Hello all! So I’ve looked through quite a few posts here and everywhere I could, but couldn’t find the issue I’m having. I just purchased a Monport K40 (LightBurn Ready board) and the laser only seems to fire at 30% and above. I’ve checked the $30 value as well as the S-value max and they match up which seemed to be most peoples’ issues with something like this. To cover all the bases: I’ve added air assist, a CW-5200 from Monport, exhaust vent going outside, and aligned the mirrors (somehow).
I have the ammeter turned all the way up when using LigthBurn to control the power and can use the test fire button to fire the laser from the lowest setting to the highest (1mA - 18mA). I used this test file from OMTech and will attach photos of my results. I’ll also put in screenshots from LightBurn settings and the console values. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated I’m new to the CO2 side of things so I’m hoping there’s just some glaringly obvious setting I’m missing.
$30 and $31 identify how the pwm is computed… unless there is some reason, the $31 is usually 1, not 50. That in itself shouldn’t make it do only 30% power and above.
$110 and $111 are the x and y axes maximum speeds that your machine can attain.
Yours is set to 8000mm/m for both axes… that’s only 8000/60 or only 133mm/s. The documentation on the link you posted advertised 350mm/s, I assume on only the X axes… The Y axes is lugging everything around is is usually lower and slower…
$120 and $121 are the acceleration values… I don’t have a grbl machine, but I’d think it’s similar to mine and I would think it would accelerate faster than 500mm/s^2. Mines a China Blue and it’s default was around 6000mm/s^2.
I’d check these for the proper values…
Do you have and can use a voltmeter?
You can measure the pwm and determine if the controller is causing it to limit the range of the pwm signal…
If you measure it will be relative voltage to the percentage you have chosen. For example, at 50% pwm it should read 2.5V and 20% pwm 1V…
The numbers there are what LB grabbed from the board when I added the machine. I’ll double check all the numbers. I thought I had done that, but never hurts to check it again. I do have a voltmeter and will check that if I nothing changes from verifying the numbers.
Use Lightburn Machine settings to save your current configuration…
This is one I got for my MKS DLC32 V2 grbl controller for a K40 swap out… I’ve never used it for a co2. These came from the github for the MKS firmware, but it’s values could be loaded and see if it helps or not… you can also compare them… for acceleration and maximum speed values…
Make sure you backup the original…
It’s easy to delete it you don’t use it, but kind of a problem if you do need it and don’t have it…
