[mikie]

I have a CNC router (1200 x 900) and X4 Mill and I wanted to use one of them to do some basic laser engraving of Balsa/Ply.

I work in I.T and I have some of these single mode lasers (SFP's) which i thought i could use for my engraving (I think they are 1550nm). I tried searching for someone who has used one already, but all i can find as laser pen modifications.

I believe these could be used for what i want. I was thinking i could drive the output via MACH3 PWM to an interface board (Maybe someone could recommend one or maybe i could use an Arduino board to drive the output?) and I would need to build a power supply for it too

Any thoughts or links on this would be appreciated

/M

[atv2]

Interesting idea, but I think the output of optics used in networking is very low (less than a mw?) so even if you can drive it, you may not be able to do anything useful with it. If you want to build something cheap, how about one made from a few DVD drives? http://www.instructables.com/id/Pocket-laser-engraver/

[mikie]

Thanks for the link, it was a great read.

He went the full path of using Ardruino to drive the stepper drivers, i just need to control the PWM out to the laser LED, so it should be simpler to configure.

I'm just going to buy an Ardruino nano and pull apart a DVD drive and give it a go. If i get somewhere i'll post my results for others