Ender 3 S1 Pro Tips, Tricks and Suggestions

LightBurn Hardware Compatibility
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Thought I would start a new topic and try to gather all tips and tricks and setup help for Ender 3 S1 pro into one area. I will add anything I figure out as i go but if you have anything to add, please do since this is not working correctly yet. I must still edit Gcode manually for it to work.

USB Connection issues
Lightburn will see the Ender 3 S1 pro. If your having issues like I was you can try to uninstall and reinstall the device and or drivers using this link.

further info on this can be found here.

If that does not work be sure to try different USB cables and or USB ports.
After reinstalling drivers and switching cables and USB ports several times lightburn finally found my Laser.

It sees it as a GRBL-M3(1.1e or earlier)
However, there are several issues with the gcode it creates for the ender 3 s1 pro.
One is the first M3 needs to be a M3 I (that is a capital i)
This fixes issues with it controlling laser on/off

Also framing on machine will not work since the gcode header info it not in the right format. It should match this format.

;Header Start
;estimated_time(s): 11122.554
;MAXX: 149.48
;MAXY: 93.57
;MINX: 64.84
;MINY: 6.47
;Header End

G21
G92 X0 Y0 Z0
G90
G0 F3000
G1 F1500
M3 I
M9

You could also add this to have machine BEEP when engraving is complete.
;beep when done
M300 S440 P200

And if you want to get use of more space on your bed, this will turn off the soft limits.
M211S0 ;Removes 220x220 Soft Endstops

M211S1 ;turns soft limits on again.

I am currently using the following settings in lightburn.
Light Burn Settings
Speed 25
Power 80
Marlin/GRBL-M3 (1.1e or earlier)
s-value max 255
baud Rate 115,200
M03/M05
M8
mm/sec

HELP NEEDED!!
If anyone has information on variable names I could use to create my own header that would be great.
Variable names needed.
MAXX
MAXY
MINX
MINY
with this info added to DEVICE SETTINGS / GCODE TAB / START GCODE BOX
we could have it auto populate with the correct numbers for framing would work on the machine when posting gcode to a flash drive.

Again, if you can help me figure out how to get the ender 3 s1 pro working better with lightburn please add your thoughts.
Thanks.

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You could try a Custom GCode device with Snapmaker flavor and edit accordingly with Notepad++.

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Making some progress now.

I have been trying to find how to access this custom gcode screen forever and finally figured it out. Click DEVICES, and CREATE MANUALLY, select CUSTOM GCODE, on the last setup screen you can select the Gcode Flavor. I am currently using GRBL-M3 but may try Snapmaker as suggested since it does almost output the bounds properly. not to hard to edit them to what is needed. Once this is setup you can now click on DEVICE SETTINGS and you will see a new tab called CUSOM GCODE. in here you can edit the commands sent to the printer for things like lazer on/off or the format for a cut line etc. I added “M3 I” to the TOOL ON command as well as FIRE ON and other laser related commands. I can now save gcode and run it without editing anything. YESSSS!!! Now to work on trying to get it to post the BOUNDS MAXX MAXY MINX MINY properly. I will keep you posted. Thanks for the help so far. Much appreciated. Here is what the screen looks like that lets you change the code lightburn sends to your printer. its almost like editing a post processor, best options we have so far.

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CustomGCode
CustomGCode659×758 17.9 KB

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Hmmm, M300 S440 P200 does not seem to work for me. Anyone get this to work?

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Sorry not posting the steps.
.

What doesn´t work? Lightburn didn´t output the command? Your machine does nothing when it receives the command?..

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?? I posted the steps to find this screen, keep reading.

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code is sent, machine does not beep.

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NVM, i get what you meant now. Your sorry that you didn’t post the steps. lol. Ya i didn’t understand your suggestion at first but after another conversation with LightBurn support it finally clicked.

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Well at first i was just trying to get this running using a USB, and it did work except for the framing. But recently I tested out just sending the engraving from lightburn directly to the laser and BAM!! Works like a charm. Even the framing works. A few features return errors due to unrecognized codes, like Homing. If I get some time i will try to find the right ones and list them here.

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You can also add custom Homing command to your custom GCode.

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Finally got time to look into this again, and added the homing code to custom gcode page. In order to just home x and y, but not z, use this.

G28 X Y

Now when i press the Home button it works perfect.

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Next issue i would like to tackle is, getting the buttons on the MOVE page to work. Any have any info on this? I click them and nothing happens.

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Perhaps the Distance is very small, so the laser head moves, but not very much:

Is Continuous Jog enabled?

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I’ve just recently gotten my ender 3 S1 (non-pro) up and running with the laser. While we have different screen units, I believe we have the same controller and for the most part same stock firmware. If so, it should be set up as a marlin device in light burn. If you connect to the console and send $$ does it list the current machine configuration or return an unknown command error? If it errors you need to switch to Marlin & sending M503 should report the current config. In device settings I had the following to get it working:
Laser Control Commands - M03 / M05
S-value max - 1000
Baud - 115,200
Transfer mode - both buffered and synchronous work, buffered was smoother to an extent
In the Gcode tab I also enabled Emit S value with every G1 command, not super important but I see not reason to have it off.
Air assist commands were not recognised by the firmware due to them not being enabled. Leaving air assist off for all layers sometimes allowed a job to run to completion over usb, though it caused so many freezes and hang ups with the laser powered up that I ended up saving the code, removing all M8/M9’s and sending the edited file over usb.
It worked but the speed wasn’t great, the edges constantly burnt and nothing I did setting wise seemed to have any effect. I then learned that due to the way M03/M05 is processed, the laser is not queued to fire in sync with the movements, but instead fires before or in between movements. This leads to the gantry accelerating and decelerating between each point, causing a slight stuttering sound and severely limiting the speed you can reach. This seems to be inherent to the way standard mode M03/M05 works. It’s alright, but the machine can do better with better firmware.

I ended up switching to mriscoc’s professional firmware build due to some hard limits and janky things in Creality’s current release of the firmware (which they’ve yet to release the source for). Enabled inline M03/M05 which now allows smooth grayscale engraving which I couldn’t achieve at all previously. Increased the pwm frequency since it’s running off a pin meant for the fan, this again increased the quality massively especially for grayscale. Increased max accel and feed rates etc.and also enabled air assist and set the pin to an unused one so that it doesn’t hang on M8/M9 anymore

The pro can also take this firmware, but unfortunately you’d have to get a spare encoder / non touch type screen from the standard S1 as it doesn’t support the touch panel on the pro. Alternatively though, there is an older source for the S1 which you might be able to make the same changes to while keeping mostly stock otherwise.

Something I just realised, I still had to add ‘M3 I S0’ to the starting code to get the laser to fire in inline mode. Try switching to inline mode and adding M3 I to the start and M5 I to the end codes and see if inline mode works, possibly save you a headache messing with the firmware! Edit: just seen you’ve already gotten it on inline mode, wish I’d done that! Still double check the Marlin vs GRBL through $$ and M503 in the console, it might be why it doesn’t respond to jog commands properly

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Thanks for the tips, I will surely check this out.

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