So I’ve got another laser to show you. This one was sent to me by Banggoods. It’s a 5.5w laser module, diode laser. And according to the label on the laser it’s twice as powerful as the one I had before.

This thing feels like beefy. It’s got a fan and some kind of driver board on top. So what I’d like to do with this laser is eventually attach it onto my CNC machine. For now I thought I could upgrade this thing here.

If you’ve seen some of my previous videos where I’ve been sent stuff to assemble, if I find this travel particular type of adaptor I normally stick it in the bin. I saw a Big Clive video where he took this apart and it was quite scary.

You can see the difference in size. It’s got much bigger cooling and the laser looks a lot bigger on this as well. When I’ll do is turn this on and check it actually works.

Got some goggles here.

It’s going to turn on automatically. A good safety feature, I’ve got a little button here, if I zoom in.

So I’m not looking directly at the this, I am actually looking at the screen of my camera through my safety glasses.

 I’m just going to solder this DC power jack onto here.

Ok so you can’t just plug in a more powerful laser into the control board of a less powerful one. I wasn’t sure if this thing here was acting like a voltage regulator but, anyway that was a waste of time.

ok I’m going to connect the 5.5w laser module to old CNC controller, which has laser driver here. But from the look of it, it looks like the 2w verity so I don’t think it’s going to be able to power this. I’ll give it a go anyway. This is the one that is sold on Banggoods and it would be a bit silly if they are selling this, without the right module to power it on the CNC machine. I’ve put my goggles on, and putting the USB cable onto that. I’ve got the cable here for that. Ok that shouldn’t have turned on, alright I think it’s this dodgy connection is why it (the laser) turned on. So if I pull that out it comes back on, and thankfully there is a safety on this (so it’s not on full power) This is such a dodgy connection it really needs a screw terminal.

So just a reminder that these laser can be quite dangerous and can damage your eyesight if you don’t wear the correct goggles. As for how I’m planning to use this. Well I’m not sure whether to try use the laser driver that I already have, with it’s dodgy TTL connection that would result in the laser turning on if it became loose – or find another type such as the Jtech drivers – although I don’t know if their driver boards can power this laser. From what I’ve read online the circuite board on the laser may have to be taken off to use PWM but newer laser modules have TTL/PWM inputs onboard. So this module is a little out of date and might not be best thing to use for laser engraving. Anyway I hope you found that interesting, thank you.