Eric Phillips
11-30-2022, 9:09 AM
I have a woodworking project where I want to do some laser engraving. I have a SainSmart laser engraver that attaches to an Ender-3 3D printer. I have not had good luck with it but wanted to give it another try. It worked long enough for me to get it set up but when I went to do the actual engraving I had no laser. The engraver plugs into a 24V fan port on the printer. This port controls the fan by PWM. On the cable to the laser there is a small board. On my laser it looks like a custom MP1584EN buck converter. When examining this board it appears one of the IC chips may have let out a little magic smoke. I only get 0.22V out of the board. If I look at a current picture of the laser for sale on the SainSmart website it has a very obvious LM2596 buck converter, I can find the exact same one on Amazon. I have ordered the same buck converter as on the newer ones and it will be ease to install when it arrives. What baffles me is you cannot control the laser power by PWM with the buck converter inline. I also find conflicting information if this is a 24V/12V laser of just a 12V laser. Unfortunately there is no electrical information on the laser so I can only go by sketchy documentation in website postings. If it can work on 24V why can't I just remove the buck converter? Does anyone have experience with these 1.6W SainSmart lasers?