Stanwax ILDA Interface Board question

[ZeroPoint]

Hey guys, I'm nearing the completion of my first basic projector but I have a question about how to connect the interface board to the lasers. The diagram on his website shows an 8 pin connector, two pins for each color (a positive and a negative each for R,G,B,DkB). I am using DrLava's Flexmods which use 3 wires, a positive, negative and a modulation line. What is the proper way to connect the board to the driver? Do I use a common ground for the drivers and connect the board to the positive and the modulation lines or do I use a common power line for the drivers and connect the board to the modulation and ground lines? Or am I missing something completely? Thanks for any tips.

(Edit- I'm not using the color correction board at this time)

-Luke

[LaNeK779]

this is not exactly it, but it is quite similar, maybe you can have a look

http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...and-flexmod-p3

[ZeroPoint]

lol, i read through that one a bit earlier. i am leaning toward the common ground with the interface board connected to the positive and modulation wires of the driver but im still not sure if that is correct or not.

[ZeroPoint]

Even in the link you posted to Bill's article his diagram only shows a positive and a negative from the laser driver. To me that implies I could possibly get away with shorting the positive and modulation lines together and connecting the Interface board to the positive/modulation and negative wires. while this may work i feel it is not proper so I'm still on the hunt for advice from someone who is using Stanwax's board with P3's.

[LaNeK779]

To me that implies I could possibly get away with shorting the positive and modulation lines together

i am not sure i am reading this correctly, but this feels very very wrong.
what if you run 4x445 diodes in series? that is 24volts and quite bad for the modulation input...
even if it was just 5volts, you would not have any modulation. the laser would see 5v in its modulation and run CW

the psu should sent a positive to the laser driver and its negative to DC ground, the stanwax board should send a modulation line to the driver and its negative to DC ground. The remaining ground pin of the flexmod should go meet all other grounds that are all tied together along with ilda pin 25.

i have chosen to keep ac and dc ground seperate

i hope i am phrasing all this correctly and not saying major nonsense...

[ZeroPoint]

i agree the idea of shorting the two together feels very wrong. i had it set up that way when i was using the diode in a lumia but had no intention of keeping it that way for the projector. i think i am understanding what you are saying. i am understanding it this way; i connect the v+ line from the driver to the V+ line of the psu, then i connect the mod line from the driver to the positive line of the ILDA board and I connect the ground line of the driver to the ground line of the ILDA board. unfortunately i was not aware of isolating dc ground from ac ground when i started building this projector so i wont be doing it this time around. i will keep that in mind for my next attempt though. this is all making sense to me but now i am curious, are the dc signal grounds already grounded to pin 25 via the internals of the board or do i manually have to ground them together by means of a jumper or solder joint of sorts?

[taggalucci]

Please search for single point ground on here

[taggalucci]

And see this... http://www.photonlexicon.com/forums/...778#post158778

[ZeroPoint]

Thank you both!

[stanwax]

When using FMP3 I tend to put 2 wires to the ground terminal of the P£, one to Power in and one to for the ground for the modulation into the laser.
This will work no probs. Yes the single point grounding wis a good practice but most of the time as long as you dont get ground loops you will be ok
Rob