Rofin Sinar DY Laser

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

Good day, Ladies and Gentlemen!

I'd like to get in touch with people who are trying to make Rofin Sinar DY laser work. http://rlab.org.uk/wiki/Rofin_SInar_DY-06_Laser 

The thing is, I have several power supplies from this laser (EA-RSL14000) and I'd like to run them as standalone units. But they have only CAN interface and I did not find any command reference or register map or init sequence. According to wiki you have some logged data from the CAN bus. May be we can help each other. Worst case scenario - I am going to make some re-engineering and replace power supply microcontroller with another chip with custom firmware.

So can you help me with logged data or do you have any ideas about how can we help each other?

[Richard Ibbotson]

Hi Andrey,
Would like to work with you.
We have been a bit slow due to cold in where we have the laser, and other projects.
We did a CAN network dump, but can do much more to determine which device is talking.We think most errors are coming from the water controller, though we still have humidity error from the cavities
We have DY schematics to help to some extent, but hope to do much more are summer comes and we can nitrogen flush the cavities
We have the  system controller,but no console.
Richard

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

Hi Richard!

Actually no rush on this project, it seems I'll be busy with some over stuff till August. But it would be great to have some information to work with, in case I find some time till then. As far as I understand you have not got power supplies turned on yet?

There is about 50% chance I'll be able to assemble our laser and get it working, but it's really a burden, because it was replaced by the new one, partially disassembled and moved to storage. Actually I see two ways of using power supplies: 1. analyse CAN protocol (requires successful start of PS, i.e. laser turns on) 2. analyse schematics of power supply and replace microcontroller. Not sure which way is easier and better, CAN bus analysis does not guarantee full protocol recovery (especially error codes), and first look at the PCB shown that topology is not that simple, I don't know from scratch why they use so many optocouplers. There is only a fraction of all optocouplers in attached photo.

We have DY schematics to help to some extent, but hope to do much more are summer comes and we can nitrogen flush the cavities

Friends said they used silica gel to dry cavities of another laser. 

P.S. Do you need operators manual PDF for DY laser?

P.P.S. Sorry if my English is not so good, I had no practice in a while.

суббота, 30 апреля 2016 г., 1:03:50 UTC+3 пользователь Richard Ibbotson написал:

[Richard Ibbotson]

Hi Andrey
Your English is very good.

We did get the PDF operators manual from Rofin in the UK, but that is all we have been able to get from them. Also we have the original paper manual which also includes the top level schematics for the laser.
Our biggest problem is that the laser came without the operator console and we have not been able to source one. The schematics enabled us to build a control box to simulate the power control and remote the laser operation. However it seems we need to access the LasCon controller over the RS422 link to get out the error codes and configuration. I did some testing on the LasCon CPU, and the RS422 link appears to run the 3964R protocol, but I could make no progress on the next layer data format. We keep searching for a console, but not found one yet. Do you have access to a DY with console. It would be great to see a dump of the serial data on the RS422 link. Or maybe try to get hold of the console software.
The first look at the CAN Bus dump suggests we need to make a more structured testing with less devices on the bus at a time. We will do this and let you have the result.
We tried to bake the existing cavity desiccant and flush the cavities with nitrogen. This stopped humidity error lights but only for a short time. We will get new desiccant, and flush for longer.
Work has been slow over the winter as the location is not heated, and that is not good for laser or workers. So now eager to get back onto this and work with you if we can.
Richard

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

I''l try to recover console software after 11th May. As to the RS422 link dump - it requires laser reassembling and I am not sure when it will be possible. Also I'll ask some people whether they have spare console.

суббота, 30 апреля 2016 г., 12:35:16 UTC+3 пользователь Richard Ibbotson написал:

[Richard Ibbotson]

For the DY, I would like to get the standard software running as it has so much error code information and configuration support. The LasCon controller communicates with a control PC, and also to the CAN Bus.The LasCon can also be configured to work alone I think. The CAN bus has lots of devices, the 3 big power supplies, IO expander, Water controller, and the optics shutters. So would like to keep all on the CAN bus.

These 21kVA power supplies are a bit beyond my skill to re-engineer, but I am interested in lower power (up to 100W) laser diode controllers. We did look at making a 3kW power supply for a 150W Cutting Edge DPSS YAG, but found a controller on eBay for that.

There seems to be very few higher power laser controller designs in the public domain. We are looking for a solution for metal laser sintering here:

http://www.metalbot.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193

 

As you say the requirement is to control both the pulses switching the laser on and off as it scans and to limit the maximum current to protect the diodes. My analog experience is not great, and I had trouble with op-amps driving big capacitive loads like the MOSFETS. Also I did not find many reasonable price higher power MOSFETs that were specified for linear operation.

Maybe you could take a look at that thread too and see if you could help?

Thanks,

Richard

From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of gopo first
Sent: Sunday, May 1, 2016 2:09 AM
To: Reading Hackspace
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Re: Rofin Sinar DY Laser

 

Allthough i never worked with so high power diodes as you have there ,I think that i could  build from scratch the entire controll unit for your laser  as i did it in the past with other lasers .8 years ago  i had to reverse engineer some complex controll units for diode and co2  lasers.I am an analog guy mostly and i used old schotky ttl and cmos gates  for smoothing conditioning controlls as well as a 8 bit  dac plus high speed rail to rail 5v op-amps to modulate the ref-02 refference in pwm mode in order  to controll  the amplitude of the final pwm power command .This way i could controll not just the pwm but also the amplitude of pwm signals Some might say it's useless once you controll the pwm itrself , but i made those controllers to cover  a large variety of diodes .Different diodes have different internal junction capacitances  and will not withstand easily any frequency and any pwm at a given amplitude.Temperature controll might be difficult sometimes and i am not  quite an expert .What i did was a bit unproffessional at the time as i didn't have enough knoledges about the electronic controil , but it worked .Now i'd probably do it in a different way  .Optocouplers are used with diode lasers comands to remove the common mode and protect from esd build up laser diodes being really sensitive to esd build-up through the built in power or temp controll (3'rd pin) , but also to remove the high frequencies  spikes through the rise time and settling time controll...

It's not the best way how i did it but at least i could controll every single parameter .

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[gopo first]

Sorry a i deleted my last message cause it was just bullshit.I was a bit drunk when i wrote it...

[gopo first]

On Sunday, 1 May 2016 14:03:05 UTC+3, Richard Ibbotson wrote:

For the DY, I would like to get the standard software running as it has so much error code information and configuration support. The LasCon controller communicates with a control PC, and also to the CAN Bus.The LasCon can also be configured to work alone I think. The CAN bus has lots of devices, the 3 big power supplies, IO expander, Water controller, and the optics shutters. So would like to keep all on the CAN bus.

These 21kVA power supplies are a bit beyond my skill to re-engineer, but I am interested in lower power (up to 100W) laser diode controllers. We did look at making a 3kW power supply for a 150W Cutting Edge DPSS YAG, but found a controller on eBay for that.

There seems to be very few higher power laser controller designs in the public domain. We are looking for a solution for metal laser sintering here:

http://www.metalbot.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=193

 

As you say the requirement is to control both the pulses switching the laser on and off as it scans and to limit the maximum current to protect the diodes. My analog experience is not great, and I had trouble with op-amps driving big capacitive loads like the MOSFETS. Also I did not find many reasonable price higher power MOSFETs that were specified for linear operation.

Maybe you could take a look at that thread too and see if you could help?

Thanks,

Richard

From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of gopo first
Sent: Sunday, May 1, 2016 2:09 AM
To: Reading Hackspace
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Re: Rofin Sinar DY Laser

 

I think that this project can be develloped in  a bit different way and still maintaining some simple concepts.

 

First of all i would start with this datasheet:

 http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/dac0800.pdf

fig 26 is about modulating the refference with a square signal.You take it from a variable pwm and frequency generator made very simple and accurate with two cd4047.

fig29 shows a very high speed i to v converter but you could do it with AD844 as well.Using two op-amps in opposite phase for both outputs and a balanced to unballanced output op-amp you can attack higher power drivers for the laser LED's

well , in fig 30 that dm2502 looks like  an interesting thing that can work in our favour if we want to dc bias the output through a digital feedback and also it can shape the output signal on is edges , controlling the slew rate and possible ringing.

Anyway , we should come back to the inputs and see what should we use for refference .Should it be the ground or  a REF ic...it depends on the needed voltages to drive the LED's and also you can controll the REF with a temperature controller that gets the feedback from the LED's through  optic to voltage conversion,  or direct temp measuring ..Another way can be provider through Optical to digital conversion as well as controlled current sources.There are many ways of achieving the same object.

Also the 8 bit encoder, probably one  like this:

http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1856387.pdf

though i am not sure it's the right thing to work with dac0800

could modify the amplitude of the output signal, being it pwm and frequency modulated allready.Now it's also amplitude modulated .

[Richard Ibbotson]

Any luck to find a console or console software?
Would like to get s trace of dialog between Lascon and console during power up.

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

I've managed to get hdd with software from the console, but it will take several days to find a controller with 2.5" IDE and power connector (turns out I have not used them in several years). After that I'll be able to make an image of the hdd. What image format would you prefer? Would Acronis .tib be good for you?

суббота, 21 мая 2016 г., 13:56:32 UTC+3 пользователь Richard Ibbotson написал:

[Richard Ibbotson]

That is great news, many thanks.

I think Acronis is fine. I will check with those here that know more about PC recovery.

What is the processor board used in the Rofin console, and the touch screen controller ?

 

 

From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrey Dorovatovskiy
Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2016 12:07 PM
To: Reading Hackspace
Subject: [RDG-Hack] Re: Rofin Sinar DY Laser

 

I've managed to get hdd with software from the console, but it will take several days to find a controller with 2.5" IDE and power connector (turns out I have not used them in several years). After that I'll be able to make an image of the hdd. What image format would you prefer? Would Acronis .tib be good for you?

--

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

Not sure, I am not the one who extracted HDD, but it is x86 PC most likely.  I won't be on site where the laser located till august at least. My friend said that rofin sinar software was just located in autostart section. So with the image you will be able to copy it to any PC with WinXP. Not 100% sure about that, but it seems most likely.

суббота, 21 мая 2016 г., 14:16:06 UTC+3 пользователь Richard Ibbotson написал:

[Ryan .]

Ddrescue

[Richard Ibbotson]

Anything we can do to help with this ?

Happy to pay for any hardware or software you need.

[Alex Gibson]

I have pata Ide 2.5" to USB connectors if helpful?

Tapped on my mobile phone.

--

[Ryan .]

Hey all, 

I should probably expand on my one-word post about 'ddrescue'

It's by FAR the best utility I've seen for getting data off a disk that might be damaged, it's saved my bacon many, many times. 

https://www.technibble.com/guide-using-ddrescue-recover-data/

Basically, all it gets you is a byte-for-byte image of the disk 'somewhere else', and then you can do all the photorec etc recovery stuff on it from good media, rather than mess around with a hot potato of a failing drive.

The key thing is to get the data off a broken disk with as few bottlenecks as possible, so no USB, no ethernet, straight SATA only is the way for sure. 

Anyways, that may or may not be useful. If I can be of any assistance as well, please shout!

R

[Ryan .]

Hi Andrey,

I've sent you an email off-list about this. I'd really appreciate it if we could have a chat about this sometime soon.

Thanks very much,

Ryan

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

Sorry for the delay, it's my fault it took so long. Image is currently uploading to my google drive, I'll share it with Ryan as soon as it's finished.

понедельник, 6 июня 2016 г., 23:17:20 UTC+3 пользователь Ryan написал:

[Ryan .]

Thanks again Andrey!

Anyone know anything about Windows NT 4?

[al...@alexgibson.net]

Yes, reasonably so.

I also have the daddy of PC's to run it - a DEC AlphaPC 164LX. When
last running it had an uptime of 4 years...!

What do you need to know?

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [RDG-Hack] Re: Rofin Sinar DY Laser

[Richard Ibbotson]

I have an FTDI (proper) USB to RS422 cable which I know works to the DY.

Also the DY used a touchscreen I think. We hava VGA/USB touch screen.

Do you think these would work?

Sent via Richard's Phone

07871 256772

<Screen Shot 2016-06-07 at 02.13.59.png>

[Ryan .]

We can definitely try, but on Thursday we'll hopefully have a list of hardware from the real controller.

Maybe do other stuff til then?

[Mark Robson]

NT4... back in the day I used to run web servers on it. Provided they got a reboot once per week, were generally reliable.

I assume that it could be installed on a VM on a modern machine (almost certainly wouldn't boot on real hardware <15 years old)

Mark

[Ryan .]

Did it, see screenshot ;)

[Andrey Dorovatovskiy]

Sorry, was able only to take a brief look at the PC today. Here are some pics. The only interesting thing is PCMCIA fax/modem card, don't know why this PC needs it. Two cables were connected to the PC, COM1 and COM2. Over stuff was some interlock cables which are supposed to be connected to the laser controller but not to the PC.

May be you could try to pass control to serial port from host system to the virtualbox VM and connect serial port to the laser controller. Don't sure that fax/modem card is essential for laser software to work.

вторник, 7 июня 2016 г., 12:44:17 UTC+3 пользователь Ryan написал:

[Richard Ibbotson]

Thanks, Andrey.

 

The RS232 port is for the UPS, and there is an RS422 port for connection to the LasCon Controller.

The modem is shown in the circuit diagrams. but I guess it is something of an update or phone home type thing.

 

We have emulated the circuits for the mains and standby control on the LasCon to a separate box, and that seems to work OK.

 

Thinking to just link the RS422 for now using FTDI USB to RS422.

 

Again, many many thx. for your help.

Richard

 

From: reading-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:reading-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrey Dorovatovskiy
Sent: Thursday, June 9, 2016 10:06 PM
To: Reading Hackspace
Subject: Re: [RDG-Hack] Re: Rofin Sinar DY Laser

 

Sorry, was able only to take a brief look at the PC today. Here are some pics. The only interesting thing is PCMCIA fax/modem card, don't know why this PC needs it. Two cables were connected to the PC, COM1 and COM2. Over stuff was some interlock cables which are supposed to be connected to the laser controller but not to the PC.

[CJ]

*dusts off old thread*
Dear Andrey

Did you ever manage to use the EA-RSL14000 on its own?

I am trying to do this as well. I have manage to connect my pc to the CAN bus via a USB 2 CAN converter. With only one power supply connected, it is automatically sending me what looks like status updates telegrams. I have the CAN protocol for another EA model power supply. The address/ID bits in the CAN packet looks a bit confusing but I think I have managed to decode the data bits, telling me the firmware and hardware versions, voltage and current setpoints and that it is in "AC fail" mode (even though AC power is on).

It is not responding to any of my commands. I'm not sure if my sending the correct ID/command or if it is ignoring me because of the error state.

I would love to see the logged data from the CAN bus, if you guys still have it.

Ps. what is the status of the rLab's rofin project (wiki page no longer active).

Regards
CJ

[CJ]

BTW, where did you get all these power supplies?

[CJ]

Dear Richard

I would really appreciate any feedback you can provide regarding the use of rofin laser at rlab. As said earlier, I am trying to communicate with a RSL 14000 power supply over the CAN bus - but I'm struggling a lot to figure out the protocol.

Kind regards
CJ