I’m running a Cloudray 100 Wat power supply M100, a RECI CO2 tube, and a Cloudray Ruida RDC6445S Co2 Laser Controller.
I’ve got Stepperonline DM542T drivers and everything is running great, except the laser continuously fires when I try to frame a project, or when running a project. It won’t fire when I use the move buttons on the Laser Controller, or in Lightburn, but it will fire when I use the “Set laser position by clicking on the page” button.
I’ve triple checked my wiring.
My L-ON1 is connected to L
LPWM1 is connected to IN
Ground to ground.
L-ON1 is set to LOW
When I go to Frame para on the Control Board, the “Frame mode:” is set to “Frame Laseroff”
Everything is brand new, It has less than an hour of use. The powersupply has an included LCD display that will regulate the current, and I’ve tried it both plugged in and unplugged. All with the same results.
I’ve looked at many of the posts that are showing a similar problem, and most of them end with, “a cut setting in LB” but it none of the posts say how they actually got it fixed, even with commentors saying, “tell us how you fixed this”
Well, considering its all brand new, technically, no, its never worked properly. I built everything based off of “Further Fabrication” youtube series:
I bought his build guide, and most everything as described in his DIY CO2 Laser Cutter / Engraver Build Series. Some of the parts he listed aren’t available anymore, so I got newer or more current models, but pretty much everything is the same specs. I had to tweak my stepper motor settings to reflect my actual stepper motors, but I don’t think that would affect the laser.
I don’t know if he uses Lighburn or not, but when I go to his web page where I bought the instructions from, it states he does “not offer advice or trouble shooting” so that doesn’t do me much good.
So, long story less long. I just got the power supply and tube hooked up, and fired it for the first time today.
I have had a K40 that I bought about six years ago, and put in a smoothieware control board, and I have not had these problems with it. I’ve been running Lightburn exclusively and when I bought the Ruida control board, I bought the license for it, so now I have both.
Measure the L input, the machine should not lase unless the L input is low. DSP controllers send a pwm continuously during the layer execution and depends on L going low to enable the laser.
If you have a high state L input (laser is not enabled), and it’s lasing, it would point to a bad lps…
I do have a voltmeter, but have a very basic understanding of its useage. I know how to turn it on and watch it beep at me. Sorry, I’m not an electrician, but I will do some research on how to use it properly.
I emailed Cloudray about the issue, thinking it might be a power supply problem, they emailed me back and provided this diagram. I add it here in case anyone else might need it.
I also noticed while running some tests, the LCD display that came with the power supply is showing the laser is not firing, when in fact it is. All of my research leads to a bad power supply. I’m going to request a return through Amazon and try again.
I’ve been in contact with Cloud Ray, but they are in China and there seems to be something lost in translation. They are sending me a new laser tube (???) I don’t know why they are sending me a new tube. So I’m going to request a replacement power supply from amazon.
Update: Well, I reset the controller to the factory settings. Then I downloaded RDworks and tried using it. I still have the same effect. The laser continually fires between moves (when it isn’t supposed to).
I went to Cloudray website and downloaded the current firmware and when I go to install it, it tells me my controller doesn’t match. WTH???
So I’m at a loss. I may have to go with a different controller? I’ve sunk about 3 grand into this laser build and I’ve got to get it working properly. I am at my wits end. I don’t know what is going wrong.
