Arduino Uno CNC laser engraver

Projects General Guidance
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Hi everybody,

New to this forum, so pardon any informalities.
I have a CNC laser engraver project in the process, and I need advice on how to hook up my laser to the board. I have an Arduino Uno, CNC shield V3, and a 12/24v 500mw laser coupled with a 12v 10a power supply. Everywhere I look on the internet everybody has a solution for 3 wired lasers with a PWM cable, but my laser only has 2, a ground and power cable. How can I connect the laser to the board so that it will work as intended? Will I need a laser driver?

Arduino CNC shield:

Any advice is greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

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Post a data sheet for the laser or link to where you got it so that we know what you have.

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Unfortunately your unit don't seem having a PWM or TTL drive input ... probably the only way for drive it is turning it ON and OFF via power supply ... you can use a logic-level power mosfet for make a highspeed switch that can be drived from a logic output pin ...

By the way, you know about risks of a 500mW laser for eye retina, also from just casual reflections, right ? ... do you already have red safety goggles , at least OD3 ?

5

I do have proper eye protection for the laser. What would the wiring diagram look like for the logic-level power mosfet? Would I have to change any settings in my software, which is LaserGRBL?

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It is quite easy to google how to wire up a logic level power mosfet.

I am not familiar with LaerGRBL so have no idea how you would alter the software...

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Ok, i'll do some reasearch on that mosfet. In the meantime, I was looking at this module that I've seen some people use:

Could this possibly work?

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If you had just the laser diode yes ... but your unit is indicated for 12/24V power supply, this means it already have its own driver inside ... in this case, no ...

You only need a power mosfet and some few other component, and need to know what signal your electronic put out for turn on the laser (vcc or gnd or whatever) for wire up correctly the mosfet ... by the way, N-channels are better, but require you connect your laser with positive direct and switch the negative (nothing difficult anyway) ... P-channels are used if you must switch the positive, but there is less choices for part numbers and models, compared with N-channel ones ...

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