I'm new to all this.
not sure this is the right forum
I have taken a small laser diode and put it on my anet a8.
I have hooked up all the wires correctly and when told to print it goes through all the motion, but no fire
The fan comes on, as it should to start my laser, it moves properly around the file, but no laser starts.
I can hold the manual laser fire button down and it will fire, throught out the whole file...just won't start the laser.
I have tried different start commands, but nothing starts the laser.
thanks in adance if you can help.
john
Maybe... If it's wired correctly, you have a bad laser or your software is bad, and you didn't post your code. (It should be easy to "bypass" the software or make a little test program that just "blinks" the laser.)
We can't help without a schematic and the laser specs. A proper laser driver uses feedback (the 3rd wire on the laser diode) to control power & current. If you buy a laser module, that should all be built-in.
Some low-power laser diodes can use a current-limiting resistor (like an LED) or some laser pointers just use the battery resistance, which means they can be burned-out if you try to use a power supply instead of the batteries.
@farley2628 Not only the wrong forum but the wrong section of the forum!
Installation and Troubleshooting is for Problems with the Arduino itself NOT your project. It says so in the description of the section. Therefore I have moved your post here. Please be more careful where you post in future.