Oh that i know Iāve played with the laser already. Thank you for the input though
@Chrslintz I take that to mean that the button worked, yes? Iām asking because Iām hoping that yours does and that my problem is an isolated case.
Yes it operates as it should
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@Chrslintz Excellent! Tks much, Chris. Iām hoping to convince Banggood to replace mine as it is clearly defective. Take care. Have fun.
Good luck and thank you for the help
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I have my laser working I can,adjust it with the fire button fine. I tried to burn a circle I can see the laser but itās not burning. Any suggestions. ?
@Incredz Justin:
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After you use the button to set where you want to start, be sure to press the button again to send full power.
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Be sure to enable laser mode in your Long Mill controller. $32=1. (Be sure to turn it off when you are finished with the laser.) Set the power to max. $30=100. You can do this in either UGS or Lightburn.
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Are you using Lightburn? If so, make sure that you set the max power setting to the same 100. (
Some advice is to set $30=1000 and LB to the same. I saw no difference. (But then my laser is defective.) -
In Lightburn, set the power and speed for each file as you start to burn it. Too fast, even at full power, you will get no burn. Itās a balancing act between power and speed that only playing with it will give you what you need.
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Stevendq had to resort to this myself but it came the next day and I am back on trackš
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Anyone have examples of speeds they use. Whatās the fastest you should go ? Iām getting it to work just trying to adjust to get the most done for time wise. I know I will playing with it jus wondering what speeds others we going too ? And how far lazer from wood ?
I received my Banggood 5w laser yesterday and did some tests today. When powered on without PWM signal the output of the laser is 100%. This is dangerous and this behavior can be stopped by adding a 1K Ohm resistor between the + and - of the PWM connector on the laser driver board. I also measured the PWM signal from the Longmill controller board, it is 5V and around 1KHz. I used Lightburnās power setting to set the PWM output (changed $10=0, $30=1000, and $32=1) and saw the output change on the Longmill board accordingly.
@gwilki If your laser is constantly at full power it could be that there is no PWM signal due to a broken or loose wire. Another possibility could be a crossing in the wire (gnd should be on pwm- and SpinPWM on pwm+).
@Incredz I played with 500mm/min and I get a good burn on pine and mdf. I nice sharp line. My PWM is not working so, when I go from one graphic to another, I get a burn line. I have the fast move set to 1000. The burn line is very light at that speed. I have the laser at about 2.75" from the piece.
@GertJan Tks, Gert. Iāve double checked all the wires, and the polarity. All is well there. I believe that my problem is a defective laser.
Interesting about the resistor. That was mentioned in a Shapeoko thread, too. What wattage of resistor did you use, or does it matter? Before you installed it, did the small āweakā button on your laser driver work? Did it operate the same way with the resistor in place?
On mine, the button does nothing but cause a small red led to flash. It does not change the intensity of the laser at all. Similarly, using LB to reduce the power temporarily to position the piece does nothing.
@gwilki My āweakā button worked with and without the resistor. For my test, Iāve used a 1/4 watt but anything will do. I think I will solder an SMD resistor right behind the PWM connector. Basically it will prevent the laser from firing without the cable installed, or a floating PWM output from the Longmill board when itās powered off / disconnected from USB.
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WOW! Just got USPS notice my laser will be here Monday August 31st instead of September 13th. Have to get moving with the software. From what I have seen yāall are using Lightburn to drive the laser. I need to get it downloaded and installed so I can figure out how to use it. I guess I will also have to wait testing until my safety glasses get here too. Can hardly wait to get started.
I just read up on Lightburn. Not a bad price for the license. Iām guessing I need to sign up for the Gcode version, correct? Just making sure. Iām not going to download the trial until all is hooked up and ready to test. Want to have maximum time to test it out.
@Heyward43 - yes G-Code version. My laser showed up on 8-17 when it was supposed to arrive 8-30. Goggles showed up the next day. Havenāt had time to test the laser yet - hopefully not the nightmare Grant has been experiencingā¦
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@Heyward43 As Steve already told you, H, you do want the gcode version. It is good software, but there is a lot to it. Much for me was not intuitive. Also, it was not first created for our type of laser. So, there are many features that are not applicable to our set ups. Like UGS, you can create macros to turn on and off laser mode and set the speed settings for laser mode and router mode.
I found the way that it sets origins very confusing and Iām not completely sure that I really understand it now. There are threads on the LB forum that talk about this. It does not set work origin at all like UGS, for example. As I said, it was not originally written for a setup like ours.
All that said, I believe that you will get on fine with it. I managed to do some burns and got the speed settings worked out to get a decent line. Since the PWM on my laser does not work, I was only able to do full power, continuous line burns. It seemed to do OK on them.
Have fun.
@gwilki Thanks for that info Grant. I am a total newbie working with lasers. I guess I will go through a lot of wood scraps before I can claim proficiency. Is there any other laser software out there? I guess I can search and find out. We will see.
@Heyward43 I played with lasergrbl for a while. It is much more limited than LB, but it is written specifically for grbl lasers (obviously, right?). You cannot draw in it. You can only run gcode. It worked well for me. - again within the limitations of my defective laser. Itās freeware.
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@gwilki Thanks for that info. I downloaded it and gave it a quick try. Seems ok. Iāll have to do some reading for all of the parameter settings. Iām not really interested in using it for drawing. Just gcode runs. I have Vcarve-pro for drawing. Does Lightburn have drawing capability? I may just stick with lasergrbl for a while since itās free.