Hi,
I am a new user. I went to go use light burn today and the laser ran the program but while engraving you could barely see the lines. It worked fine the other day. No idea what do or check. Also, for some reason I accidently deleted my console button in light burn. No idea how to get it back. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Window, Reset to Default Layout it the easiest to restore the windows.
There is a lot of variety on materials, especially wood. Even a bunch of ply sheets in the same package.
Same program? Same speed and power (did you record your settings)? Constant Power on or off?
Ok, so the layout is fixed, thank you.
To describe the other engraving issue better. I ran it on filled, checked preview and is showed the same in the simulation. But when you actually ran the program is did the same font in line and the strength of the line was barely legible. Thoughts? Suggestions?
Can you post an image of your problem?
I can try. Standby
You can see faint letters in photo. Then I tried it again with a new letter, increased strength to 200 % in program while running and it didn’t even leave a mark to send a picture.
The middle image is obviously a wood grain issue. The lighter wood, where the image is weak, is likely a hard dense part of the wood. This is normal, unfortunately.
This is not possible in Lightburn. Can you explain where you made this change?
I just used a scrap piece of wood to show how light it was. It did the same thing on pine and birch (both of which I have used in the past and it was dark, filled in properly and clear previously). I understand the wood grain issue but that not the issue here.
When the program runs you can adjust the speed and the power. It let me adjust it to 200 %. Not sure what to tell you there.
The same piece of wood where you said it was a grain issue also had a second attempt above it. You can’t tell because the laser activated, ran back and forth but failed to leave any markings.
I have been reading other chats here and it speaks about settings? I don’t know the lingo but do you think that could be wrong? (The power strength)
I have used the laser and light burn at least 10 times now. I have never had an issue with laser strength, darkness until today. Also, the preview setting, program selection allow me to pick fill for fonts. But when you run the program it still comes out as a line (despite the preview/selection in the program).
I know what you are talking about now. You have not specified speed, power, laser power, etc. so I can only guess what you are actually doing. If you have a power setting of 80% with a 10w laser, at best you are burning with 8w. Now move the slider to 200% while burning. Do you think you will get 16w output?
If you do not have Constant Power turned on, the actual power out will vary depending on laser head velocity. This is by design to keep from over-burning in the corners.
There are a lot of variables affecting the actual burn result. Any one of them can over- or under-burn your material. Laser work is a lot of trial and error. And one of those errors is believing somebody else’s settings will work on your machine. You will, and should, eventually have your own list of materials and settings.
I recently had exactly the same issue with a project I ran just days before. Seems like cutting power was less. With all the possible variables, I am still researching it. Persistence = progress.
How do I check to see if constant power is turned on?
I was running engraving at 80 % speed, 100 % percent power with the fill function on.
I just updated to the latest version. Do you thing something in the setting was changed/adjusted because of that?
The speed is set to 70 inch/min = 1800 mm/min = 30 mm/s, which seems fairly fast for a diode laser, although that depends on the output power.
Have you (inadvertently) switched units from mm/min to inch/min?
I will check that. Where do I look to check for it? I’m a newer user, still learning.
Everything was working fine 3-4 days ago. Now faint letters or nothing at all (Ie. Laser runs program, you can see laser on wood, not engraving anything).
We all started out there: nothing to be ashamed of! 
If you haven’t already found it, the doc is worth reading through to get familiar with the vocabulary:
I’ll will definitely read it! A lot to learn. Thank you.
I see this complaint a lot, but nobody has shown evidence of before and after settings. I never had anything change when I updated several times, so I suspect some default settings might have been cancelled or not registered.
Constant Power in the Layer properties window.
Off for engraving.
On for Cutting.
80% of what speed?
Easiest is at the top.
.
I switch this one back and forth a lot. For precision work, I would work entirely in mm, but for general stuff I do not worry about conversion precision.
This keeps you young!
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