I have a problem which I can’t find a solution. Hopefully some one can help me. For a reference. Using an Xcarve,J-Tech laser, LightBurn 0.9.07, MacBook. Since a year I am using lightburn happily.
However this week during a laser project my laser suddenly stopped, probably mid way. Light burn didn’t gave message. It didn’t get back to the origin point. But with some trail and error and modification I could find the origin and finish the job.
Today I started a small piece and again it stopped. I could copy the text out of the console, see below.
I see an error 1 and 20 but I have seen those before and normally the didn’t stop the machine.
Error 1: Expected command letter G-code words consist of a letter and a value. Letter was not found.
Error 20: Unsupported command Unsupported or invalid g-code command found in block.
Both of these suggest you may have noise getting into your USB signal, causing incorrect data to be sent. I would look at cable routing around the controller or USB cables near the controller, power supplies, etc.
Thank you for the direction. Tried somethings and it worked but today again it stopped without error.
It is strange the times continuous but the xcarve stops moving.
Cable is replaced and nothing is changed on the set up.
Check to see if you have USB port sleeping or power saving enabled - I don’t know how to find this on a Mac, or even if it exists there, but it does on Windows and causes all sorts of trouble.
Make sure the USB cable isn’t running too close to high-power wiring near the machine, like stepper wires - those can induce current in other wiring and cause noise issues.
Story continuous. I have rewired my ‘installation’. So basically now high-power wiring is not running side by side the USB cable anymore. However the phenomena still occurs.
I have changed also my Macbook for a HP laptop (on both machines USB isn’t going to sleep) but also this one is doing the same. Suddenly stops. Please note I have used this set up for 1 year, once every two weeks or so, but didn’t have this problem.
If there are more suggestions please let me know.
Hello,
I also own an X Carve.
I had or have these problems from time to time.
However, I only mill it when milling.
with me the USB cable runs approx. 1 m beside the power supply line.
Possibly. I would have to change that too.
However, I have a shielded USB cable. (on recommendation of an inventory user).
Are you using the G-shield in your X Carve?
Or do you have an upgrade?
When I do a big project with the X Carve (about 300000 characters), I got öffters error and he stopped in the middle of the work and then read no more taxes.
I have mostly sent my milling projects with UGS.
After that, I switched to Candle and did not have the problems anymore.
Now I do not know if one, if one stores the g-code also with a separate transmitter (for example UGS or Candle) the file could burn.
Thank you for your reaction. I use the x controller, I believe the g-shield is included their. I have made a few tweaks to my new set-up. So now high-power cables are completely out of the way of the USB cable. Only waiting for my new shielded cable.
I mainly laser and for this I am using LightBurn. In the past I have used PicSender but Lighrburn is more user friendly.
Ohw, no again it stopped. I don’t no what is happing. Just a photo and again it stopped without saying anything. What is below I could recover from the console. Does LightBurn ditter something wrong or does anybody have an idea.
I would also use another USB port just in case there is some looseness or connector corrosion of the USB pins. And when you changed USB cables, is it a “good” cable? I have found a number of USB cables are really cheaply made so when I NEED a good cable I will use any of the cables which came with known brand products( HTC, D-Link, etc ).
Besides the USB cable/ports, I would also look at your power supplies to the machine to make sure they are not browning( or blacking ) out. Long shot but good to inspect onboard cabling every now and then.
A way to test things would be to run a test( laser turned off but doing all the motions ) and then slightly move things around. ie use a dowel and tap the side of the wires at connection points and connectors. slightly wiggle the USB cable and see if you can cause the error.
Yes I agree with you on the cable. I purchased a shielded cable. Rerouted every high power cable so they do not run beside the USB. Also took the xcontroller apart and still the same thing happens. Never happened before.
You say “just a photo”, but photos are the most difficult thing you can send to a laser. The gcode contains commands for nearly every single pixel in the image - millions of gcode commands to do a picture. If something is even slightly wrong with your laser system, engraving a photo is probably the fastest way to find it.
It said “error 1” - that’s a GRBL error message.
Googling “grbl error 1” finds this:
“error:1” : “G-code words consist of a letter and a value. Letter was not found.”
LightBurn will not emit gcode like this, so this means that the data was not delivered properly, possibly due to electrical interference or a bad connection.
Sorry for my choosing of words. Not a foreign speaker. I understand photo’s are hard. So tomorrow I will try again. Maybe my inverter of my solar panels is messing around. It is on the same group as my xcarve and laptop.
So tomorrow I will run a photo again with a disconnected inverter. Hopefully this works.
I apologize if I misunderstood the intent - this is something that I see quite often though, where people think “I was only trying to engrave a photo”. Since gcode controllers don’t use any special ways to encode images, it makes it the hardest thing you can do, and the most likely to have errors. An inverter connected to the same circuit could be an issue, if it produces voltage spikes or electrical noise.
So after a lot of testing I think I have the root cause of my problem. I will share it hopefully it will help someone else.
I have tested with my solar panels off. I have tested with my shed heater of etc. etc. It didn’t fixed the issue. Then I finally realized what was changed in the last year compared to the years before. It was my internet over my powerline. I had it for a few years already but installed a stronger sender and receiver. When I disconnected my receiver the problem didn’t occurred. So after a few test runs I am pretty confident this was the root cause.
Thank you and happy light burning for the new year.
Lightburn doesn’t uses internet. How ever I think the internet signal over my powerline did some kind of interference on the USB communication between my laptop and X-Controller. My be I am wrong but I systamatically tested every device and with this disconnected it is working fine again.
Just a theory but maybe there is a ground loop between the 3 devices( lasercutter, laptop, powerline modem ). You can test this out by making sure all 3 devices are connected to the same electrical circuit. It might be ok to be on the same electrical phase( house wiring is generally 2 phase ).
A poor ground somewhere and/or something bleeding a high enough signal on the ground might interfere with small signals over cables like USB.