Hi friends, I have searched the forums and writeups on how to specifically wire up the Blackbox to the K40 Power supply (24V, G, 5V, L) but I am not finding what I need (maybe I'm just an idiot and cant read). How should I be wiring up the to the Blackbox? I have the Blackbox powered up separately so I wouldn't need the 24v right? Am I only using the Ground and 5V? If anyone could help with pictures of their set up I would greatly appreciate it! I am not the best when it comes to wiring so I want to make sure I don't fry anything.
Thanks for your response but I didn't find it helpful. It still left me confused on what actually needs to be connected..
From: Advice on CO2 Laser Build (linked to from my other reply) So BlackBox GND to G BlackBox PWM to input of your self-built Inverter Circuit, output of Inverter to L on LPS ______________________________________________________________ Posting pics of your laser PSUs connections may help us advise on remaining pins, because as mentioned: Because the K40s do not follow standards, we'd need to see what you have ______________________________________________________________ Just a heads up - but working with Laser Power supplies (20,000volts and more, more than enough to certainly kill you) requires you to not have any confusion concerns. If in doubt, or over your head, pull in the help of someone qualified to work with High voltage Laser power supplies - they will also understand the high level terms we provide. Its super dangerous! If you don't have the electronics knowledge and experience to tackle something this dangerous, keep the stock K40 controller, and use K40 Whisperer instead, or if you want to keep the Cohesion, just install Grbl-LPC: Compiling grbl-lpc Which in this case, may very well be your Heart. Do not use two hands, cross one arm behind your back at all times. Use suitable safety protocol. 20,000v can jump 20+cm!
Peter thanks for your response and patience with me. I have had my laser unplugged for a few months now while I waited for a good time to finish this upgrade it should be discharged. I will upload a picture of my current setup in a diagram form later today. The previous owner upgraded it to a Cohesion board and added additional safety switches / analog power meter to it.
Ahh ok, was wondering about the history Do go over his work too - in case shoddy work on his side may present a danger to you Analog meters are in the high voltage path... make sure its properly isolated and insulated
I was able to snag some pictures of it set up right now. The guy who had this before me seemed to know what he was doing. I had no issues with this thing till I decided to take it apart and rebuild it lol I included pictures of the power supply. It has 24V, G, 5V, L Right now I have the G to G and 5v to 0-10v connected to the Blackbox. I found a diagram from Cohesion3d showing that only the Ground to Ground, and L to Laser Fire on their board needed to be connected. Assuming the same with Blackbox would only the Ground and 0-10v(brought down to 5v) be used? Does the DIR need to be connected too?
The 0-10v is doe VFDs. What you have there can damage either the BlackBox or the LPS. DIR is not used.
No no, the 0-10v output is +-10v, you cannot turn it down that far! See docs:blackbox:connect-vfd [OpenBuilds Documentation] - its for spindles, not lasers - please remove all your wiring from the 0-10v output right now before you damage the BlackBox or the Laser PSU. Just GND and PWM (via an Inverter circuit, not directly) - as explained above at post #4 K40 - BlackBox wiring! The 5V/IN/G outputs of the LPS goes to your Panel potentiometer for power fine tuning, usually a 10-turn potentiometer The controller DOES NOT connect to the 5V pin === that is a 5v power output - connecting that to the BlackBox's 10v output is 2 outputs fighting each other - one wins, the other gets destroyed (expensively)
Hello everyone. I'm coming off using lightburn with a 7w laser diode to build a 90W co2 . I have a couple questions. I'm going to be using the blackbox controller but I'm confused what the pot on the power supply does. Is that for limiting the max power draw of the laser? Does the pwm output from the blackbox still control the project laser power, if not can it? To make the wiring a little more confusing, I'm using a CloudRay M100 power supply that has a digital amp meter and pot in a small module that connects to the supply by ethernet. By flipping a small switch on the power supply, you can use the pot on the digital meter. Does that mean that all I need from the Blackbox is the pwm and ground?
Limits max laser power / override during job Potentiometer set to 100%: PWM 0-100% = 0-100% Potentiometer set to 50%: PWM 0-100% = 0-50% power Started job with say 70% power (gcode/pwm) but see its still engraving a bit too dark: dial down pot a little (realtime power override/fine tune) Correct! Also remember to wire up WP/GND protection loop, not to BlackBox but still needed for PSU to work. Usually loops through a flow switch and door interlock switches in a normally closed loop (circuit breaks open when any door or access panel is opened or water stops flowing)
Hey Peter, Got most of it wired up. The lasers test firing from the button on the power supply and pulling 2mw. Now that I have the Blackbox hooked up, I still cant get over 2mw. Its firing, just with very little power. I've played with all power settings on light burn and it makes no difference. The only thing that I can think is that you still need the pot hooked up even thou you have the one on the display. I also played with the micro switch on the power supply that flips over control to the display pot and no difference. If you do still need the pot, what the resistance? 10k? Water protecting seems to be working fine. Also, I'm using the black anodized 2020 extrusion. It has zero conductivity, you can't evenn even scratch it with the multimeter and get any results. What do I Chassis ground to? (RED) PWM from black box to H on the power supply (Blue) is Ground to ground on power supply (Yellow) in line with water and door switch back to ground. Thanks for any help! Mike S
What about the Tool On menu in CONTROL? For grounding, either a sheetmetal skin around tube/hv components, or add little lengths of wire with self tapping screws (to pierce the anodizing) tying all the seperate frame pieces together:
Hey Peter, Turns out you do need the pot on the power supply even if you have the break off one in me little screen. I Have the power working but im having a new issue. When it goes to fire many time if creates a fault and stops the laser. It gives me this "Alarm 1 - Hard limit triggered. Machine position is likely lost due to sudden and immediate halt, Re-homing is highly recommended {G0 Z0}" I essentially disconnected everything but the power supply and the controller with its power supply down to the most basic wireing and its still happening. it trigger when the laser power supply fires, out side of that the blackbox works flawless. if you kill the power to the laser is runs the cuts every time. with the laser on, it will move to the postion and fail the second the laser fires. If you run it again it will catch about the third time and run with the laser one but not for long. ever other time it gives you the Hard limit warning. limit switch are working perfect. if you just remove the PWM from the laser supply the controller works perfect so its defiantly with the firing and not a attached circuit. Any thoughts? Some kind of back feed? Setting on the PWM. I used to have a ACRO 1010 so im using the controller for that in my new homemade co2 laser. Other then the size of the bed and a Z axis, is there anything that can be causing this?
It seems I fixed the laser firing issue. I Had all the stops and motor wiring coming thru the firewall at one spot. when I separated the stops out of the pile it stated to fire the laser with no issue. Now weird new issues have popped up. I use Light Burn to cut and only have had minor communication issues with the Blackbox on my smaller laser. now all of a sudden when I run the home function it freezes. All the axis home correctly and finish but light burn never thinks its done and locks the Run function out. You have to close Light Burn and unplug the Blackbox or you get that the port is busy error message and half the time you still do after closing everything down. In OpenBuild controll, when you manually function the limit switches one by one under the troubleshooting tab, they all work perfect. I also don't have the same issue in the OB Control interface. Another issue that has to be related is when trying to connect to the machine settings in Light Burn it says it can't connect yet you can move the laser around and even send jobs as long as you don't home it. I never had this issue with connecting and I've tried resetting everything and running different profiles and nothing makes a difference. I also striped the controller down to all connections to see if it was some weird feedback and it makes no difference trying to connect to the machine settings issue. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you..
Does your machine have a Z axis and can home Z, then XY? If not make sure you flashed the 2-axes Grbl build from. CONTROL > Wizards and tools > Firmware flashing tool Also make sure all the switches are wired as per docs.openbuilds.com/blackbox - as switches that shorts v+ to gnd (shorting the 5v rail) can cause the port busy issue you described (and also permanent damage) Also make sure you set up Lightburn as shown in docs.openbuilds.com > Software > Post Processors > Lightburn
Yes my machine does have a z axis and I did flash it with the CONTROL wizard for a three axis machine. When I'm in the CONTROL interface everything works perfect. It Homes and I still can move around after it finishes. I can read and right to the controller. I cant get it to crash until I open Light Burn. If I just startup Light Burn and move any of the axis, every thing works great. I could even send a project and burn with no issue. Its not till I try to read from the controller in Light Burn till I have the problems. The Images I added are reading from Openbuild CONTROL startup part 1 and 2 and the last one is starting up in Light Burn and sending the && command and you can see it crashes at code $112. That's with all the stops unplugged to mitigate any issues with miswiring, witch I've checked and are good. Why it works in CONTROL and crashes in Light Burn, I cant Figure out. I've even unplugged all connections minus the USB and still get the same issue. I'm at a standstill. I would think it was something in the BlackBox that got fried but it works great in CONTROL. So it seems the be a setup or GRBLs issue but I cant figure it out. Running the basic GRBL. I've added any settings I can find to see if something jumps out at you. Thank You
One last weird thing. I've noticed if I open Light Burn and go straight to machine settings it will open the window, but if I close the settings window and try to reopen it, it says "communication with the controller failed"
Sounds like a Lightburn bug perhaps - do post on their forums too they might know. For example Machine settings not loading - communication with controller failed If it works in CONTROL, to us, that indicates its fine Quick search for ""
