Idle vs active // only charge when active

Usage Ideas, How-Tos, and Integrations
1

Hallo,

I only want to charge for when the laser is active.

How can I put this?

2

Hi Andy,

for that to work, you need to let Fabman know when the laser is active via an idle/busy input. You somehow need to get a signal from the laser cutter to the Fabman bridge that tells the bridge when the laser is active. How easy it is to get that signal totally depends on your particular model.

For the Trotec lasers, you can usually grab it from their connection to the exhaust filter. (We even made a small adapter for these laser cutters to make it easier to get that signal.) For other brands, it might be more involved.

What kind of brand do you have? Do you know whether your laser cutter outputs some sort of signal when the laser is active?

3

Does the adapter still work if we don’t have the laser hooked up to a exhaust filter?

If not, any other way you would recommended for a Trotec?

4

Hi!

Unfortunately the adapter does not work without a exhaust filter.
You can find the pinout of the filter here. The SubD on the exhaust filter is connected to the (XLR) Port on the Trotec machine.

As far as I know, power (24VDC) comes from the exhaust filter and the laser just has a relay to connect Pin1 and Pin9. However, you can use an external power source and use this relay to check whether the exhaust filter should be powered on and off and connect it to the busy/idle input of the Fabman Bridge.

I hope that helps!
Karim

5

Hi.

Since the Adapter from Fabman was sold out we at Innovation Lab FHWN rebuilt the setup with this Components:

DELOCK 65403 D-SUB Adapterkabel, Seriell Stecker > 2x Seriell Buchse (Link)
DELOCK 65269 Sub-D 9 Pin Stecker > Terminalblock 10 Pin (Link)

Using Pin2 as the Signal for Filter Status and Pin 9 as GND and connected them with the Fabman Bridge: digital Input IN1. See pictures.

Seems to work as intended for our Trotec Laser (Speedy 400).

Hope this is helpful for someone :slight_smile:

Kind regards,
Flo
[InnovationLab FHWN]

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1 Like
6

I am trying to hook up idle/busy status for my Thunder Laser Nova 35. I have been advised by Thunder Laser that I can use the exhaust fan relay as it has an extra contact. However, this is just a switch so I would need another power supply that will be turned on/off by the relay. What voltage should I use and should it be AC or DC? What is the bridge expecting?

Thanks