Thanks for the assistance, [berainlb. I finally got my first burn in Lightburn with your help! I did get my great granddaughter’s name on a wood project in time for Easter …LOL.
Why did I go with Line+Fill? Well, nothing like jumping in with both feet. If the machines can do it, then we should be able to also. But, I did back up and just did a fill. But, at least, I found where the “discreet controls” could be found for when I want them.
As to my tone, well, that’s just who I am and I really don’t mean anything by the way I speak. Believe me, when my inner Marine gets involved, EVERYONE will know!
Thank you for the tip, I’ll look him up. While watching a video may answer one’s questions, that media does not replace the written word as a method of finding answers, Think of checking the spelling of a word by video …LMAO … How long would it take to get to the word “ancillary” in a video as compered to using a dictionary? No, watching a video will never replace a book that has an index whereby you can go directly to the place to find the answer that you need.
Now that you’ve got your feet grounded hopefully further exploration is more enjoyable. I’d be interested to hear your take on LightBurn let’s say in 6 months to a year.
By the way, I’ll advise that the tinkering aspect of this never really goes away. So you’ll have to embrace that or stick to a narrow set of burn types on a very consistent material.
The problem with using YouTube as a beginner’s reference is that it’s particularly difficult for a beginner to weed out the wheat from the chaff…and, unfortunately, there is quite a bit of chaff out there! Most experienced folks watch a video and “sight-transpose” to remove the noise on the fly, and focus in on the specific technique they can learn. A beginner just doesn’t have enough basis to do that.
It’s really important for companies - even those that benefit from the tinkering - to get their clients started on even footing. Give them something that shows the basics - and gives the foundation upon which “unofficial” resources can be effective.
I have about 12,000 hours invested in Photoshop — and I still “tinker” with ways to make things happen within that product. In some ways, I view Photoshop as one of the best applications that have very complex interfaces with alternative ways to perform an operation. Power and complexity, packed into an interface. I view LB in much the same light.
If you sat down with Photoshop and tried to just edit a photo, you’d be lost. It is extremely difficult to use with only “Microsoft Office” skills. Therefore, Adobe puts out a series of “How To” books that walk you through the basics and gets you “Started”. After you have those skills, there is a world of books, videos, and tutorials out there - for learning specific techniques or alternative techniques to get things done. Once you have your feet wet, you can begin to explore. Adobe got it right.
The reference manual for LB is great (as I mentioned above)…but a supported set of “official” resources that LB feels would provide the proper foundation - included with every purchase of a license - would go a long way to helping to get folks running faster.
I checked out The Louisiana hobby Guy’s video. However, I still have a problem. My laser doesn’t go to X 200, Y 200, it goes to X = 291.80, Y = 332.80 when you enter 200.
I purchased a ORTUR Laser Master 2 ProS2-LF Laser Engraver on Amazon that was delivered on March 8th, 2022. I tried to use it, using Lightburn on a ASUS VivoBook Laptop using Windows 10.
My problem is that it keeps trying to burn off of my piece of work. In Lightburn, I enter a position of X= 200, Y = 200 and the laser head moves to the upper right corner of the frame. When I click “Get Position” Lightburn gives me the coordinates as X = 291.80, Y = 332.80.
Also, is the machine homing properly when turned on again when LightBurn connects?
If true to both of these and you still have a problem then enter these commands in Console. You may need to enable this in the Window menu.
Immediately after homing enter one at a time into Console and return the results here:
Hmm, a “book” for sale would go out of date pretty regularly, given the pace of updates.
That’s what I often use YouTube for, but I’m quite impatient and annoyed sitting through the whole thing waiting for something specific I could take in much faster scanning a doc and looking for a relevant pic or section title.
Also YT videos in general often get a bit out of date on their topics, and it’s hard to know which is actually going to be relevant.
The upper corner is Home. The Lower corner is Origin. They are two separate coordinates. If the computer doesn’t know where Home is. It can never Know where it is, regardless as to what you input after it homes itself first.
It could be an online document published by LB itself. Updated as part of the standard release cycle. LB is already doing updates to their online documentation when they make new releases (as good software companies do…and not all do)…and they are very good about not deprecating function with new releases (which not all companies are)…so it would be possibly a small update to reflect a new function or a change…or a new technique they would like to promote within their user community.
Regarding stale YT videos - I almost always limit my searches to within the last year. I work more than a little with Fusion 360 and the rate of updates with major mods to their software and UI make it very frustrating to go back even a minor version or two…
Rick is my go-to Guy… I’ve learned most of what I know about LightBurn from “The Hobby Guy”… The entire community are extremely helpful…!!! Kick back for about a week and watch youtube videos…
Along with the LightBurn info in the HELP section and the good folks on youtube, anyone can learn how to use this GREAT program…
YouTube is your best friend. When I first started Lightburn 2-1/2 years ago I was clueless. I searched YouTube and have found a ton of information on how to do things. Enter something like “Node edit in Lightburn”…and 50 pages will come up. I for one am a visual learned, I would rather watch a 10 min. video rather than read 20 pages of a document.
I thank you for your input, however, as a person who values his time, I must disagree.
YouTube is not friendly to a person who wants an answer to a specific question and doesn’t want to spend hours to get it, wasting time watching videos to get the one answer they are looking for that will allow them to move forward with their project. YouTube is a great way to kill time, not a great way to get anywhere fast.
Personally, I learn both ways, I can sit and read or I can learn by “show and tell” with practical application as long as the instructions are clear. I am also a fast reader and ten minutes of watching a video to get one answer that I could probably find in printed material is too much wasted time and that is cut significantly these days with searchable documents and the computer. The problem with most YouTube tutorials is that they assume far to much as to how familiar people are with what they deal with. Sometimes, you have to assume that the person is totally unfamiliar with the subject, like a military technical maintenance manual I once worked with a lot that went so far as to explain that there are two proper ways to use a cotter pin to retain a castellated nut on a blot or threaded rod. It is proper to bend the cotter pin either over the end of the threads OR around the nut!!! LMBO!
I can post 10 “Learning Lightburn 101” videos. Some are newer than others but even the ones from a few years ago still have relevant information.
You mentioned about setting “user origin”. If you searched YouTube for “Lightburn + Job origin/machine origin”. You want to learn about the coordinates system…type in “Lightburn + coordinate system”
For a marine you seem to have a hard time understanding the concept
I have none of the training that you talk about, high school drop out and just a simple auto mechanic
BUT, and I say BUT I taught myself photoshop, auto cad and then added 3-D and then taught myself Gravograph GS-7 which is a CNC machine IS-400. I got LightBurn a little less than a year ago with my Boss HP-2440 co2 laser system and AGAIN Taught myself how to use it
Yes some the the icons and messages seem silly but if you started to learn the program from the beginning instead of going straight to PRO mode they would and will make sense.
Lightburn is almost totally backwards from GS-7 so it was a learning curve and thanks to You Tube and these guys I am really happy with the cool things that come form it.
Close you mind and open your eyes and it will happen!
You know, that’s the great thing about putting things in electronic format, if one knows what to ask for the program will take them there by a far shorter route than reading anything from beginning to end.