Hello, I would like to connect my Thor Labs power meter to Arduino! What I am trying to do is to collect discrete data points of power over time of my laser using a power meter to measure the power. Then I would like to put the data points into Matlab and make a line of best fit. In my circuit, how do I connect the power meter to the Arduino?
If it is like the one in our lab, it has a -10 to +10 V output. (I don't know what scale that is) so at the very least you will need some signal conditioning to convert the -10/+10 to 0 to 5 V, use analog read and send the value via serial to MATLAB.
Does your power meter have some kind of computer port?
What's the Arduino for?
it would be better if i could possibly measure the output power of the laser with the arduino. is this possible?
If you point the laser at the arduino, and it melts, the laser is pretty powerful.
The one in our lab has no GPIB or serial port, just a BNC - which appears to be some kind of recorder output.
Really, you would need to calibrate some kind of photodiode, by the time you were done you would probably have the equivalent of your power meter.
If yours does not, some calibrated laser power meters have serial outputs that could be connected to an Arduino or a PC, for Matlab. There are a variety of detector heads (photodiode, thermopile, etc.) as shown here.
lryan2139:
it would be better if i could possibly measure the output power of the laser with the arduino. is this possible?
That is just plain silly.
Thorlabs sell benchtop power meters. They have USB 2 interface.
I am trying to use elements that I already have and not buy anything else. Does anyone have an idea for a circuit with a photodiode to measure output power?
Just use the recorder output of the meter you have. You need to put a multimeter on it to find out the voltage range you need and make a simple op amp circuit to condition it - knock the +10/-10 to +2.5/-2.5 and add 2.5 V to it to make it go from 0 - 5. Check out a non-inverting summation amp.
That is a good idea, only the meter does not have a recorder output. Any other ideas?
What model do you have? The one I have (PM300E) has a Chan 1 out and a Chan 2 out.