Connecting and communicating Laser JL3 with Lightburn

berainlb · January 28, 2023, 5:08pm

A few questions:

Does your machine attempt to home immediately upon powering on?
Did your machine previously home properly with the native software?
If yes to either of the 2 above, to what corner did it originally home?
How many stepper motors are used for the Y-axis?
Can you physically see limit switches that would be activated with the laser module at left and back position? Or left and front postion?

Pops · January 28, 2023, 5:13pm

To try and answer your questions, I have never got it to communicate with the lightburn until just now. The laser has always been in the back left corner since I assembled it.
I dont know what stepper motors or limit switches are.
Thank you for answering.
When I power it on, it starts vibrating like it may be trying to move. It vibrates about 15 seconds, stops, and then i get the error message.if

berainlb · January 28, 2023, 5:24pm

Did you ever connect the laser with the native software provided by Wainlux?

These are the motors that drive the motion of the laser. They’ll look like this:

These are typically electromechanical switches that are meant to detect proximity to an object.

They come in all sorts of shapes but could look like this:

These get activated when the laser head moves to the home position. However, not all lasers come with these.

Please review the previous questions to see if you can provide more information based on this.

Try this, with the laser off, slowly move the laser head to the center of the bed, then turn on. Does the laser attempt to move to any corner?

Pops · January 28, 2023, 5:34pm

I moved the laser to the center and turned it on. It moved to the back left corner and started vibrating again like it is trying to go further it stops vibrating after about 15 seconds. There are 2 small black boxes with red buttons in the wiring but im not sure what they are.
I guess I have 2 stepper motors.
How can i paste a photo so you can see what im talking about?

jkwilborn · January 28, 2023, 6:41pm

Get a photo or screen shot - drag and drop it on the reply window… Same with some other file types.

Pops · January 28, 2023, 7:38pm

Hi Jack, I figured out the small black boxes with the red buttons (see prior post) were limit switches.
When i turn the laser on it goes to the back left corner, hits the switches and comes back to front left corner👍.
I sent you a ScreenShot of my laptop. Now I,m getting an Alarm 2
Any ideas?

Pops · January 28, 2023, 7:39pm

jkwilborn · January 28, 2023, 9:36pm

Figure out how to cut and paste or screen copy. A photo of the screen is sometimes un readable.

When you boot it, and it’s completed it’s homing, see what you get with the ‘get position’ in the move window.

Mine did the opposite, homed to the front/right and then moved to the rear/left…

I ended up running LsrSal firmware… It’s not a release version… Might want to stick with what you have…

Colin · January 28, 2023, 9:51pm

This is usually handy for those that aren’t sure how: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/

Roger - Error 2 means the machine is being commanded to move outside of the area it can possibly move. Usually this is due to a misconfigured Origin point for your laser. If you go to ‘Edit > Device Settings’ what is selected here:

If it looks as it does in the image above, try selecting the circle directly above it (the top left circle) this will set your origin point to be where your laser goes to home (which should be the case)

Pops · January 28, 2023, 10:00pm

The screenshot is a lightburn error message, it says: "ALARM: 2
G-code motion target exceeds machine travel. Machine position safely retained. Alarm may be unlocked. (Right click the ‘Devices’ button to reset the connection). On or near the line 2:

Does this make sense to you?

Pops · January 28, 2023, 10:04pm

Colin, that’s something ive been confused about. I dont know what my working size is. How would I know?

Pops · January 28, 2023, 10:30pm

How do i find out what my working area or bed size is?

Colin · January 28, 2023, 10:30pm

This page shows it is X:370mm and Y:410mm (Width is X, Height is Y)

Pops · January 28, 2023, 10:35pm

Do I convert that to inches?
That would only be 14.567 x 16.142 inches?

Colin · January 28, 2023, 10:47pm

If it shows inches in the ‘Working Size’ area, then yes. You can also just switch back and forth from In/mm with this button on the main screen.

jkwilborn · January 28, 2023, 10:52pm

If you are in Lightburn, use the supplied interface Edit → Machine settings and it will read the information from the machine. I’d suggest

save the current (right or wrong) information from the Machine settings screen just in case you change something as a mistake. It’s more than easy to forget what you did change, let alone what it was value wise.
the gui gives you the names in your language so it’s much more difficult to change the wrong item.
write it back to the controller after a change.

Always backup, even bad data is better than no data.

Pops · February 8, 2023, 9:58pm

Jack, I thought I’d tell you how much I appreciate you helping me get my engraver communicating with Lightburn.
It’s working, now I’m trying to figure out the Lightburn Program.
Thanks again,
Pop Myers

jkwilborn · February 8, 2023, 10:20pm

There are a number of introduction to Lightburn videos out there…

If you have anything in specific… give a shout…

Take care… have fun

Pops · February 8, 2023, 10:29pm

Thanks a lot

system · March 10, 2023, 10:30pm

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