sshwarts wrote:Mitch,
My control system is pretty similar. I don't turn on and off the laser psu though just leaving it on when main power is on. I also detect when the laser is firing and keep track of the total time the tube has on it (as well as the particular run). Have to tweak my code though, engraving I found throws it off a bit (sample rate).
The Arduino is what turns everything else on for my laser. I wanted to have "user IDs" at some point, particularly if I let the robotics team at the school use it, so this way I can make sure the laser won't start without at least a little bit of access control.
My odometer counts when OUTPUT2 is high (it's the one that is normally used for the air assist solenoid). I think it's reading way too high, as it thinks I've got a couple of hours on my tube now and I'm still running test jobs. More tweaking. I suppose to get actual laser tube active I'd have to wire the 'L' input to the laser PSU onto the Arduino.
Total job runtime is an excellent idea, I will add that to mine
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Have to add light show LEDs though, only have white ones on the x axis makerslide for visibility . Cool idea.
Yeah, total bling but it looks neat. I don't yet have skins on my laser, but having interior LEDs will be very useful when everything's buttoned up. Since I have RGB LEDs I can choose a contrasting color when the red dot is turned on, for example.
At one time I was thinking of tapping into the digital ma meter to see if I could get some data out of it to feed to the arduino (via optoisolator).
There's a thought - I was poking at isolation amplifiers and other things. I bugged some of the EEs at work about how to do this, they got spooked when I mentioned it was for a laser power supply
. Hacking up the digital meter is an interesting thought!
/Mitch.