LAOS Laser

Visicut definitely puts it in the simplecode file that is sent through (with a "7 102 5000") to LAOS, but I think nobody has written the LAOS side yet?

I can have a look at implementing frequency later, and send a pull request.

That would be great.
Seeing the following topic there is a big change people need to experiment a bit with frequency, having support for changing that in the file means that people can test this in minutes instead of hours.
http://redmine.laoslaser.org/boards/2/topics/322

(I would try to use VisiCuts Laserscript functionality and write a test pattern)

Adding the ability to modify frequency is easy in firmware.

But: It will not help if your laser (power supply) is not capable of pulsed operation.

Most DC gas lasers are CW (Continous Wave) lasers and not pulsed (like the more expensive RF (Radio Frequency) lasers in Epilog, Trotec and Universal laser systems).

If the PWM is used to modulate the laser power via the analog input of the power supply, changing the PWM has most likely no effect (apart from bad PWM to power linearity if the frequency is too high or too low).

If the laser power supply is capable of quickly switching the laser on and off, frequency modifications make sense. In this case the PWM signal has to be routed to the laser ON input.

I am not sure if switching the laser ON input quickly (at 5 to 10khz) kan damage power supplies that are not prepared for this, and I also do not know if would give improvements in peak power or beam quality.

We would need to do some measurements.

Peter, you mean that the PWM isn't actually used as PWM but it's translated into a analog value because you hook it up to the analog input of the power supply? And so just changing the frequency of the PWM won't really allow you to control the beam? Control like you can't make it laser dots at a specific interval?

Well, this means it's interesting to have a optional frequency support anyway in VisiCut I guess.

Peter, correct. The PWM is turned into an analog signal by the laser power supply (it has a low-pass filter on this input) to control the laser current.

If you want a specific DOT interval, you can use the raster mode (the LAOS board allows arbitrary angles for raster lines, but Visicut does not support this).

OR: Hook up the PWM output to the "LASER ON" input of your power supply. (needs a small firmware patch to switch PWM to "0" if the beam should be OFF").

I cannot guarantee that your chinese laser power supply is capable of handling high speed pulses on the input.