General information and use

Design of a control board for a laser scanning head system that integrates PC interface, laser drivers, galvanometric system power supply and drivers, auxiliary systems driver.

Project development

The requirement is to integrate a laser system and beam scanning system, merging in a single control all the machine functions:

• Laser diode source: emission power control, beam modulation, thermoelectric temperature control.
• Scanning head multi-voltage power supply (from a single DC source).
• Analog driver of galvanometers.
• Digital galvanometer driver, according to standard interface.
• Auxiliary systems and equipment safety control.
• Communication interface to system control PC

Application

Several industrial applications require laser treatment with precision positioning: marking, welding, heat treatment, micro-drilling or photopolymerization. The project aims to integrate as many interfaces, power and control subsystems as possible into a single card to reduce costs and system’s size permitting its application to several fields. The use of a modern high-end microcontroller with a good peripheral equipment reduce the number of external components and therefore the size and cost.

Results

The study brought to the realization of two different card, one for analog galvanometers heads and one for digital scanner heads. The project has proved reliable and flexible and meets the goal of high level integration and that of costs and system size reduction.