I haven’t downloaded the beta, but was reading the change list. It states that the pulse width for UV lasers is now reading out in microseconds. My useful UV pulse width range is from 1 to 50 nanoseconds, which would be 0.001 to 0.050 microseconds. What is the reason for the change? To be able to set finer resolution on the pulse width?
Hey Mark, I am going to ask @LightBurn to explain the reasoning for this fix. 
Are you certain of that? I was told by a Thunder Laser tech that the UV pulse width is microseconds, not nanoseconds. If you have a specific source that fires in nanoseconds, that would be news to me and I’d need to verify that.
2 Likes
Here’s the JPT spec sheet for the 5W UV laser (and I believe it’s the same one you have) and it shows the pulse width in nanoseconds.
Kind of tough to follow… The pulse width is specified as <18 ns, but the graph only goes from 1 to 8?
Similarly with the specified frequency range of 20 - 150kHz and the graph goes from 20 - 100kHz?
Thanks… I like reading these… 
I too thought pulse width was shown on both sides but I am convinced the left-hand number are Power/Watts while pulse width is on the right. This is actually the test output from my particular laser so it makes sense they wouldn’t test the whole range of possibilities. The <18ns means the peak power was at less than 18ns at 50KHz which corresponds to the graph.
I read this as Pulse Width = P/W… the more I look at the right the less sense it makes…
The bottom line with fiber lasers is the pulses/mm… add to that the other few variables to obfuscate what exactly you’re doing… 
Does pulse/nS relate to the frequency range?
How much control do you have other that compared to the ir fiber like many of us have? For some reason assuming you have a fiber ir laser…
Don’t know much about the UV types… or their controllers…
Well it looks like 1.4.01 was released with uS instead of nS for the UV pulse width (despite JPT clearly using nS, not uS). I pulled up a file that I set in a prior release and opened the material setting. The value in the field is the same as it was - meaning it didn’t get scaled from nS to uS. So it appears the only thing that changed was the label of the field. And if that’s correct, is LB still sending the number in that field to the controller and not trying to manipulate it (scale it)? That’s going to get confusing for new field entries for those of us who have lasers that work in nS as it would seem logical to scale it on entry - in other words I have a value to enter in nS, but LB wants it in uS so I need to scale it when I enter it.
My suggestion is to make this a preference (nS or uS) to keep Thunder happy, or if LB is sending the number that’s entered, just don’t display the uS or nS label at all.
Maybe you didn’t see my comments because I didn’t replay directly to your post? But see below!
I almost regret adding support for UV, as the sources are confusing to use and confusingly documented. Thunder Laser’s techs hounded me to change the label to uSec instead of nSec, claiming that the manual for JPT sources specifies that the electrical pulse that triggers the UV source is a delay in uSec, even though the emitted pulse is in nSec.
The only thing that changed was the label, nothing to do with functionality.
The change has been reverted for the 1.4.02 release.
Thanks, but consider making it an option or just remove the label completely.
… why? As far as I can tell, there was only one person (company tech) requesting this change. Making it an option just adds more code, makes the settings more confusing, and again, the change was to a label only, not functionality.
Well, to keep that one person (company) happy as I assume they are one of your largest customers. If you just eliminate the units label then they can define how they want and the rest of us will just assume nanoseconds.
Because it is the PROPER thing to do! Otherwise the label on the field is INNACURATE and MISLEADING.
Yes, it will require a little work on the GUI, but that’s what we are paying for, right? (Set a variable inside the text field in the GUI and swap it accordingly).
If you need more funding to support UV developement, then treat is as yet another license (as CO2 vs Galvo). I will gladly pay to support this product.
I’m not complaining (thanks for supporting UV), but you asked the question. To me, the answer is obvious…
The way my light burn is running the UV proven by material test samples, a setting of 1 provides for the maximum duration pulsewidth, that means you’re going to get the most average power measurement, as the number is increased up to 10, the power drastically drops off. That number may be adjusted up to 20 and more, and it’s range is somewhat dictated by the particular frequency running.
And the reason for my last statement is that EasyCAD 2 Will flunk a person out on certain frequency and pulse width combinations, It will tell you for a given frequency if there is a pulse width application violation, and it will tell you the maximum pulse width that you can use for that particular frequency. Lightburn ought to be responsible for setting the actual pulse width in nanoseconds of course, Also for a Grayscale work we must have that pulse width and frequency setting put into that menu for the image so that we can have minpower max power