Cannot Frame with Ruida 6445G in MacOS Catalina 10.15.4

My good ol’ ThinkCenter got Stuck in Automatic Repair Loop in Windows10 today. With no hope for quick fix. I have to cut a couple of rush projects so I connected my Web surfing MacMini to the Laser and installed a fresh copy of LightBurn 1.0.03 in trial mode just to finish these rush cuts while the WindowsPC is in repair shop.
The UI is identical and I had laboured over the preferences and machine settings hard enough to remember all the settings ( I also cheated some by checking my scribbles n notes ) to bring the LightBurn to the perfection I remembered on my Windows10 box. All went well until I tried to " FRAME " a cut : " the dreaded intermittent, half frames and only in X direction moves " I get when I hit the Frame button inside LightBurn. That said Frame Button on Ruida works as expected. Although I just tested the pre-canned files that come with Ruida.
I am able to cut as usual. Although I don’t completely trust the system with that obvious glitch. While it’s cutting I am reading to hit the big Red Stop button.
This is just for reporting a case as I will be going back to the WindowsPC machine soon enough.

There are known issues with Macs over USB to Ruida controllers. We did not let that stop us, we developed the LightBurn Bridge as a solution. :slight_smile:

LightBurn Bridge

The LightBurn Bridge was created by LightBurn to get around some of the limitations of Ruida controllers. Ruida uses the UDP network protocol, which does not guarantee data transmission, and is therefore not reliable enough to use over WIFI. Mac users often do not have a network port on their computers, and running a network cable is often impractical or cumbersome. In addition, Apple’s device driver for the USB connection to the Ruida has issues that often cause data loss.

The LightBurn Bridge overcomes all of this. It’s a Raspberry Pi running software created by LightBurn to act as a relay between your PC and laser. You connect to it using TCP, so the commands are reliably sent even over WIFI. The Bridge forwards the commands to the controller using a short network cable, and relays responses back to your computer.

The LightBurn Bridge is simple to configure, requires no drivers, and typically sends data 50% to 100% faster than a USB connection. - LightBurn Bridge - LightBurn Software Documentation

Thanks Rick. This is a very intriguing solution for a stubborn problem that will never go away. I have a few RPi’s rev3 in the drawer that are begging for getting back to work. Cann’r wait to build this bridge. Thank you very much for making the software available.
Meanwhile, I decided to dedicate that 2012 MacMini to my laser cutter. after disconnecting from all the local networks, connected the Laser cutter’s ethernet directly to MacMini with a patch cable. In MacMini’s system preferences > Network, set the IPV4 to Manual. Then restarted both Laser Cutter and Mac. The IPV4 now revealed the subnet as 255.255.0.0. I entered a manual entry for the MacMini’s IP address. At this point I started the LightBurn and went through the setup for connecting to Ruida through ethernet and it worked. Now the LightBurn recognizes the Laser as an Ethernet connected machine.
The smoothness of a few operations through ethernet is noticeable straight away. For example I had always accepted that Framing a circle cut stutters as a matter fact. Obviously the stutter have been the data transfer limit through USB because Now through the ethernet, Circle cuts Frame smoothly and precisely. Besides the point that actually getting a Frame command done on MacOS is great.

Thanks again for mentioning the LightBurn Bridge option. I will definitely go that rout as soon as the assignments are cut and delivered.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.