Lightburn will not connect with my controller

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

Have a review of these:

Version 1.0 - MacOS issues with Ruida

I think I finally understand what’s happening on MacOS / Ruida / USB. Apple has a bug in the driver that talks to the FTDI chip - it’s ignoring what’s called ‘hardware flow control’. Similar to a conversation between people, it’s possible for one computer to send data to another too quickly. If the receiver starts to backlog, it can turn on a signal that says, “hold on” to the sender, then when it gets caught up, it turns off that signal and the sender resumes. After a lot of digging, I foun…

Version 1.0 - MacOS issues with Ruida

We’re still getting a few issues reported even with this change, so I’ll likely try tweaking the throttle speed to see if we can get it to be more reliable. Longer term, we have another option we’re testing that will involve a Raspberry Pi and a file (disk image) from us to act as a relay. This is rock solid so far, 2 to 3 times faster than USB, and would let you connect using WIFI over your home network. We may also be able to extend this to include camera support over the same connection.

Help with apple

Apple sells an Ethernet adapter for $30 that will let you plug a network cable directly from the Mac to the Ruida, similar to the way you use USB. It’s reliable, has no driver issues, and is about 2x faster. You often have to toggle off WIFI to do it, but the setup is pretty straightforward otherwise. We’re also discussing providing a Raspberry Pi program to let you connect to the Pi using WIFI or Bluetooth, and have the Pi relay to the Ruida controller with a network cable. It’d be pretty e…

Issues with lightburn / MacOS / Ruida

I’ve tried to tell so many people this, but the ease of USB makes it very attractive. We’re genuinely considering removing USB as an option altogether if I can’t figure out a way to make it reliable. I have a side project we’re working on, using a Raspberry Pi as a relay. It would plug into the laser with a network cable, and connect to your home WIFI network, and LightBurn will talk to the laser through the Pi. Simple setup, will cost about $50 (price of the Pi, power supply, SD card and cabl…