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Pulsing with PWM, and dimming?

S

Skauber

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Hi!

I'm a noob when it comes to lasers, I'm doing a DIY spirograph, see the thread here.

The laser modules I've ordered from ebay has built in drivers, do I need a special driver in order to pulse it with a pwm? I was planning to connect the 5V power supply to PWM, then from PWM to 5V input on the driver.


And is it possible to dim a laser?
 





diachi

diachi

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It may not work by pulsing the power supply.

Generally you'd get a driver that has a separate modulation input that you use to modulate/pulse the laser while the power input stays constant.

Yes, dimming a laser is possible. You can do it with TTL modulation (digital/PWM) but you can also get drivers that accept a 0-5V analogue modulation signal.
 
S

Skauber

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Is there a good place to buy a driver? Either as a kit I assemble myself, or as a completed unit?

For the drivers which accept a 0-5V modulation signal, this means if I feed it a 5V square wave, it will pulse at 100%, while a 2.5V square wave will make it pulse at 50%? Or even a offset 2.5-5V wave to make it "pulse" 50-100%? This sounds like the driver I would want.
 
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Skauber

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That EVO driver is built in to the EVO laser, right? Not available separately?

I could use it to construct my own driver I guess, but if I can find a separate driver then I wouldn't have to re-invent the wheel on this part. :)
 
diachi

diachi

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Skauber said:
Is there a good place to buy a driver? Either as a kit I assemble myself, or as a completed unit?

For the drivers which accept a 0-5V modulation signal, this means if I feed it a 5V square wave, it will pulse at 100%, while a 2.5V square wave will make it pulse at 50%? Or even a offset 2.5-5V wave to make it "pulse" 50-100%? This sounds like the driver I would want.
Click to expand...

Here's one driver that can do it, there are others: http://innolasers.com/ebay/laser_diode/FlexModP3.php

Yes, that is correct. Although with your 532nm it may not be quite so linear ... that's a common problem with DPSS lasers.

You'd need to modify your lasers to use a different driver, keep that in mind.
 
Radim

Radim

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Skauber said:
That EVO driver is built in to the EVO laser, right? Not available separately?

I could use it to construct my own driver I guess, but if I can find a separate driver then I wouldn't have to re-invent the wheel on this part. :)
Click to expand...

Exactly, but you can get the parts for it. And firmware can be downloaded from their web.
 
S

Skauber

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Will see how it looks when I have received the laser modules. That FlexMod P3 driver looks great for my need. :) I think that would go well into the planned Arduino controller when I get to that stage.
 
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