I have a xtool D1 Pro 20 W machine and I love to use lightburn software.
I have my machine hooked up via USB, and do not use Wi-Fi.
In the past couple months, however, whenever I I’m printing something through Lightbourn and I do anything even as simple as opening a web browser, the machine will start to make weird, artifact Ing and ghosting lines and other physical printing errors while it is printing.
However, if I use XCS, I can print the exact same thing and practically added a movie, play a computer game, and I have eight monitors going at once and the print is flawless every time.
Why is it that light burn is so sensitive to anything going on the computer at the same time?
It’s 2024, there has to be a fix for this because system resources should not cause this type of issue on a high-end computer
Your experience is atypical. LightBurn currently will run adequately on Windows 7 era computers with extremely limited RAM. I have run it on a 1GB Raspberry Pi 4 under emulation and things work surprisingly well.
There’s almost certainly something going on specific to your system that’s underlying the issue. Are you running XCS concurrently with LightBurn? Have you check Task Manager to see if anything is interfering?
I’d suggest running under Safe Mode to see if the behavior changes. If so, you know it’s something else causing the issue.
What sort of hardware are you running? Is there anything unusual about your installation?
Common complaints about the xTool XCS software include: frequent crashes, lagging performance, issues with material selection and parameter settings, inaccurate camera positioning, difficulty with complex vector paths, pixelation in engraved results, inconsistent user interface changes across updates, and a lack of advanced features compared to other laser cutting software like Lightburn, often leading to frustration with precision and workflow efficiency.
xTool website…
Lightburn is primarily designed for laser use, and connecting it would disable many features and result in a poor experience. Please use our official XCS software for the best performance.
This is what I was trying to address in my earlier post. Typically this isn’t the case at all and LightBurn tends to run very leanly.
With that in mind it’s very likely that there’s something else going on that’s the root cause of the issues you’re seeing even if LightBurn is the application that you’re seeing the symptoms in.
And if that’s the case, addressing the root issue may resolve other issues that are not apparent but are occurring nonetheless.
Have you taken any steps to diagnose the issue? If so, please specify as that can help narrow what’s going on.
I did some more testing with no background processes or apps running and unused a grayscale image to add some complexity. Lightburn still printed with weird lines in the same place on every image - regardless of where it was printed on the bed.
I also tried XTool XCS again - flawless as usual. This is crazy.
This recurring line is a new issue that came up. The design is solid black, so there’s nothing in it that would cause an anomaly there.
I don’t have the actual pics of the wood lines, I can take them tomorrow. But, I made a mock-up. The lines are raised so that tells me that the laser is sending less power during that section as if it’s told a lower power percentage or something.
Also, I didn’t see any other lines on the sign that would cause the unwanted lines as some sort of bleed over, etc.
Can you go to File->Save Gcode and save the g-code to a file with .txt extension and then upload the file here? Would like to determine if the issue is in what’s being sent to the laser or if it’s something from the controller forward.
In the meantime, here are a few more pics of the random artifacting and ghosting that started a few weeks ago. All dog images were printed in Lightburn except one - I’ll leave you to guess which. Lol.
Again, it’s only Lightburn. Even with no other system processes running, Lightburn acts this way now.
With XCS, I can have three monitors all streaming different movies and music all while printing actively on two 3D printers - and XCS doesn’t even bat an eye - flawless every time - regardless of system load.
This is likely to be either a communication issue or a mechanical issue. Seems like to me that you’re losing steps along the Y-axis or possibly the laser is slowing down due to being bogged down with too many commands.
Try a few tests to determine which:
create a 10x10 mm square. Run the job. Assuming it shows the artifacts you’re seeing measure the resulting burn. Does it measure exactly 10x10 mm? If it does not, repeat the test in XCS. What are the results? If the artifacts don’t show at 10x10 increase the size until it does show up. If they don’t show up at all then that’s another clue.
Does changing speed affect the presence of the artifacts? Does dramatically slowing down reduce the occurrence?
Your line interval at .0732 seems like it would be smaller than what your laser is able to resolve on that material. Have you run an interval test to confirm ideal interval? If not, suggest you do so.
Separate from the above you have “Constant Power Mode” enabled for the cut settings. I suggest you remove that as I don’t think xTool supports that function and may result in unpredictable results.
Can you take a screenshot of Edit->Device Settings and post here?
From what I know about XCS, it can send the data to the laser and process it from the memory in the laser. So once your computer sends the data to xtool, its finished, and its simply giving your computer a status update. I would guess Lightburn sends the data live to the laser, just like every other laser that is not xtool. So if your computer is old or having issues, lightburn gets interrupted while sending live data to your laser. Get a $99 laptop off facebook to only run the laser and lightburn and you will have no issues.
It’s funny that you mention that, as that was my very first thought and impression of what was going on, but just figured I would ask a few questions in case there is some other glaring issue.
I actually have a few spare gaming laptops sitting around. I was thinking about hooking one of them up to the same network as my main computer where I do all of my design on and currently use forLightburn. That way I can design comfortably on the computer that I normally do and then walk over to my gaming laptop and load the saved file over the network into a that new instance of lightburn and’s print free and clear.
At least that way, I don’t have to juggle thumb drives.
This was worthwhile just to demonstrate that. Try forcing background load and retest until you’re satisfied that the behavior you’re getting on your main computer is the outlier. Assuming you ran with the same settings this rules out a potential mechanical issue so this is almost certainly a communication issue.
Then it’ll be a matter of systematically isolating potential issues on your main computer. I’d start with trying a different USB port and running in Safe Mode.
