Ive tried everything but no luck. Lightburn wont find my laser. I had to replace the board with a MKS Gen L v2.1 and so far i cant get it to work. It will power up but lightburn cant find it.
- What computer are you on?
- What firmware are you running?
- What have you attempted to do?
- Do you see anything in Console?
For PC, im using an HP laptop. It worked previously before my orginal board (the stock one) got damaged
Firmware, I havent been able to upload anything to the board itself. Ive installed the ch340 driver but still no luck. My computer does recognize the connection in device manager.
I have attempted to upload firmware with Xloader but it always freezes and never completes.
One last detail is with this board Im not sure where this plug goes. Its the only one I have without a spot. Ive read through so many diagrams but Ive had no luck finding any answer for this one wire from the laser. (2 pin red connector in my hand)
The board:
Lightburn wont reconize it at all. Ive changed all the settings around. I will get the “ready” note however it always says waiting for connection.
So is your plan to run Marlin on this? Or you plan to try to convert this to GRBL?
Do you see a port assigned to the controller in Device Manager?
Is that from the laser? Where does it connect to? So it’s a 2-pin connector with only 1 wire?
Typically this will be a matter of getting the right baud rate and DTR combination. I’d suggest starting with the highest speed and working down. Try with both DTR on and off.
This won’t be an easy setup. The board you are using is a 3D printer board. You need to compile your own firmware that fits to the pinout of the board. That requires some fiddling with settings, documentation etc. I don’t think it’s possible to run any grbl firmware there, only Marlin, as PY mentioned. That’s why you can’t xloader nor any other tool.
There are no connectors for your plugs because it’s a different board design. You need to change the cables / connectors to make it fit.
Finally, I recommend changing the board to an MKS DLC or MKS DLC32 board. These are pin-compatible with the Sculpfun lasers and a plug and play replacement. Have a look here:
See answers above.
I kinda figured this would be my luck but with it being a board from MKS i was hopeful that someone has ran into this and figured it out.
There are connectors that fit into place, at least it seems to. See picture below:
Also note: the air fan plug in the second picture is not plugged in. Thats not the single pin red connector I reference above.
If the type of connector fits, it doesn’t mean that they should go into those plugs. The three wires of the laser module are power (the two-wire connector) they need to be connected to 12V. The single wire is the signal wire, it needs a 5V PWM signal from any pin where you can send a PWM signal to.
The air pump wire can be connected to one of the bed or HE connectors, I think they supply 12V which the pump needs.
You may have made this harder for yourself in that case. This board is originally a board for 3D printing and natively runs Marlin. It’s essentially an Arduino Mega + Ramps 1.4 merged together.
I did see some projects where people have converted GRBL-MEGA to run on this board but nothing that seemed well packaged. If you’re familiar with embedded programming you could like take one of the existing projects or modify the original to get this to work but this won’t be a plug and play type of affair.
Using Marlin likely will be its own pain.
If you have a port configured for the board, you should be able to get it to connect with variations in baud rate and DTR. Whether it works for you is a separate story.
Separate question, what’s wrong with the original board that’s prompting you to swap?
Got it. The position I have the 2 pin connector in is a 12v and gnd recpet. I think, i say with hesitancy, is correct. The remaining red i can get 5v to easily however its a constant which keeps the laser on at all times. My thought was that its a signal wire but without knowing which position on the board sends that signal, I dont know where to put it.
I have the port configured in the sense that my PC sees it but nothing seems to interact with it (Xloader, lasergrbl or Lightburn)
Stupid mistake. A board fell on the connection and snapped the board inside.
Typically for 3d printer controllers PWM is connected to either fan or heated bed connectors if a more appropriate source does not exist. One challenge is in making sure the PWM frequency is adequate for laser operation. You want this to be at least 1KHz.
What configurations have you tried?
Start with a baud rate of 250,000. Try with DTR both on and off. If that doesn’t work, try progressively slower rates down to 115,200.
Okay. So board is definitely dead, correct?
It is. Its snapped around the USB-B connector.
Ill try by messing with the baud rate. I should do that in Lightburn?
Yes. But others should work.
You could try with something like Pronterface or any terminal program if you wanted as well.
Thank you! I have tried on so many other forums and Facebook groups with no responses at all. I appreciate it.
By the way, just drop a message with the broken board to Sculpfun support (support@sculpfun3d.com). They usually send out a new board, even if the damage was your fault.
This is a great option.
If you want to continue down this path I located a few posts from people that are using this board and have loaded Mega-5x which is a GRBL fork.