I just loaded the dual endstop firmware for the skr pro, and noticed it’s is pre configured for a laser. I didn’t see any documentation on what pins were configured. I know, I could look in the source code…
My question is, what is a good laser that I can run with that firmware, and are the wiring instructions somewhere to set it up with the pre configured firmware?
Here is a post talking about lasers, not sure what pin the skr pro uses for enable and pwm out. But that pretty much it. If you have set up a spindle with speed control it works the same. The laser will need independent power as well.
I looked at the source and found.
#define SPINDLE_LASER_PWM_PIN PC9 #define SPINDLE_LASER_ENA_PIN PB0 // Heater2
Looking at the pinout for the SKR Pro, I found PC9 in Extension-1.
So it might not be set up… i just did a quick search and found another of our memebers has made a topic about just this thing:
pro + Laser
The laser support was enabled in the latest V1 managed firmware released 1/5/21.
oh nifty!
So, currently I have expansion 1 connected to my LCD. It looks like Ryan has a comment on the SKR board that only one of the expansion ports are required. It looks like it is just powering the RGB led strip. Is it okay to just unplug expansion 1 from the LCD and connect PC9 to the laser diode?
I don’t know. I assume it is okay since that is what is defined in the source files. Note that the #defines for these pins seemed more hacked-in because they were at the top of the configuration.h file rather than integrated into the pins file (pins_BTT_SKR_PRO_V1_2.h). I’m assuming this was done by Jeff or Ryan, and Ryan has posted about testing the laser on the SKR_PRO. I don’t own an SKR_PRO, so this is all guesswork.
Our scripts that edit the config files can’t edit the pins file. So they put extra defines in the config. They have been tested, but those come from Ryan’s keyboard.
I put a scope on the pc9 pin, and didn’t detect anything while enabling/disabling the laser/ adjusting the power. There is a led in the neighborhood of PC9 that is adjusting with the brightness, so I think it should be working. I checked the other pins and didn’t see anything that would correlate. I also tried fan0 since someone mentioned that in a lowrider thread. It seems to always be max power. Not sure what to try next other than building the firmware myself and playing with it.
No practical knowledge, but did you use the TFT or the Marlin mode to turn the laser on/off? Apparently the TFT is sending the older fan codes while Marlin mode controls the laser pin. Or you could try sending g-code directly. I believe that M3 and M4 codes are enabled.
There was another thread were someone mentioned the PC9 pin doesn’t work with the touch controller, but works in marlin mode. I checked this with the scope this morning, and it works great, so I think my problem is solved.