For reasons such as high beam quality and stability fiber laser systems have become increasingly more attractive for industrial applications. Fiber lasers typically employ diode lasers as a pump energy source and can comprise several individual stages. For applications not requiring the high beam quality or short pulses that can be generated by fiber lasers optically combined diode laser systems can be used.
We demonstrate a cost-effective, compact and flexible control system consisting of a single board computer and a relay circuit board. It can be used as a control unit for a stand alone fiber or diode laser but also as part of a large system comprising several laser units. The system allows local or remote control via standard interfaces and operates according to safety regulations. Defective units can be replaced and the system can be scaled to a different number of laser units without impact on the control structure.
The application as a control system for the recently released high brightness diode laser that provides 350W of output power in a 200µm core fiber will be presented as an example and the aspects of the combination of multiple units will be discussed.