The Gweike Cloud Pro laser’s absolute zero and homing position is in the top right area of the laser bed. LightBurn by default shows 0,0 in that top right corner. This works, but I would prefer to have 0,0 in LightBurn in the top left corner because it is a easier to position materials there (since the homed laser head is not in the way there) which means that for offsets from materials in that corner I currently have to count backwards in X axis.
An example to clarify. Lets say I place a sheet material in the top left of the laser bed with the sheet top left corner at the top- and rightmost physical point the laser can reach. That point is currently represented as 510,0 in LightBurn. If I then want to laser a dot 10 mm in from that corner I currently enter 500,10. What I wish for instead is to in LightBurn see 0,0 at that top left corner and to place a dot 10 mm in I would set 10,10.
I see in LightBurn 1.7 “device settings” an “origin” option: four round buttons representing corners. But that setting doesn’t do what I want above. If I change it to the top left corner LightBurn shows 0,0 in the top left (good so far!) but then when I laser e.g. a dot at 10,10 it gets lasered near the top right corner. So I think that setting is really just for aligning LightBurn’s 0,0 corner to the underlying machine’s absolute 0,0 corner.
I suppose the setting I’m looking for would do two things: show 0.0 in top left corner in LightBurn and then on laser start LightBurn would translate the design data and coordinates from LightBurns top left origin to the machines top right origin, so that the actual lasered positions match those in the LightBurn canvas and camera preview.
What origin does is tell Lightburn which quadrant the machine operates within so it can generate the correct control codes for you specific machine.
It’s not a user option to pick the home location. I tried to help someone who changed theirs by moving the home switches … after a couple weeks I advised him to contact MW laser, down under. After a month of fiddling with it and phone calls and costs, they did get it to work.
I’ve seen Ruida working in all but one corner, so I sure they can be configured for any quadrant. However a Gweike has it’s own firmware, so it may not even be possible with the Gweike controller, we just don’t know.
My best suggestion is to understand the coordinate system and how all the controls work in it’s original configuration.
This is worth mentioning again. Home is a machine mechanical function. Origin is a software design position. They are not the same thing.
I may be opening a can of worms here, but you can set the 0,0 position to any corner using the G10 command. This changes how the machine reports its position. You can even set it in the middle of the machine work space if you want.
HOWEVER, you then get into the chaos of making the Home, Jog, and commanded travel operations perform properly. And that brings us to the other warning…
Without going into home positions or making this complicated, if you simply want to place materials in the top left. set the start from position to top left and use a user origin.
Set your origin after homing the machine to the top left.
Only time I use absolute coordinates is making templates. Start from is usually set to user origin on my software and machine. Then I can put it anywhere I want.
