I’m playing with this new (to me) laser. It was given me by a friend who moved on to Glowforge. It’s a ‘standard’ sized laser module installed on an old Solidoodle mechanism with a replacement controller (Sainsmart RYC-GRBL-V2).
My question is on the laser output control… it’s a 2-pin laser so I’m thinking (guessing?) that the PWM is done by switching it on and off on the controller board. What surprised me was - last night I was playing with an image and it seemed that when I set the power to 60% - it didn’t matter how slow I moved the laser, it wouldn’t ‘burn’ the wood. Bump it to 70% and smoke was rising.
Does that seem odd to anyone else? My plan is - if I can figure this ‘laser stuff’ out, I want to bump to one of those ‘big’ ones advertised as 40W because I really want to cut through some wood - not just mark it. I have a CNC wood router and a 3D printer - so… I’m pretty familiar with the world of CNC.
One more thing… the laser ‘dot’ appears to be a rectangle. I’ve tried focusing with the ring… and moving it up and down - just can’t seem to get it to be ‘square’
Thanks in advance - any advice, suggestions and input is welcomed!
Arden