Lightburn power scaling for CO2 laser (Ruida DSP)

After using LightBurn to update the Vendor settings did you reset the controller? You may need to reset the controller for the new setting to take effect (press the ‘Reset’ button on the control panel).

What value did you set in the machine settings for ‘Laser 1 maximum power (%)’?

After resetting the controller go back into Vendor settings and check if the update was written successfully.

I say this because on my Ruida controller (RDC6442G with firmware v8.07.70), once I have set Min and Max power % all power values from LightBurn are scaled so that 0 to 100% from LightBurn will translate to expected values between Min and Max power % for the PWM signal to the power supply for the tube as observed and detailed here.

So at least in my case, it is not necessary to also trim the power supply.

I believe that @jkwilborn has slightly different behaviour on his Ruida which has older firmware, not sure about yours.

Easy enough to test though:

  1. confirm your max power % machine setting, make a note.
  2. run a (short) LightBurn program at 100% cut power setting - note the current (mA) going through the tube
  3. lower the max power % machine setting by 10%, write to controller, reset controller, open machine settings again to confirm the new value is present.
  4. run the LightBurn 100% program again - you should see the mA reading drop which means that your power is being scaled down by the controller.
  5. repeat/tweak until the mA reading is 22mA.