Banggood laser - IT WORKS!

I just followed the same instructions for the 2.8 minus the driver tuning. This one appears to be already pre tuned so conceivably it’s even easier. All the setup is the same for the mega and ramps boards. All the same commands work as does the power variation.

If this Texas heat would let up some I could get out there and mount it up and see how it runs.

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Thanks! Might consider getting one, let me know how it goes for you. Laser seems far more forgiving than the 3d printing I’ve been trying to do with my machine.

Yeah I try to keep purpose built machines. My 3d printer is highly modified and prints awesome. I wouldn’t try to make this CNC do 3d printing. It does it but it would never come close to my dedicated printer. I’d never be happy. I might give Ryan’s 3d printer a go though… I have enough spare parts around that it probably wouldn’t cost me anything.

I appreciate that point of view. I feel the same way.

The upside of the MPCNC is when either you don’t have the room, the money or you need a really big part.

And just to clarify a laser needs 30A or will the usual 6A suffice?

If you are running a laser the 6A will not work for both.

This laser should consume less than 1 amp. Ohms law …2.5 watts, 12volts is around .2 amps but I assume it is not efficient… I should hook it up to my Watts Up meter and see

That is the power of the laser spot not the required power to run it through the power supply, don;t forget about all the heat coming off of these things.

Taking advantage of this cooler weather in the middle of this hurricane and since we aren’t floating away yet I got some garage time in. Since I hate bolting and unbolting things all the time I created a quick mount for this laser. First I printed out the Z axis mount Leo made which is found here:

Then I hacked this slab together in Tinkercad:

Its just a slab so you can drill and bolt whatever you want to this cool system Leo made.

I bolted the driver board to a piece of 1/4" plywood with some magnets on the back and then epoxied some magnets to the side of the gantry. Holds pretty well and just pops off. Got it mostly wired up. Just need to cobble together some wiring on the RAMPS side as well as the long cable that goes to it. The laser and driver board can be added and removed in 30 seconds or so.

 

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In the future the driver board part will be moved out and into the control box so its just a single cable going to the laser rather than stuck to the gantry. I will edit the slab part to have a bracket piece with a 1/2" hole for the 4 pin connector.

I’m working on a master control box to stuff all this crap into instead of having wires and junk all over the place.

Used the long weekend and cooler weather to completely redo my MPCNC. Tested out the laser (just burned some circles) and it works great!

 

Pew Pew Pew!

That is a cool picture, with the laser coming down into focus.

So this laser seems pretty good so far. I just followed the 2.8watt guide minus all the tuning. This driver came pre-tuned and seems to do what it needs to. Mapped the fan control to pin 44. Everything works…

The heatsinks on the driver get really hot. I added thermal paste. These need to be upgraded pretty quick. I have a bunch of heatsinks for CPUs and chipset coolers I will probably drill and tap for this purpose. I mounted it in a box with an 80mm fan blowing right on it and they still get really hot. I also thermal pasted the laser module inside its heatsink. Dunno if that helps or not but since I had it out…

I modified the mount for Leo’s system and just used some spare 3D printed bracket I had in a box and glued it to my slab. Mostly that was from being impatient because I was already in the middle of 3D printing a new one I made:

Pro tip: If you print your stuff with a higher infill >%40 and use a forstner bit to drill the holes it melts the plastic and makes it strong and fills in a nice smooth hole.

Trying to get this 2.5 w bangood laser to work with my RAMBO 1.3. Not sure what PIN to use ? I am assuming that this driver needs 5v for the ttl signal. I guess I need to use the Adam method and remap the zmin pins

Iptech,

Did you figure out how to get the laser working on your Rambo? I am interested on taking the plunge with this but I don’t feel confident enough to risk my Rambo board.

 

Hi guys,

I also have the mentioned laser - but not installed it yet.

Why do we have to go the complicated way of wiring 12v power and 5v TTL and not just powering the laser aut of D9 like in the video linked in that post: https://www.v1engineering.com/forum/topic/consideringplanning-first-build-lots-of-questions/#post-43347 ?

Is it a different way of laser that just runs with the driver board or where ar the differences?

Would be kind, if anyone knows and answers it.

Bye from Germany and happy making!

 

In my mind (no real evidence to back this up), it’s the difference between turning the volume knob on your stereo vs. just unplugging and plugging in your stereo very fast.

If they have any kind of input power filtering (which they should), the 12V PWM will not give you a linear response, at best, and if they have a whole lot of filtering, then it will either be on or off, and not dim at all.

If you only run it at full power, then it probably makes no difference.

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