I just installed my new mini gerbil and am a new LightBurn user. I am able to connect to the laser (K40) and get it to home properly, however when I attempt to engrave an image (or cut a box), the laser moves to its starting point, begins to fire, but then immediately stops and I have to reconnect to the laser. I also notice that with the laser switch turned off, everything seems to work fine and the laser moves through its progression properly. If I turn the laser switch back on, it doesn’t work. I’ve also noticed that if I lower my power way down, I can get it to work (with the laser switch on)…but it obviously doesn’t mark well at low power.
I’ve tried messing with DPI settings, but I’m wondering if any of you have suggestions for other things to check? I’m not near my laser now so I can’t output my settings, but I thought I’d post on the off chance that someone could share some advice? TIA.
Will need to see your settings to offer detailed help. C3D also has a lot of great info on their site for setup and configuration of your hardware you might want to review.
If the laser is disconnecting when you fire, it’s almost certainly an electrical noise issue, which Awesome Tech should have some guidance for troubleshooting. It’s common on these machines, unfortunately, and why the larger lasers come with EMI filters.
Hi Brian, it looks like a communication issue and as some pointed out below there might be some electrical noise. You can try various things like swapping the USB cable, try lower baud rates, set the 5V board jumper to USB 5v and check whether your K40 Ground is really grounded (life hazard!). Our K40 had a plastic washer under the ground terminal…
Some basic debugging tests are listed here.
Cheers, Paul
@LightBurn & @pauldg123 - thank you both for the responses (both here and via email). I have resolved my issue. Apparently I had a loose ground wire (right off of the AC input). I tightened that and everything is working swimmingly. I’m surprised that this issue is only now creating issues for me. Regardless, all is well now…thank you.
I should also note that in addition to my ground wire issue, I also needed to move the 5v jumper per the post from @pauldg123. That seemed to be a contributing factor to my problem as well.
They have a forum section at
Yes Maker Forums, not the c3d forum.