Hi all, first post, I have used other software in the past and just switched to Lightburn with my new laser.
Everything works great except lightburn is not tracking, in the program, my laser’s movement. The laser is burning, it works fine. But as you can see on the attached image, the upper green and red squares? Those never move.
Any advice is appreciated, I searched but didn’t find anything that helped, maybe just a link in the right direction? Appreciate it!
The green square marks the Job Origin, as set in the nine-dot selection in the Laser Window:
The red square marks the Machine Origin, as set in the four-dot selection in the Device Settings window:
Neither of those track the current laser position.
In fact, there’s no way to track the current position, because laser controllers do not report their position while they chew through the buffered commands.
3D printers run slowly enough that G-Code senders can dribble commands to them without affecting their performance and extract the coordinates from those commands without anybody noticing they’re not the actual positions, but lasers move much faster. LightBurn does have a progress thermometer, but it reports only the fraction of commands sent to G-Code machines.
The Ruida controller in your machine (according to your profile) uses a binary command structure and has enough memory to accept all but the largest jobs in one gulp; the status thermometer may not even be visible. The controller does not report any status while running, so there’s no way to know what’s going on in there.
So, basically, watch the machine to monitor its progress. 
Appreciate it Ed. This is super helpful, I was just worried I was missing out, not using the software up to its full capabitlities, so its comforting knowing its not a ‘me’ issue, ha.
I had used a Muse Laser previously with their software, and it did track the movement, so I assumed that was a universal with lasers.
Still figuring this one out, so thanks for the fast and detailed help!
Welcome to the site.
Get in the habit of using preview to see what your job is going to do and how long it is estimated to run.
The machine console window will show you where you are in the job, at least it does on my 6442g.
appreciate it Jack, i need to put this on the list of habits to start!
Unless the Muse had resolvers on the motors (at their prices, it could have), there is no way to know actual machine position in real-time.
I have been using Lightburn for over 2 years and feel I am not even close. I am continuously reading things that I did not know about. They are way ahead of whoever is in second place.
AFAICT the Muse has a unique controller coupled with their own software, so it can have an entirely different interface with plenty of realtime-ish communication.
They mention LightBurn in an offhanded “we do better than that” manner, so the machine doesn’t offer the usual protocols.
We’re assuming the same type of controller.
There is a plethora of different types of controllers out there. Plenty work within a closed proprietary system, so unless we are familiar with the hard/software of this device, we probably wouldn’t know.
Probably as @ednisley mentioned Muse have their own control systems/software.
An interesting example, at least to me, is the Nano board used in low cost laser systems such as the K40. It uses an 8051 processor, that I used these back in the 80’s. There is no real computation work, the PC does all the computations and tells the controller how many steps in what direction.
Have fun
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