I just wanted to let you know about my last project and since I had to gather my information all over the internet I thought it would be helpful for some of you with similar intentions.
So if you want to run any laser module with your Snapmaker here is how:
What you need:
driver board of the original snapmaker laser module (guess every module will work)
laser module with driver board (24V)
inverter chip
How to wire everything:
Actually it’s pretty simple, you use the snapmaker driver board to tell the controller that the module is connected, invert the PWM signal (for some reason it’s inverted) and power the new laser directly with the 24V
Is it really 80W optical power output??? Did not know that this exists…
Btw.: Has anyone ever considered to use a fiber laser? I see on Kickstarter that they by now seem to have gone down in size considerably and at least two projects use them for dual-wavelength-tools. Having an IR option would be cool, since the IR/fiber seems to be able to get copper from a PCB, so you could laser-etch PCBs directly, with no photo/chemical etching process inbetween, and without the shortcomings milling PCBs comes with.
Oh, and another question. Does the datasheet of the laser state at which PWM frequencies the thingie can be run safely? Snapmaker only does 100 Hz or so, which is ridiculously slow and causes issues with fast movements at low power - I was wondering if it is a limitation of laser diodes, but fail to believe this… I’d expect that even a few hundred kHz should be OK…
So far I decided against a case - with the electronic mountet to the side and laser module mountet to my quick-change-plate it holds pretty well.
Also i think there is no need for the ESP-32-Cam at the moment.
