Comgrow camera not working with Lightburn

[madswede (S Nils)]

Thank you for that thread! It’s a real shame that nobody from Lightburn has bothered to come by and chime in at all

I’ve done the very same as outlined by the support person from Lightburn in that thread you were so kind to share, however where things break down is that I don’t have any access to the camera permissions as I’m on an older High Sierra OSX version.

This is all I have on this Macbook ( snippet below), as those permissions were not implemented in High Sierra, I believe it was in Mojave and later.

What’s more suspicious to me is that I see Lightburn sells cameras that are “configured by the manufacturer for use with LightBurn, and will work equally well on Windows or Mac Systems”…

LightBurn Camera

I’ve gone as far as to try to compile an old Parallels workaround called replug_facetime but it won’t compile. I suspect this is mainly due to how Apple has just continually made things more difficult for developers over the years by deprecating libraries at whim with no adequate replacement.

mac_usb_eject/replug_facetime at master · dskr99/mac_usb_eject

I’m wondering now if LightBurn is blocking cameras by looking for their own signature in the protocol to state “LightBurn Certified” and viola it works… but if you get a camera from someone else other than LightBurn your in the same boat I am in right now. Apple did this with the 5,1 Mac Pro towers when they were blocking OS upgrades with a int value of 0 to 1 in their boot loader. I sure hope that’s not the case here.

[parsec (FerAS)]

@madswede

Thank you for that thread! It’s a real shame that nobody from Lightburn has bothered to come by and chime in at all

They can’t be everywhere all the time, their doing their best, sometime life gets in the middle sometimes the unknown happens…We are all doing our best to learn and help others. We can use time to learn more things but for now we can´t stretch time

@madswede

I’m wondering now if LightBurn is blocking cameras by looking for their own signature in the protocol to state “LightBurn Certified” and viola it works

Don´t think that please, just look to the way people at Lightburn offer us a good piece of software and with “old-school conditions” and always thinking from the user’s point of view, paying attention to what transpires on the forum and trying to improve.
I have a cheap 5MP camera that worked first time.
.
We’re all Lightburn.

[madswede (S Nils)]

Not expecting immediate responses but after a few days one would start to wonder if anyone is at the helm on the LightBurn side, that’s only natural.

Especially true when a new member posts up and received a response within the same day from the support team.

In my research I’ve come across several posts regarding the camera feature in lightburn and many not resulting in any real solution unfortunately. Even folks with higher resolution me machines like OmTech couldn’t get their camera to work in LightBurn. Granted some Mac issues were related to permissions, and in my case that’s not the problem. Others have stated not to use a hub, also not the problem. ( just trying to work through what else it could be now other than this camera or LightBurn or both not being able to work with each other for some reason ) ( It’s also not as if these cameras come with any certifications or details on their specifications or protocols either … )

Below are those threads.

From 2020

Mac Camera Software

That’s a marketing description. Go to Apple > About this Mac > system Report > USB, and select the camera. You will see the USB IDs: In my case Product ID is 0x082d, vendor ID is 0x046d [Screen Shot 2020-12-18 at 12.39.17 PM] SZ.com is a good lookup engine: USB ID Database - Vendor ID and Product ID list - the sz development (0x indicates it’s a hex number - you can search for 082d, just as 0x082d) Once you have that info, you can chase down a driver. This would mean connecting the came…

From 2022

Is There A List Of 3rd Party Supported Cameras?

That’s me actually. It’s openly discussed in this forum. A search for compatible cameras will bring up a lot of such cases. Check this FAQ entry for some discussion of drivers: Windows 7 Drivers for LightBurn Camera - FAQ - LightBurn Software Forum I don’t see a specific reference to UVC in LightBurn documentation but the screenshot used only lists non LightBurn cameras. I don’t think in any case is it implied or enforced that only LightBurn cameras are to be used. [image] I’m only try…

From 2023

Trouble calibrating ELP 16mp camera

I have an OMTECH AF2028-60w, Ruida KT332N controller and an ELP 16mp 68 degree camera that covers the work bed perfectly. The work bed is well lit. I was looking for the best resolution I could get. When trying to calibrate the camera in the latest version of Lightburn, I choose the camera and standard lens then Calibrate but scores “Image: 0 (4656 X 3496): Pattern NON found - try again”. I have tried the target on the honeycomb alone and also on a white cardboard covering the whole honeycomb …

Revisit - Comgrow Universal Lightburn Camera

Has anyone had success with this camera. I purchased one and was impressed buy its construction. It fits well on my XTool D1 Pro. However, I am not impressed buy the image quality or its accuracy. I am new at this so I am not sure what to expect. However, I can not get it to calibrate via Ligthburn’s custom calibration. If I chose the recommended preset my image does not accurately reflect the burn location. If I adjust the X and Y to align the image with the burn for one corner it will b…

Lightburn crashes when trying to connect to camera for calibration

I have a MacBook Air, running macOS Ventura 13.01, and an OMTech Polar laser. Lightburn does a great job connecting to my laser, and running jobs nicely. The problem lies with the camera. I have the camera plugged directly into my PC. I can connect to the camera using “Window > Camera Control” and selecting the camera. When I go into the “Laser Tools > Calibrate Camera Lens” window, I select my camera, and fisheye calibration - after that the “Next” button is entirely grayed out, and I cannot…

Mac OS, Camera/Port issues

MacOS permissions are a bit of a minefield, we’ve seen an uptick in camera-related issues with 3rd party cameras in Ventura.

Now granted it’s a big ask that every camera on the market be tested but some basic guidelines regarding specifications, brand/manufacturer and along with specific troubleshooting would go a long way.

I am now going to pick up a different 8mp 100degree camera that is also stated to be Mac OS and lightburn compatible and see if I can achieve usable results on the Mac with it and LightBurn.

That trick you mentioned above for the PC does help to unlock lightburn foe the time being so that’s a help to get me moving forward for now.

[JohnJohn (John Johnson)]

I’ve got a Comgrow engraver with their Camera.
I don’t have a Mac for testing (yet).

My camera is working on Win 10.

I just got back from vacation. After I catch up, I’ll respond more fully and commit to further testing.

[madswede (S Nils)]

Thanks JohnJohn,
Any debug logs or additional support data I can provide for Mac, please don’t hesitate to ask, I have a variety of Mac’s at my disposal and I’d be happy to send that info along.

[madswede (S Nils)]

I wanted to come back and revisit this to provide further context as I’m sure other folks will undoubtedly run into a similar situation like this in one way or another when using the Comgrow Camera with an older 2010 era Macbook.

Firstly, permissions for the camera are not an issue as there are none on OSX High Sierra related to the camera, however newer versions do have this option so be sure to check that regardless.

Now since I only had this one camera and cable to test, my results were limited to just testing PC and Mac platforms.

Using a PC proved to be successful but provided a false positive in testing as it would work, meaning it would provide an image, not repeatedly, but on the Mac you would get nothing and Lightburn wouldn’t return any error message only a grey space in the UI, that once you see it work, you can assume there would be an image placed there.

I then went out and sourced two other cameras of the same type, 75degrees, 8mp and both worked when plugged into the Mac and PC using their supplied cables.

Now that I had a second cable to test with from the other cameras I acquired, and had video output in both Facetime ( which is a quick way to see if your camera will work with your Mac ) I chose to use the supplied Comgrow cable. It would not work. The Comgrow cable is a bit under 10’, and seems to work with the PC I had but not the Mac.

I then opted to run a USB A booster hub and used the same Comgrow cable connected to the Mac, It would not work.

I then opted to chain some USB A extensions to meet under 10’ length of the provided Comgrow cable and plugged that into the hub, this worked.

I reverted back to not using the hub but with the USB A extensions and It would not work.

So the cable that is under 10’ provided by Comgrow, works for the PC, without a powered hub, but on the Macbook it requires a powered hub, but made from extensions but the Comgrow cable will not work still.

A continuity test on all traces on the Comgrow cable showed that there were no broken connections, but for whatever reason, it just would not work with the Macbook, powered hub or not.

As I did not have access to a second cable initially to do any further testing it was assumed that there was indeed an issue between Lightburn and the camera, this is not the case. ( a UI update to show where an image would be displayed would help the UX a bit so folks could know with certainty that there was an image or not, rather than looking at just grey UI )

The issue stems from possibly this Comgrow cable and with Apple and their overly fussy USB ports on their Macbooks. I have yet to try this on an older 5,1 MacPro tower and I suspect that it will most likely work like the PC did, but just not with the Macbooks.

[parsec (FerAS)]

As you have it working in Windows try this:
On PC right-click inside Camera Control window and export Camera Settings then on Mac Import Camera Settings, select your camera and test (no need to calibrate again).

[madswede (S Nils)]

Thank you,
I’ve exported that out and tried to import on the Mac. LightBurn winds up consuming almost 100% of the CPU on the Mac. I’m going to try restarting again and see if that winds up fixing things on my side. ( I tried on both a 2010 Macbook and 2012 Macbook, both exhibit the same issue - both have fresh clean OSX installs, PRAM and NVRAM has been reset on both laptops as well )