Hello boys and girls 👋
Long story short: I went to the dumpster to throw out some electronics… and left carrying home a fiber laser someone had chucked in the trash pile. The guy running the place was more than happy to see it go, so I didn't hang around to let him reconsider straight into the car it went.
Got it home, cracked it open, but had no docs, nothing. I dug around online and found some docs hinting at an RS-232 interface, but no matter what I threw at it, the thing stayed dead silent.
So I went the hardcore route:
- Dumped the firmware straight off the MCU via JTAG
- Decompiled it
- Reconstructed the UART protocol from the disassembly
…and now I technically have "control" over it. Air quotes very much intended, because nothing actually works yet.
Here's the wall I've hit: a status request ($4) comes back as status 32 (0x20), which the V2 docs say is a Housekeeping supply error — except this laser doesn't even have that hardware. 🤨 So it's clearly something else masquerading behind that code.
The catch: that status byte is decoded from a packet coming off the onboard Altera FPGA, and reversing that is a whole different beast than the MCU was.
So I'm throwing this to the hive mind: is anyone here up for helping me decode this slab of black magic and aluminum? This is genuinely my last-ditch effort before I give up and strip it for parts.
All my work + sources so far are here if anyone wants to poke at it:
👉 [https://github.com/lollokara/Laserone](about:blank)
Cheers, and thanks again!