I am working on replacing the stock Ortur laser module on my Ortur Laser Master 2 with a NEJE E40. The install seems pretty straight forward, but I cannot get it to burn good.
The E40 comes with this adapter board. Very simple board. Power, GND, and Logic from the Ortur control board in, and the 4 pin ribbon cable from the adapter board into the module.
Here is pic of the Ortur I.O for reference. I have USB to laptop for Lightburn and I have 12V 5A power supply into the board. The E40 requires 12V 4A so I figured the 5A should be enough to supply everything, right?
For those of you familiar with Lightburn, in the “Move” panel there is a “Test” button that turns the laser on at lower power for focusing and alignment needs. When I press this test button the E40 will come alive temporarily and then power down, even though the board is still seemingly working.
Regardless, when I run a laser job the laser turns on and operates as normal. However, I can’t seem to get it to burn as strong as it evidently should. You can see the circles and lines I attempted, they are just lines and really have no depth at all. Even after 3 passes. The wood is just about 4mm plywood, it’s supposed to cut through stuff easily, no? Is there a way to focus the laser other than simply moving it up and down? It is hard to see how focused it is because I can’t see through the glass.
When you ask if the 5A supply is enough, is that for everything? 5A isn’t really enough if it’s also got to control the motors and board logic. The board logic should be minimal, but the motors are probably taking and amp or so just holding position, and many of these supplies are … optimisitic … with their rating to say the least.
I use mine where I share a ground connection with the logic board, but the laser has its own dedicated supply.
Did you run a Lightburn focus test to verify the focus distance? My focus distance was somewhat off of the “spec” for my NEJE laser module.
The board you are using has a test button. Author a one second burn (no movement). Next hold the test button down for one second. Compare the depth of the burn. This will tell you if there is a PWM issue.
With the laser disconnected, examine your lens. At one point, I cracked my lens, and the power went way down.
If you changed authoring in any way, look at the g-code in a text editor (save it to a file) to make sure your PWM values are in the range for your machine. I assume Ortur is a GRBL machine, so I believe they should be in the range of 0 to 1000.
While not identical, I put a NEJE40640 laser on David’s $79 laser engraver, and it worked flawlessly. It is a GRBL machine. I did connect it directly (not using the control board), and I ran a bigger gauge wire for power (original was around 26 gauge).
I was afraid of that. I still feel like 5A would be enough to get through this piece of wood in 3 passes. Perhaps I will go up to 6A and see what happens. Running an additional separate power supply may also do the trick. The adapter board has another input for “additional power input”. Can I just input more power here to run in conjunction with the current power?
I have not run a focus test. I should start there.
I will check the GCODE to make sure it is within that range. It is running GRBL so that should be right.
I am also concerned that the wiring on the Ortur was not suited for this amount of Amps. So perhaps an additional power input with a heavier gauge wire would be good. Things to try.
Since it appears to me thst they both just run to the same +V power rail this might work, but I would hesitate to do it without closely matching the voltage from both supplies. Any voltage mismatch will result in one supply backflowing to the other, possibly damaging both should one of them sag.
I would wire ground and signal from your control board, and power and ground from a separate supply. Well, in fact that is what I did.
Two supplies could be run independently, but I would not do so without at minimum a diode protecting each, which will also reduce available voltage a little (by the Vf of the diode, typically about a quarter volt if memory serves)
