powered laser diodes come with a control boar that requires a voltage supply with a reasonable current rating (say 12V at whatever current/wattage)

Some of the best made laser diode assemblies I've seen (but cannot afford and have never bought) seem to be shown here with some good power ratings and also some substantial heatsinks so that (if?) the diodes are being over-driven (overclocked??) at least they have a chance to remove the heat being developed as quick as possible and therefore the current demand of the laser diode does not increase (as stated in the first paragraph above) and it will not be long for this world
https://optlasers.com/

https://optlasers.com/plh3d-series/

In comparison to an alleged 10W laser diode:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Focusable-PW ... Sw7Z5dzha4

eg:

Output Power: 10W pulsed; Average 5.5W (Max)

..... so its a 5.5W diode then.... not a 10W diode?

Note: I do not profess to be a laser expert at all (I only have one laser and I bought it from cncdrive as I believed their honesty over output rating as there was a lot of miss-information on ebay / aliexpress etc at the time....) but I've gazed at the Optlasers before and their costs...... (maybe one day....)
http://shop.cncdrive.com/index.php?productID=736

[Robertspark]

Oh yeah.... it's probably not for cncDrive to advise you how to connect your laser diode up as if it goes pop.... you may have some bad feeling towards their advice.

the UC100 can power 1 laser ouptut via a PWM signal on M10/M11 in synce with motion.

To use M10 you need to have an M3 before the M10

From the manual for laser output control:

Activate syncronous fast PWM (laser) output: M10
To activate an output in syncron with the motion program M10 Q..., where the Q parameter is the duty cycle of the PWM output pin and the range is 0..255 for the 0 to 100% duty cycles. If the Q keyword is omitted then the maximum 255 value is used. The output port and pin number can be selected on the Configuration/I/O setup tab page. The output will be a PWM and the duty cycle of this signal will be set by the programmed Q parameter.
The M10 command can be used to control a laser device or any other device which requires fast and syncronous switching with the motion.

The info you really need is from your laser supplier (what power supply does it need (voltage and current / wattage rating), and how is the laser controlled (PWM? 0-5V??)

Then its over to you to put it all together in the hope that you don't get it wrong.... and it has a short life expectancy..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Focusable-PW ... Sw7Z5dzha4

eg:

Output Power: 10W pulsed; Average 5.5W (Max)

How do you know you have put it in Pulsed mode??? if you give it a PWM signal does it modulate from 0-5.5W or 0-10W??? or from 0-5.5W with say from 4.5 volts upwards at 10W?? what is the duty cycle.... so many questions to avoid a short component life.

[naijin]

Hi Robert, thanks for all the info, I shall have to look into it a bit more now before I commit to installing.

Nick

[Tweakie.CNC]

Hi Nick,

I think everybody destroys a diode laser at some time or another (at least I did).

Just a suggestion but purchasing a cheap (low power) diode laser and setting that up will give you all the experience you need. If you destroy it well it's not mega bucks, if it survives then it's time to install your best diode laser using all the knowledge you have acquired.

Tweakie.

[asuratman]

Take a look at AXBB-E manual last page and laser endurance website, it looks easy to wire laser diode ...