Changing from Benbox to Lightburn

[papapierre (Pierre Garneau)]

I am new at this, I bought a chinese laser engraver machine with Arduino Nano controler that runs Benbox .I do not want to run Benbox I want Lightburn. I have downloaded Lightburn, what are the steps to run Lightburn or to change firmware?

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

Welcome. I used the search at the top-right of each page, searching for “benbox” and found this for your Universal Laser system.

Firmware upgrade

after reading that Lightburn works better under GRBL-M4, I reached out to Universal Laser to see how to get the firmware upgrade (I am currently with 1.1e). I received a note saying that they recommend Benbox (of course), then a video how to upgrade. It would appear that this is done through Benbox to access the firm upgrade file. My question is whether I should go through Benbox to do the upgrade and whether Lightburn will recognize it.

[DONSTACKS (Don W Stacks)]

Yes, you need to go through Benbox. Once you have updated you will be able to use Lightburn with GRBL v. 1.h (if that’s your update).

[ferg (Marion Ferguson)]

I am getting more stupid or totally frustrated. I contacted Universal. He sent me to a video that any English speaking person would never understand. I see no way in all of what he sent me to accomplish what I need to do

[ferg (Marion Ferguson)]

I am on a Mac, his info is entirely Windows

[ferg (Marion Ferguson)]

What I do understand at this point? I have to download Virtual Box for Mac to be able to get into BenBox so I can change the FirmWare for something that probably won’t work anyway

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

This is not going to get any easier for you, unfortunately. This system has limits that are not compatible with your environment. I am not saying it can not be accomplished, but this would be well beyond what we can help you sort.

Options?

• Get a cheap Windows computer and do the firmware update from that.
• Run Windows on your mac and sort running their benbox software from there.
• Return it and buy an Ortur or another known (compatible with your Mac environment) working laser.

[ferg (Marion Ferguson)]

I will forget you suggested any of those options. Your last entries were of no help. I will remember that while I figure out what to do with LightBurn
or my universal engraver. Which I assure you isn’t the problem, it is the software they have chosen to load.

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

@ferg

Which I assure you isn’t the problem, it is the software they have chosen to load.

We agree, “it is the software they have chosen to load.” This software is known as “firmware”. This is what I circled in the other post you made. Your controller is showing the benbox is currently loaded on your laser control board. I will say this again. LightBurn does not support benbox. You need to load a different, supported firmware to your control board. This will be required prior to trying to get LightBurn to work.

Cannot run <Lightburn with BenBox on computer

I am not trying to be difficult here, but I must ask… what did you change? You say you had “this thing working fine”, what does this mean, exactly? Were you able to move the head around in the expected directions using LightBurn? Did you successfully create and burn a job? If so, what type of job? Cutting? Image work? Vector scan/fills? I am seeing that you still have benbox flashed to your controller. I would be very surprised to find any “working” to be more than coincidence as LightBurn does…