Im running two 27" iMacs with Lightburn and I have to say I love it. Plug N play all the way. Plug the light burn camera in viola its working, not so sure if that would have happened with windows 10. I love the easy file sharing between the Macs. When I first set the Laser up I had a Windows 10 Laptop, I hated it, I could get files off the Mac but all the fonts I used on the Mac did not transfer to the Laptop and thus my setup was messed up.
I haven’t found it yet but is there a way to share the Lightburn camera?
Fire is something that is always possible. I know I can’t prevent people from running their lasers unattended, but I won’t add features that encourage it. If you have a fire and kill someone, I need to know I didn’t help that happen. I’ve seen too many post-fire pictures captioned “I had to pee” or “the doorbell rang” - it happens very quickly.
Oz- I know this solution but I am not so fond of deleting some system files in OSX because I do not know enough about this operating system. Right now I run the laser with LB on Windows 7 in my workshop and LB on Mac in the living room - without laser control. To learn and experiment with LB, it is an acceptable solution for me.
It works fine on my mac which i am really pleased about but i had to use a windows computer and T2 demo software to update the GRBL firmware. Haven’t found out yet whether lightburn can update the firmware, i am very new to this software but so far very happy that i can use it on my mac.
mines running on 10.14.3 perfectly but its a grbl laser from Endurance lasers, or as mentioned previously “a wee little diode” but guaranteed to run for 48 hours non stop and 10,000 hours diode life. Not many lasers out there that can do that or last that long, cuts through 8 mm plywood no problem. Once its focused properly it works fine, i thought it would never run on a mac and never bothered trying as i was stuck using inkscape which i dont like, i was told to download LB and try it, downloaded , plugged in the laser and it worked straight away and sees the facetime camera, now seriously thinking of adding an additional facetime camera to the circuit board and running this on the laser.
mine is a Endurance lasers 8.5 watt plus DIY 300x400 mm model on a Eleksmaker mana board with grbl1.1f, I used t2 demo on a win 10 machine to flash the firmware as it works incredibly well on that side of things and i dont know yet whether LB will flash firmware. using grbl-3 as the device laser
I still have a long way to go in setting up the cutting area, sorting out a camera and getting to know LB but it seems to run well i was playing with rectangles yesterday and text and found my text was mirrored and have now been told how to set this correctly but this was a one pass cut in my wifes old bamboo 1 inch thick chopping board which i use for setting it up.
still lots to do and now i understand how the camera interacts with LB this is an amazing piece of kit where you can take a photo of something and burn it straight away, miles ahead of all the other softwares out there. I have tried 3 before this and this is the one i will buy now. free software forget it. its useful but this is so much better and easier to get to grips with.
It sounds interesting, I have also looked at the Russian laser but are reasonably skeptical. Now you write - 8mm plywood, have you tried it yourself ???
My 5 Watt laser uses a lot of laps to cut through 3mm plywood and I’m seriously considering buying a CO2 laser. But if that’s right, what you write then it’s an alternative.
Have I understood correctly that you are driving on grbl 1.1 g or f?
Sincerely
Bernd
I am running f, go and speak with George at Endurance , he is a great guy , genuine and trustworthy, i have cut 8mm ply in about 4 passes once i got the focus right, i avoided the co2 lasers as most were cheap chinese with crap electrics and only last about 750/1000 hours on the tube. you can buy the laser and board if you have all the steppers and framework, you dont have to buy a complete laser, go chat with him on whatsapp is the best way on his website and tell him i told you to call as he knows me well. I have had no problems with my laser or talking with george re setting it up, they prefer to use inkscape and their own plugins and dont support LB i think. It’s just the way they went. I am very happy with mine and the fact it runs on my mac i am over the moon as i hate windows and always have. (sorry windows users) I was brought up in a mac environment 35 years ago! I never thought ever i would get the laser working properly until i tried this software, i much prefer it to inkscape, he guarantees his lasers for 10,000 hours and continuously running for 48 hours, he now has 10 watt lasers and 20 watt setups as well, hes based in Russia and Florida.
With firmware f you could run on grbl (the new one), I haven’t updated my firmware yet. I am also very happy to be able to run LB with my mac but in the workshop I have an old windos machine only for laser control and I am very pleased with this solution. It’s a fantastic hobby we have!
I will try to get in touch with the Endurance Laser.
The one annoying issue I have with my Mac is that it occasionally disconnects the USB to the machine. And the camera is quirky as well. I leave my Mac running 24/7 so maybe I need to just get used to unplugging these things to reset them.
This weekend I’ll be running Ethernet to the computer and machine and Im hoping for much better responsiveness.
I had a 5mw laser set up before but I could never get that running right, never got consistent results and did not have the support forums we have today. It was a home-built machine running Mach3 and Id run the photos or vector files though BobCad or Cambam to get my G-Code. UUghh that was awful.
So now that I broke the bank and purchased my Chinese R&B 5070 I could not be happier with the results. Thanks Lightburn
good luck and yes it is a great hobby, just make sure you have a smoke detector somewhere! Also a fire blanket or Extinguisher, i have noted just how much smoke comes pouring out of the cuts when you are on full power, i will have to make a cabinet for my laser with smoke evacuation, light protection, camera placement etc, i could even stick a halon injection system into it if a fire caught, i have someone who would make a circuit up for me and i have a couple of halon extinguishers in the garage as i have quite a lot of kit in there, lathe, mill mig, tig, and acetylene setup so i am a bit paranoid with all the gas around.
