Material Settings Window Shows communication failure whenever laser is tasked

[Dano586 (Dan Garvin)]

Whenever I perform any task for the laser, framing, text, etc, the material settings window showing all settings will blank out and display a “communication with controller has failed”. If framing, the frame will complete and stop at its start point, but after @ 3 frame jobs it locks up with job progress staying busy at 98, 99%,but when using laser (cut, engrave, etc) laser will operate @ 3 seconds then shut down. Is this a laser controller issue or a Lightburn?

[berainlb (PY)]

This is almost certainly a hardware issue of some sort. Most likely to do with a lost connection.

In general order of likeliness:

1. Bad or insufficient USB cable. Try swapping out with a high quality cable. Ferro-magnetic bead may or may not help. I’ve not seen anything definitive on that.
2. EMF or electrical noise. Get your laser power supply onto a cleaner power circuit. If you’re using an air compressor or any other large device, turn it off, get it on a different circuit, or otherwise remove it from the equation
3. Bad or failing USB port. Try a different port to see if that helps. This could also be an issue on the controller side but harder to test.
4. Bad flash of firmware. Controller’s will occasionally have flashes that are marginal and display odd behaviors. I don’t recall this being a common issue on the Longer in your profile but it’s a possibility.
5. Static discharge. Some improperly bonded or grounded lasers could have issues with static back discharging to USB and shorting it out.
6. Bad or failing power supply. A bad power supply could drop-out once higher current demands are required with stepper movement.
7. There’s a possibility that the machine has some sort of failsafe that’s getting triggered. Usually this wouldn’t result in lost communication but something to consider.

There’s likely something I’m forgetting here but this type of comms failure is one of the most common so I’d suggest searching the forums to identify something more specific as you work through symptoms.