Hi,
Brand new to Lightburn, watched a couple of the videos, they are great, but the gentleman who does them moves VERY fast, so I wasn’t always sure what he did to get the result - but I was impressed by the amount of stuff Lightburn does.
Anyway…
Macboook Air running Catalina (because it works great with audio software I have for Voiceover work), I have a Snapmaker 1 (5" square build plate), which worked great with a cheap pc laptop but does not work with Lightburn.
I also have a brand new Atomstack laser with a 15" build plate. I tried to use snapmaker as a dummy laser, since Atomstack is not listed (I imagine it is a Grbl controller?), but nothing will talk to my Mac. I have tried a different printer cable, just in case and still nothing.
I wanted to try the Snapmaker, figuring it would at least communicate, but nothing there either.
I had hoped that when i plugged in the Snapmaker, Lightburn would go - ooh, different laser, and search for the driver. Bit that is not an option. I think it would be nice to have that feature, I couldn’t find the Device page once the first laser was dummied in.
I’m thinking I should just uninstall Lightburn and reinstall it (I’m still using the free trial since it’s my first day), but I can’t seem to find a way to uninstall it either.
I’m really frustrated, as I thought this would go a lot easier! OH, and when I try to re-open a design I did, it shows up in the layers but not on the design area (as a design).
I’m sure some of this is easy, but I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.
Any help is appreciated!
There is no need or value in reinstalling LightBurn so don’t recommend you bother.
LightBurn does not install any drivers. I believe the one exception is for the FTDI driver which is an optional install for DSP controllers. LightBurn depends on drivers from the Operating System to function.
Both the Snapmaker and Atomstack should use CH340 drivers. With Catalina you should not need to install new drivers as it should be bunded with the OS.
However, even if the driver is installed and the laser detected the by the OS, LightBurn may not automatically find the laser. In those cases manual creation of the device should be sufficient to get things working.
First, determine if your lasers are being detected in the OS.
Can you turn on the laser and take a screenshot of System Report->Hardware->USB for each of your lasers? You’re looking for something that looks like a USB Serial device.
Additionally run this command in Terminal while the lasers are on and return results:
ls /dev/*usb*
You’re looing for something that looks like cu.wchusbserialfd###.
When configuring the device, Snapmaker will be device type of Snapmaker. Atomstack will be GRBL as you say.
Thanks so much! I was not able to detect the lasers as a device in settings, but I will try all of your ideas! Sorry for the delay, we have started Summer Reading which makes me a busy librarian!
Libraries are one of our most underappreciated resources so glad to hear it’s being taken advantage of.
First order of business is to just determine if your OS is properly detecting the laser by checking System Report and running the ls command. There’s a chance that for some reason the existing driver won’t work properly and you’ll need to install a new one but see if you can confirm the detection.
Nearly all the difficulty in getting LightBurn setup is with OS detection of the laser. Once that works then getting LightBurn up is usually pretty straightforward.
Thanks! And thanks for the kind words. I have had a 3d printer in the library, but the builds take too long for kids, so laser engraving, where they can see a result in a few minutes is better for all of us!
I’ll be checking this weekend. I truly appreciate the tips and expertise!