This product from Opt Laser is kind of pricey. Has anyone just set the correct PWM frequency in the ESS plugin and used a voltage divider to bring the 10 volts down to 5 volts? What is that? $0.50 in resisters? I know its possible with an Arduino or microcontroller but simple is always better. It certainly fails less.
The ESS outputs are already 5V swing. Most laser PWM inputs are roughly TTL level thresholds, but tolerant to 10-20V. I think Opts can take 20 or 24V (can’t remember for sure). Most of the chinese ones I looked at are spec’d to at least 10V.
I haven’t looked at specs to too many different brands, but I haven’t run across one with a PWM input that shouldn’t work right off the ESS directly.
Or were you talking about the little control box (they call it an adapter box), not the laser?
If so, you can just run the ESS into the laser too if you don’t want to use that box. It has some nice features, but you can certainly do w/o it.
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Yep, that is just what I learned.
So you really don’t need all that extra stuff. The guys at Warp9 have already added all of that function in their FPGA. All you have to do is wire directly into the laser head and you lasing.
That really means you can just buy the cheapo deal of the week 40 watt and when it burns up you get the next cheapo deal of the week accept it will be the 80 watt instead 
I am suppose to talk with a guy tomorrow about finding a free pin on my ESS I can use for PWM output. If I can find one then I will wire up the new 40 watt diode just so I can have a death ray on my avid 
Ya, the box has a microcontroller in it and can change the polarity, detect if the laser is connected, use gating signals, and analog etc. so that it can interface to pretty much anything in the world that doesn’t output a compatible PWM signal. However, it’s just straight PWM out of that to the laser, so the laser is already compatible with the ESS, as is pretty much any other laser.
I was just looking at that video on the new 40W from Xtool. I wish the guy that did it would have done a little more detailed measurements so we could find out the min spot size and the focal length of the lens, etc. Another video from someone mentioned not running it over 60% if you want it to last 
At least the video gives an idea of what 40W blue laser might do.
I would love to get one to test out and do a teardown, but that wouldn’t be $999 worth of fun
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The takeaway from this is for those like me who have state and federal regulations on serializing product can find a spare PWM pin on the ESS and wire up a laser for that purpose.
Right now I have a sharpie or a scribe in a ISO30 tool holder for that purpose which can be a pain in the butt.
Now, of course, finding a laser that will effectively mark the materials I cut without spraying weird stuff all over it is a whole other topic.
what kind of materials?
I’ve had good luck marking stainless steel and carbon steel with a diode laser.
Although I will defer to @jjneeb because he’s done way more than myself
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If that was my business card the only hire I’d be making would be a team of lawyers to defend against the lawsuit from Disney!
Titanium works very well also. Copper will probably work on lasers >30W if they have good optics.
Aluminum is a no-go without marking goo except for Fiber and very hight power CO2.
Well, sadly most etchants for laser marking are considered corrosives and are banned or highly regulated by the FAA in machining.
Quickest (ok exaggeration but you know, gotta get the clicks 
) way to destroy an aluminum aircraft is to spill or wipe it with mercury or anything that has mercury in it. In the case of most of those etchants the mercury is only reactive with the metals when heated but the FAA is like, absolutely not, never, never ever, not even in a billion, gazillion years.
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