Lightburn will not initiate the laser

[Scottua (Scott Carson)]

Lightburn won’t initate the laser. RDworks will. I’d much rather use lightburn…

This machine sat for over a year before being moved to a new building. I worked perfectly when it was last used. Now that it’s in its new home it’s time to get it going again.

The only somewhat major mod was to add a solenoid for compressed air assist and to remove the stock exhaust fan to make room for a bigger ducted solution.

Running windows 10 (up-to-date) and have tried the most current version of LightBurn as well as v0.9.19 and all have the same issue.

Installed and selected to have the drivers installed at the end.

Lightburn finds and downloads the machine config no prob. Only change was to activate the air assist.

Both “Send” and “Start” result the same. X & Y move, air assist comes on, but no laser.

I had an old program on the controller already so I ran that to be sure it wasn’t anything else (mirrors, etc.) and it ran just fine. I even installed RDWorks v8.01.48 to try to see if it was software vs. hardware and it ran the laser just fine.

I feel like there’s a setting somewhere in LightBurn I’m missing. Yes, I have “Output” enabled.
Screenshots and video below…

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Video of what’s going on…

[Bonjour (Bo)]

Your settings are certainly in the ballpark, and little different to mine except you have laser 1 & 2 enabled and air assist & door interlock turned off.

We know your machine is working, because RDW works fine, so there has to be some simple solution.

If you can, save your file as lbrn2 and post it here - it will save a lot of back-and-forth.

[Scottua (Scott Carson)]

Here’s a simple box that should turn the laser on but only moves the head and turns on the air assist but doesn’t enable the tube.

test cut.lbrn (4.3 KB)

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

This is a setting issue and understanding how power is applied as it relates to the speed you are asking the laser to travel.

Welded two shape together, the laser ( Ruida controller) will not turn the laser on

Min Power is used when your laser is at or below what’s called the “start speed” - IE, the speed at which it starts ramping power up to the Max Power setting. By default, on Ruida, it’s 10mm/sec. Additionally, Glass tube lasers need a certain amount of power before they start ionizing and producing a beam. This is a higher value for larger tubes. Setting Min Power below this threshold means that when your laser starts moving and is still using the “Min Power” setting, you get nothing. Going as …

Ruida / LightBurn won't cut below 10mm/s

This isn’t a LightBurn issue, but a Ruida one that’s quite common. There’s a controller setting called “Start Speed” that defaults to 10mm/sec. At that speed, power starts ramping up from Min Power to Max Power. Cutting at or below that speed means you’re using Min Power only, so if you’re cutting slow, set both Min and Max power the same and you’ll have no issues.

Possible cutting (line) error

Min Power is used when your laser is at or below what’s called the “start speed” - IE, the speed at which it starts ramping power up to the Max Power setting. By default, on Ruida, it’s 10mm/sec. Glass tube lasers need a certain amount of power before they start ionizing and producing a beam. This is a higher value for larger tubes. Setting Min Power below this threshold means that when your laser starts moving, and is still using the “Min Power” setting, you get nothing. As it speeds up and…

Could this be what you are experiencing? What happens if you bump the Min Power and try this job again?