Atomstack on Mac Monterey

[danhgilmore (Dan Gilmore)]

I just bought an Atomstack A5 Laser and I want to use it on my MacBook Pro running Monterey. I’ve installed the latest driver, but my Mac still won’t recognize the laser.

Attached is the screenshot of the USB portion of my System Report. Any help would be grateful, as I currently have a very expensive paper weight

[berainlb (PY)]

The USB Serial device listed looks like it could be the laser. Do you have any other devices connected that could be using the CH340 driver?

Do you see the laser listed in the ports list:

ls /dev/tty.wchusbserial*

If you haven’t already tried, disconnect all other devices other then follow this sequence:

1. turn on the laser
2. open lightburn
3. Use Find My Laser or create manually. It’s possible that it won’t get auto-detected.

[danhgilmore (Dan Gilmore)]

sh-3.2# ls /dev/tty.wchusbserial*
/dev/tty.wchusbserial1410

I used Find My Laser and it wasn’t found. As a newb, I didn’t know how to create it manually.

I now have it connected, but I cannot home the laser.

[berainlb (PY)]

I believe the A5 does not have limit switches which would rule out the chance for homing. You do a manual home by starting the laser with the laser head positioned at front left. Make sure your origin in Device Settings is set to bottom left. That would have been a choice at device setup time as well.

Also disable auto-home in Device Settings.

[LaserWillie (Willy)]

@danhgilmore

I cannot home the laser.

@berainlb

I believe the A5 does not have limit switches which would rule out the chance for homing. You do a manual home by starting the laser with the laser head positioned at front left. Make sure your origin in Device Settings is set to bottom left. That would have been a choice at device setup time as well.

Also disable auto-home in Device Settings.

Everything that Berainlb said, PLUS, you want to use “Absolute Co-Ordinates”

Once you have LightBurn open, that’s when I power on and plug in my AtomStack. But before I do that I manually move the head to lower left (screen) or closest to me left (physical machine).

It will always start there and if you hit 'return to origin" that’s where it will “home” to.

You can find lots about your machine with some searching.

Good luck!

Atomstack grinding

Machine does not stop at 0,0 and will grind. How to set home coordinates to prevent grinding? Max work space is 410,400. Best settings for engraving?(wood) Best settings for black and white picture? (On wood) List item

[danhgilmore (Dan Gilmore)]

Thanks everyone. Between this post, others like it on this forum, and searching the internet, I was able to get it to work.

Now to figure out the best way to line up my workpiece with the laser

[JohnJohn (John Johnson)]

How did you solve it?

We’d love to know so we can help other folks on their way sooner.

[LaserWillie (Willy)]

@danhgilmore

Now to figure out the best way to line up my workpiece with the laser

Make a jig if you are going to be doing repeat work. If you always set the laser manually it will make production faster.