I’m new to LightBurn. My platform is a MacPro and lately I’m back and forth between the latest version of Big Sur and the latest version of Monterey (reasons for that predate Lightburn instal). Since installing Lightburn and V1.5 of the serial driver, I have had to back down to Catalina to be able to learn how to use Lightburn. It appears to me that there is a driver compatibility problem when running under both Big Sur and Monterey.
The symptoms I have observed are as follows. Once the driver has been installed and the Mac rebooted, Lightburn shows a list of serial ports which includes 2 FTDI driver ports. Those have been there for ages as part of my home automation setup. Also in the list are several more ports which all appear to have resulted from the Lightburn driver installation. Lightburn is able to connect to my Laserstorm (AtomStack?) S10 when I choose one of those ports. However if I close Lightburn then relaunch it, those newer ports are all missing from the list after the relaunch. At that point, Lightburn attempts to contact the laser on one of the FTDI ports which are already opened and in use by home automation software. Lightburn in fact writes data to one of those ports, disrupting the automation package until I close Lightburn. In order to get Lightburn to talk to the laser again, I have to reinstall the Lightburn serial driver then reboot.
Since backing down to Catalina, I have been able to use Lightburn all afternoon and do some experimenting with the laser. I cannot however continue to run Catalina just for Lightburn. My Mac runs 24/7 doing various things and I need to be running at least Big Sur on a regular basis. Is there any chance there might a newer version of the serial driver V1.5 which would be more compatible with the newer MACOS versions?
I am a bit confused. I have never needed to install any “driver” on 2 Macs running Big Sur or Monterey. Have you tried running Lightburn without the FTDI drivers? Where do you see “serial ports?” About this Mac> system report?
After re-reading your post, I’ll back off any attempt to help. I see you are using a laser I know nothing about, and certainly there are people here who can help.
Thanks for the feedback. I can clear most of this up now. After having read the replies to the post, I suspected that I should have tried Lightburn first on Big Sur & Monterey without installing the CH340 driver. It is not needed for those versions of MacOS and if installed, symptoms like those I described will occur. I removed the CH340 driver and Lightburn runs fine. Thanks to everyone who replied
Despite my previous post saying all was well after uninstalling ch340 driver from Big Sur & Monterey, actually it turns out it’s not. I’ve definitely discovered a Lightburn bug (i’m trying out V1.2.04).
Here’s how to trigger it:
Another app must be using 1 or more FTDI serial ports for some other hardware. In my case the other app is the Indigo Home Automation package (a very mature product BTW).
The laser engraver (in my case a PerGear Laserstorm S10) must be powered down and Laserburn not yet launched.
Launch Lightburn. Since the laser is turned off, its serial port does not show up in LightBurn’s list of serial ports. Of course the FTDI ports DO show up in Lightburn’s pulldown menu and one of them is at the top of the list. Lightburn then attempts to find the laser on that first port in the list and interferes with communication between Indigo and its attached device.
After quitting Lightburn, Indigo stops complaining and recovers its device.
Note that the laser is not showing up in Lightburn’s port list. Will send another port list screenshot after reboot
Ah yes, this can happen. Limits for new users to help prevent spam and such. I see your user level has changed to level one, which should open things up a bit more to help you with posting.
As others have stated, you don’t need to install a driver for a diode - you do for Windows. On the Mac, it will show as a Modem port. I’m surprised to see all those ports in your list. That looks like a Windows thing.
