Published November 22, 2023 © MIT

Snapmaker Original 10W Laser Upgrade

The Snapmaker 3-in-1 original 3D printer/Laser Engraver/CNC machine is a useful tool. The laser engraver, however, is weak.

IntermediateFull instructions provided10 hours291

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Snapmaker - Original

10w laser

Story

The Snapmaker 3-in-1 original 3D printer/Laser Engraver/CNC machine is a useful tool. The laser engraver shipped with the machine, however, is weak at only 200mw optical output. I purchased the only upgrade at the time, a 1600mw laser module, however, it is still less then what I want for laser engraving.

Lately, there have been some higher power laser engravers on the market, so some laser heads in the 10W, 20W 40W and higher optical output power are starting to show up as components.

I purchased a 10W 445nm laser head from Temu for $125 for this upgrade.

There are 2 versions of this module, 12V and 24V.

The new Laser module included an air assist port, so I needed to find a blower and motor. I found an Ametek BLDC miniJammer blower in my stash of "stuff"

I found the manual online for the blower, however, no pinout for the connector, so I needed to take it apart to figure out the pinout.

I looked up the motor control IC datasheet and traced the power and control pins back to the connector.

I took apart the 200mW laser head that came with the Snapmaker original, and milled out a space to add the new laser assembly.

I found the wiring pinout for the original laser module RJ45 pinout online

https://forum.snapmaker.com/t/reverse-engineering-the-module-wiring/3031/8

pin 1: +12V

pin 3: (inverse) Enable, PWM input

pin 5: 130 Ohm resistor to GND as module identification

pin 7: GND

pin 2, 4, 6, 8: N.C.

I needed to invert the PWM signal from the CNC machine to the new laser and limit it to 0-5VDC, so I made a small PCB with a 5V regulator and a 74LS04 invertor IC.

I also needed the 130 ohm to GND resistor to identify the laser module.

The new laser uses a couple amps more than the system power supply is rated for, so I added its own 12V, 10A power supply.

I ran the blower using LabVIEW and the RPi pico for a project on Element14, although I will probably revert back to a control pot for the final setup.

https://community.element14.com/products/devtools/ni-labview/b/labview-challenge-blogs/posts/labview-challenge---project-blog

Arduino code to read an analog input and PWM an output to vary the output of the laser module

int sensorPin = A0;    // select the input pin for the potentiometer
int ledPin = 13;      // select the pin for the LED
int sensorValue = 0;  // variable to store the value coming from the sensor
int brightness = 0;    // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5;    // how many points to fade the LED by
int outpin = 2;
void setup() {
    // initialize serial communication at 9600 bits per second:
  Serial.begin(9600);
  // declare the ledPin as an OUTPUT:
  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(outpin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  // read the value from the sensor:
  sensorValue = analogRead(sensorPin)/3;
  Serial.println(sensorValue);
  analogWrite(ledPin, brightness);
  analogWrite(outpin, brightness);
   // change the brightness for next time through the loop:
  brightness =  sensorValue;
  // wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
  delay(30);
}

Credits

R. Scott Coppersmith

17 projects • 25 followers

Research Engineer, Embedded systems designer

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Snapmaker Original 10W Laser Upgrade

Snapmaker Original 10W Laser Upgrade

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Story

Code

Arduino code to read an analog input and PWM an output to vary the output of the laser module

Credits

R. Scott Coppersmith

Comments

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