Hi, I would like to ask if there is a way (and if not I would like to request it) to send some signal to Home Assistant.
The reason is that I set up the laser to work in the evening and go to sleep. When I wake up, the laser job long finished but cooling fan is still running for no good reason.
I would like to send a signal to HA when the burn finishes (or after some delay) and then HA will turn off the smart plug powering the laser and thus turning off the fan.
This could be implemented as a primitive HTTP request - people could do a ton of things with this - notifications, or top-level logging and similar.
This is so absolutely, absolutely, absolutely discouraged that I don’t think LightBurn will ever support this in any way. Leaving a laser alone, even for a second, is dangerous as hell.
I don’t know which precautions you did take (so, no offense), but starting a laser and going to bed is the most stupid thing I ever heard of.
Since there might be users that use such similarly, LightBurn will try to prohibit such behavior by not enabling such features. So I don’t see that you will be successful here.
If you still want to go on, use a power measuring outlet and HA to notice the finished job by the power usage of the laser (e.g. if it dropped below a certain level for more than 10 minutes).
I’m going to second @misken’s sentiment here and reiterate that leaving you laser alone briefly, let alone overnight, is just begging for your house to burn down, with you in it.
The operating principle of a laser is to BURN material, so it should come as no surprise that it will, well, burn material.
Not IF, but rather WHEN, things go wrong, the laser will happy torch itself, and everything around it down.
Hi there. I’m the engineering director of LightBurn Software. I know two people have already responded here, but I feel it’s worth chiming in with the official opinion from the company.
Simply put: This is how you burn your house down. This is how you get you and your family killed.
To be entirely clear: LightBurn will NEVER add any feature to the software that encourages or further enables users to run their machines unattended. This is not just from a legality stance (though we have had actual users try to go after us when their garage burned down) but from a stance of concern for the well being of our users.
Doing anything but being RIGHT NEXT TO your laser while it is running is absolutely the wrong way to be using your laser. It is not a matter of IF you will have a laser fire but WHEN you will have a laser fire.
I always like to share this support article from our friends at Thunder Laser USA where one of their customers who was in the same room but on the other side managed to let their laser burn, with active flames for 6 entire minutes before they noticed.
We do have customers with large job shops that include many lasers running who do not have someone actively next to each laser at all times… but they basically always have at the very least active fire suppression in each machine and someone walking around to monitor the lasers at all times.
We absolutely want our customers to use LightBurn to the fullest but not while risking their own property or lives to do so. Please reconsider your current practices.
Pizza delivery guy got upset with me last week as I was at the tail end of a 2 hour job, wouldn’t answer the door for 4 minutes. I’d rather have a spat on pizza that be homeless!
I remember reading about the ridiculous lengths that someone trying to commercialise a 3d printer farm had to go to with respect to fire suppression systems to satisfy their insurance company. I’d imagine your post would be used by your insurance adjuster in case of a fire to deny your claim!