i have recently had to reinstall lightburn as I lost my computer motherboard. i just tried to run lightburn and have run into a problem. my machine (3018) has a working area of 310 mm X by 160 mm y, i try to load a test project with a 50 mm square located at 100mm by 100mm and the laser will run to 310 x / 160y.
the machine is working correctly as it will home properly and will run and carve with spindel motor just fine. the olny problem that I have is in lightburn with the laser running to 310 x/ 160y.
Can you elaborate on this? When does this happen? As soon as you load the file? Or are you saying that when you start a burn the laser head will move to the full upper right? Is the laser light on at this point? What happens when it reaches the upper right? Does it crash?
Can you confirm that this means that there are end stops installed on the machine? Can you confirm where the machine homes to?
Can you send the following:
- Full application screenshot of LightBurn for when this happens
- Screenshot of your device settings screen
- Output in console after running these commands:
3a. $I
3b. $$
3c. $#
3d. ?
There is probably something in the configuration that is missing or incorrect.
Ensure you go through the setup for grbl.
Double check that both the machine and software have the correct units (mm or inches) selected.
Ensure the ‘Edit → Device Settings’ are correct for your machine, especially the ‘home’ position.
Check the setting of ‘Job Origin’ and ‘Start From’.
as near as i can tell the grbl setup in the controller is identical to the recorded set up that i printed out before the computer crashed.
the machine has limit switches and the machine does home correctly at the front left corner. I have had this setup for many months and had no problem with lightburn untill I reloaded it on my new computer. I will try the actions that you describe in 1,2,3
yes this happens as soon as i click start. the laser head moves to the upper right and the machine tries to continues to try to move the laser head . the machine does have limit switches on both the x and the y aixes.
The only way it can NOT work is that something was changed from where it was before the restore.
Did Lightburn work properly the first time you used it out of the box? Doubt it, it takes steps to modify the configuration for the device since each are different…
Rarely does this turn out to be something other than a configuration problem…
Does the basic ‘jog’ commands work properly?
Such as jog right or left, forwards and backwards…
Is your ‘Edit → Device Settings’ set properly, especially for home?
That will indicate to some extent how things are working…
Here is my configuration from a ‘new’ for Xmas Vevor CNC3018.
grbl-cnc3018-configuration.txt (392 Bytes)
These are for comparison. Some values like acceleration are vastly different.
Since you didn’t ‘reload’ your machine, only Lightburn, I think you are on the wrong tact.
It has to be something in how Lightburn is configured.
Until you get it up and in some form of running, I would advise not to modify anything on the machine.
Machine settings don’t get changed by osmosis and Lightburn isn’t changing them…unless you tell it to…
Do save a copy of them, you can do via Lightburn ‘Edit → Machine Settings’. Save it there also…
Good luck
Thanks @wklb. The text file contains information for 3b so that’s covered. Are you able to provide the other bits please?
In the meantime I’m going to review the text file you sent.
Also, can you confirm that jogging with the Move controls work? As in right goes right, forward goes forward, etc?
yes jogging all work as they should, the y up and down are reverced ( up arrow sends to front, down arrow sends to back)
position after running home front left
$i
$?
hope this is clear if not please contact me
It looks like your machine homes to the rear-right, but zero’s to the front-left. This would mean you’ll need a workspace offset to let LightBurn work correctly with the machine. You also don’t have the machine size properly configured - your $130 and $131 values are both “200”, but should be 310 and 160, respectively, to properly reflect the size of your machine.
Add the following to a macro:
G10 L2 P1 X-310 Y-160
$10=0
That will offset the zero point of the machine after homing so it’s front-left, instead of rear-right, and it will set the coordinate reporting to return values relative to that zero point, instead of in absolute machine space.
We cover all of this here:
and here:
I want to make sure I understand your assessment. Is the homing process independent of actual physical travel? I had thought that the final homing resting position would be considered 0,0 for GRBL.
@wklb has indicated that the machine homes to the front left
He currently has an offset of 1,0,-6.628 which is really odd to me.
I noticed this too which is odd since warren has indicated that this had been working previously. I suppose if you had no soft limits set this would have just been ignored.
If the machine actually does home to the front left, then it would be 0,0 with an 8-bit GRBL build, yes.
He doesn’t say “I homed, and this was the returned position”, so I’m inferring here that he homed, then moved the machine to front-left, and this was the result, but even that isn’t a given without more specific detail. It’s possible that he homed the machine, and it automatically set itself to -199,-199 because the travel distance is 200mm on each axis. If that’s the case, my posted solution would still fix it.
@wlkb, based on current findings and Oz’s feedback here’s what I suggest you do:
- Take a backup of your current settings. Edit->Machine Settings; then save
- Clear your current offset value by entering into Console
G10 L2 P1 X0 Y0 - Fix your workspace size by typing into Console
$130=310
$131=160 - Power cycle your laser so that it goes through a homing cycle.
- Check current position by typing into Console
?
I suspect this will either read 0,0 or -310, -160.
If this reads 0,0 you should be good to go. If it reads -310, -160 then implement Oz’s fix by typing into Console
$10=0
G10 L2 P1 X-310 Y-160
Report back findings please.
berainlb
I would like to thank you for all your help THANK YOU!!
I came back to the machine this morning, but I had a carving that I had to do first. I finished the carving for my wife and then loaded Lightburn to try and work on my problem. GUESS WHAT the problem has gone away. I ran a test program using absolute corrods and every thing worked. being a suspicious type I shut down lightburn and ran it again. WORKED PERFECT I wish that I knew what has happened to cause the problem, but glad its gone. and yes I have run it 3 diffrent times
jkwilborn
I would like to thank you for all your help THANK YOU!!
I came back to the machine this morning, but I had a carving that I had to do first. I finished the carving for my wife and then loaded Lightburn to try and work on my problem. GUESS WHAT the problem has gone away. I ran a test program using absolute corrods and every thing worked. being a suspicious type I shut down lightburn and ran it again. WORKED PERFECT I wish that I knew what has happened to cause the problem, but glad its gone. and yes I have run it 3 diffrent times
OZ
I would like to thank you for all your help THANK YOU!!
I came back to the machine this morning, but I had a carving that I had to do first. I finished the carving for my wife and then loaded Lightburn to try and work on my problem. GUESS WHAT the problem has gone away. I ran a test program using absolute corrods and every thing worked. being a suspicious type I shut down lightburn and ran it again. WORKED PERFECT I wish that I knew what has happened to cause the problem, but glad its gone. and yes I have run it 3 diffrent times
That’s good to know that things are back. I think what’s happening is that whatever software you are using for carving is dynamically changing your configuration. I think somehow the last time you used that software before you came back to lasering it probably left it in a bad state for lasering.
You may want to take a backup of your current configuration from Edit->Machine Settings now so that you can come back to this.
Also, run a $# in console and save the output for reference. I suspect the carving software is changing your work offset.
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