I’m trying to run 12x12 tile, with a photo engrave on the entirety of the tile. A few minutes into starting, I get an error on the machine, “not enough extend space”. I understand that is basically a collision warning; there isn’t enough space on either side of a workspace to decelerate properly. But I’m confused how that is, with 200mm on each side. I started at 450mm/s, then 400, then 380. Doesn’t seem to matter.
I think there’s a software issue, or maybe I’ve done something wrong/haven’t done something. When I hit the start button in Lightburn, it starts the project while sending the data. But the data never finished sending over. It goes VERY slow. It was only at 40% when I got the error last time, and the eta was going up. It was almost 7 minutes remaining when I stopped it last. On top of that, the machine isn’t even engraving what/where it’s supposed to. It’s like it’s all over the place. It starts fine, then gets thrown off, like it’s re-centered. It’s also our of position vertically. I get the error after 5 minutes or less. This total job time at 450mm/s is 2hr14m. There’s too much on there (vertically) for only 5 or so minutes.
The image is a custom made image in 4k, 4096x4096, 9.72mb file size. I knock it down to 302x302mm in lightburn. Jarvis dither, negative image, 500 dpi, .03 dot width correction. Job origin is upper left, starting from current position. Picture included for reference
UPDATE
I had a few ideas I just tried. I reduced the image resolution to half: 2048x2048. I tried running it with the laser off, so I didn’t waste any more material. Got the same error 6.5 minutes in. The data was still sending in Lightburn. It was at 86%, but seemed to stall.
So then I sent the file to the controller (via lightburn button). It ran 15 minutes before I stopped it. Currently doing a full run off the controller.
So questions: why is this happening? Could I have something messed up in Lightburn? Is it simply a bug? Will there be any negative to running off my controller, for example: does dot width correction go with the file?
i suppose something quick to try would be to swap from my usb cable to an ethernet cable. then run it from lightburn with the laser off again to see if the data is actually transferred. running it off the controller completes the job. but as i said in the post, i lack the knowledge to know if it is comparable, in all specs, to having lightburn run it
Click “Save RD File”. How big is the resulting RD file on disk? This is the only metric that actually matters.
The controller has 100mb of usable memory, and a little bit of that will be reserved. Ruida controllers also get weird if they are often filled and rarely wiped, so it’s recommended to occasionally format the storage space in the controller, or the very least delete all the files stored in it. If the file is close to the size of the memory size of the machine, and there are other files already in it, it may just stall - we can’t always tell if the controller doesn’t have enough space (though we do try to detect this case).
Also, are you sending the file to the laser and then running from the controller panel, or just pressing ‘Start’ in LightBurn? If you press Start, the controller is both receiving the file and running the file at the same time. For simple vector fills or cutting this is easy, because there aren’t a lot of instructions to process overall. With images, things are different. With a 0.05mm interval, you have 20 instructions to process per millimeter of travel, and at 400 mm/sec, that’s 8000 instructions to process per second.
If the controller is “skipping and rewinding” that’s it choking on the complexity of the file. Try using ‘Send’ to send the job to the controller first, then run it from the file menu on the controller, so it’s only doing one thing at a time.
I’ll have to get back to you on the rd file size in the morning.
There isn’t anything on the controller, aside from the file I just ran. I’ve never used it directly.
I’ve just been hitting start on lightburn. I haven’t used a file/job this large on this laser. So I’ve never seen it lag or transfer (or lack of transfer) like this.
Sending it to the controller, and having the controller run it seemed to do the trick. It still took a few minutes of transfer, but at least it all transferred.
I also swapped out the USB cable for a network cable. So I’ll try that to see if that can fix transfer speed too.
I just use a laptop I got specifically for file creation and stuff (running Photoshop for example). So I just direct tether.
Sweet. I was concerned about all the little nuances that lightburn lets you control and adjust. There aren’t exactly the same setting on the controller. So I didn’t know if it would create the same commands on a data level. Like I said, the dot width correction for example.
When you click ‘Start’ in LightBurn, it generates an RD file in memory and transfers it to the controller in “temp file” mode, meaning the controller buffers up a bit of it and then starts running when it has a bit of data to work with.
If you click ‘Send’, it generates the exact same RD file in memory, but sends it as a named file to the controller. If you hold Shift when you click ‘Send’ LightBurn will send the command to start running the job as soon as the transfer is finished, so it can save the (small) hassle of opening the File menu on the controller and starting it.
Blockquote[quote=“LightBurn, post:9, topic:142383, full:true”]
When you click ‘Start’ in LightBurn, it generates an RD file in memory and transfers it to the controller in “temp file” mode, meaning the controller buffers up a bit of it and then starts running when it has a bit of data to work with.
If you click ‘Send’, it generates the exact same RD file in memory, but sends it as a named file to the controller. If you hold Shift when you click ‘Send’ LightBurn will send the command to start running the job as soon as the transfer is finished, so it can save the (small) hassle of opening the File menu on the controller and starting it.
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Ah, thank you for that.
Just saved the rd file of the reduced resolution (now 2k) file, it’s 16.7mb
Yeah, running it through the console was fine. It took a few minutes to send the file, but running from the controller went fine. I’ll be doing a mock run from lightburn in a few hours, just to see the difference, if any, the network cable made. If it lags out, I’ll just send any big projects straight to the controller. I set it to replace files when I send them too, so I don’t forget and let them pile up in there.
I’ll post a finished pic tonight when it’s done. 50x50mm swatches are coming out nice. Messed with the speed, but didn’t see any difference going from 450 to 350, other than time.
Final reply I think. The network cable had no effect on the data transfer. Also, although the rd file was only 16mb, when I started the transfer, it was more like 60. Maybe that takes into account the dpi? …or I messed up when I saved the rd file lol.
At either rate, it failed the mock test sending it from lightburn. Then it went all haywire. All my position values were WAY off, like in the 10,000’s for X,Y. I hit the home button thinking it would clear it. But once it got close to home, it ran into the border, and was still trying to move. I e-stopped it, and restarted lightburn. All is well since. I used shift-send to send it to the controller, and it finished fine. Results below:
