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Control box testing and optics verification

A project log for Building Another Laser Cutter

Building a laser cutter around a Coherent GEM-50L laser

jerry-biehlerJerry Biehler 02/13/2021 at 22:280 Comments

Did the final debugging of the control box. Electrically everything was pretty good. The only issue I saw was that when I set a 50% dutycycle it was around 7% off and this offset was across the range. So I fixed that and software and it all works now. Hooked it to the laser and it works. Turned it down to 10% and was getting about 6 watts so that's good.

Next I need to test the ATFR mirror position, I took a couple beam tube ends and put a small piece of tubing in between and stuck the ATFR on the mirror and then held the power meter head on the exit. Held it horizontal where it absorbed almost everything and then vertical were it passed almost everything. That verifies that the mirror works like I thought and will be the second to last optic in the beam path.

Now I need to start laying all that out, I have a 7" wide x 1/2 thick piece of aluminum I am going to mount it all too. I have a beam expander set from a friend who has a store on ebay coming as well, once I have that I can figure out how high off the plate I need to mount the laser to clear the hose fittings and get everything else lined up.

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