Camera connecting USB

I’ve been thinking of getting the camera for one of my lasers, the only thing that has stopped me so far is connecting it to my computer. The laser is only around four foot from my computer in the workshop, but on the opposite wall, so the usb cable I use is around 10 metres and goes all the way around the room to the laser, that works fine. Most of the stuff I have connected through to the computer goes through a powered hub, but the five lasers all like a direct connection into the PC.

I was thinking of putting a small powered hub next to the laser and connecting the laser and camera this way, but I’m not sure whether the laser would like that, the alternative is to run another 10 metres cable just for the camera. Does anyone know if the camera will work okay over that length of cable?

A 10 meter USB cable isn’t advised - USB itself dictates 25 feet maximum, and that’s with a really good quality cable. The ones we ship are 10 feet. Connecting through a USB hub should be fine - they act as a relay, and re-power the signal, so there’s no voltage drop.

The Emblaser 2 from Darkly Labs has a built-in camera, controller, and USB hub, and the hub is what connects the other two to LightBurn, and it works fine, so there’s precedent.

Thanks, I’ll give a powered hub a try. Three of my lasers are on 10 metre cables, they have repeaters at one end and not had an issue if they are plugged straight into the PC rather than a hub.

Camera arrived pretty quickly - thank you. Made a perspex case and mounted the camera on the lid. Connected the camera straight into my PC with the supplied lead (this had to cross from one side of the work shop to the other). My printer wasn’t working too well so ended up making the calibration sheet from a piece of white mdf which worked great).

I used a piece of plywood to engrave the alignment points.

The trace function worked perfectly.

However when I put a piece of leather on the bed and super impose an image to engrave, it seems to laser this around 20mm above the intended target. Any ideas?

I also connected the camera cable to a 10 metre USB extension lead so I could put the cable around the outside of the work shop rather than going straight across. This works fine and camera works okay with this long cable.

Things to check:

  • Are you in “Absolute Coords” mode?
  • Is the top of the material is at the same height as when you aligned the camera?
  • Have you changed lenses or altered your focal height in any way?
  • Was the material at the focal height when you did the capture?

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