My laser is doing something insane and I have no idea why

[JWAR91 (Jackson)]

Laser just started doing this today, no clue why but any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I can’t upload the video but it is randomly moving up to places in the workpiece that it shouldn’t also like the controller is malfunctioning

[jkwilborn (Jack Wilborn)]

Does it boot OK, without your intervention?

[JWAR91 (Jackson)]

https://imgur.com/a/OVHGw4a

Video for reference

[JWAR91 (Jackson)]

Yeah booted up, framed fine and ran okay for the first bit

[ednisley]

@JWAR91

just started doing this today

As a rule of thumb, if you haven’t changed anything in LightBurn, don’t change anything in LighBurn.

Assuming the PC is connected to the controller with a USB cable, most likely the cable / connectors have worked loose or failed.

A cable with ferrite cores on both ends, bought from a reputable supplier (rather than a randomly named Amazon / eBay seller who also offers beach attire and kitchen utensils), seems to resolve many problems. IMO it’s because the ferrite cores justify a price high enough to allow better (or any) QC for the internal wiring.

Some previous discussions:

My Cherokee Beast

WOO HOO !!! I got everything working right , FINELY !!! What was the problem? It turns out to be the USB to Controller board cable was faulty. That was the only thing I failed to check and that was it. I have a bad habit of buying one to use and one to loose. When I thought about the cable being bad, I got the cable out the spare controller kit and that one worked. I feel really stupid sitting here thinking how I spent 4 to 6 weeks crying and trying to fix this thing and never though…

Lightburn not connect with my laser

Thank you Mike for all the help, that was the problem, I replaced the USB cable with a new one and it took care of my problem. Thank you, John J

However, if it’s a Ruida controller, using Ethernet will eliminate all USB problems.

Some previous discussions cover the situation:

Random Letters Missing During Laser Cut – Only Works Fine One Letter at a Time

Hi everyone, I’m having a strange issue with my laser cutter and I’d love some help figuring it out. As you can see in the picture (from top to bottom, it shows my first to most recent attempts), some letters are randomly missing or partially cut when engraving text. I’m cutting at speed 50mm/s and power 35%. I’ve already tried applying an offset, and then used the Pathfinder tool (unite/merge) afterward — but there’s always a small issue somewhere. What’s odd is that if I cut each letter in…

Laser stops running after a few seconds

Hello. I’m new to the forum but have been using my OMTech 70W Co2 laser for a couple years. I’m wondering if anyone else has had an issue with the laser stopping after a few seconds. I was running a batch of stuff and as soon as I changed files, Lightburn said it needed to be updated (to version 2.0.02). I did the update and that was it. Every time I try to engrave, it stops after a few seconds. Nothing else changed except for the update. I’ve reinstalled old versions, rebooted everything, and n…

Laser jumps and does not cut the image on the cut line

I am operating macOS Sequoia 15.5 on Apple M1 system. After installing v2.0.00 and trying to cut the laser will jump and cut a line that does not exist on the workspace? I tried multiple times to cut different images and the same occurs each time. I did the update and the same issue. I have reverted back to 1.7.08 and no issues. Any suggestions would be appreciated, [IMG_8505]

Has 2.1 Infected my Ruida C02 Laser? Inoperable now

I managed to get the machine to talk to the network again by issuing a static IP to it from my firewall and matching that IP in the controller. Now that its communicating over ethernet, the overwrite error no longer occurs. So it seems that particular issue is usb related. Can you please mark this one as resolved. I guess the underlying cause of what happened was down to old firmware on the machine conflicting with something in LB2.1.01. Since updating to LB 2.1.02 and updating the firmware,…

[JWAR91 (Jackson)]

So it would be fine to run an Ethernet cable to my laptop while I wait for a new USB to come in? Is there anything different about that connection I need to do different as far as settings?

[jkwilborn (Jack Wilborn)]

Ethernet is a networking protocol. This means you have to plug it into the network, along with your computer.

Although you can plug Ethernet directly into a PC, you have to know enough about networking to get it to work correctly. On many machines, you can’t configure a single port (Ethernet) to anything other than your network settings, so you could loose network communications. I have done this on my Ubuntu Linux box…

Just run it to your router or switch, so it’s part of the lan and connect to it with Lightburn. Mine is on a WIFI bridge that set me back $12 from Amazon. It’s in the garage…

There is also the Raspberry PI…

(Discontinued) LightBurn Bridge Kit

It’s discontinued, but you can still build your own. All it takes it to load their software on an SD card and boot it… The article explains how to do this.

I think, once you’re started using Ethernet you won’t go back to USB.

Good luck… sing out if you need help.

[JWAR91 (Jackson)]

Thank you! I appreciate all of the help!

[ednisley]

@JWAR91

while I wait for a new USB to come in

When you start using Ethernet, you will never go back to USB, because It Just Works™.

The doc gives the setup:

Connect to a Ruida or Trocen Laser via Ethernet - LightBurn User Guide

With a direct cable between the PC and the Ruida, the PC will come up with a Link Local address for that port, something like 169.254.0.22. Set the Ruida’s IP address to the first three octets, with something else in the last: 169.254.0.23. Then tell LightBurn what you set for the Ruida and it should connect.

If not, we’ll need more details about the setup.