DuetWifi and 5v two pin laser
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I've put a DuetWifi in one of those tiny laser engravers made from old optical drive assemblies, like this:
Everything moves as it should, but I can't figure out how to control the laser. It runs on 5v and just has a positive and negative pin.
I built the circuit shown in the wiki here, but with a 4001 IC instead since I had some already. It outputs 5v when it should, but doesn't turn the laser on as I don't think it can provide enough current.Can anyone help?
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The solution to this was to use a MOSFET. I salvaged one from an old motherboard, a 15N03H, which has a Gate Threshold Voltage of between 1 and 3 volts. Since the heater3 pin outputs 3.3v, I put a diode before the gate to drop it down to just below 3 volts.
It's working, but I don't know if it's considered an acceptable solution. Does anyone with more knowledge have any insights?
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Scratch that, it was working, but now the laser stays on when it shouldn't.
I'm too tired to work out why at the moment though.
