I read through the section about cameras in this Lightburn forum. The chart showing different cameras with the focal length and mounting distance was very helpful. I was frustrated when looking for a LightBurn camera on Amazon. The one I found did not even mention how many MP, or the pixel dimensions of the image. And it did not mention where to plug in the 4pin connector it has.
In more general terms, is there anything special about the camera being used. Specifically, is there anything about using the camera for a laser setup that requires a special camera, for instance to handle the intense contrast of having the laser light in the photo area?
Would any USB camera of appropriate focal length work just as well? For instance, I have a couple of old GoPro cameras lying around.
Most of those wide angle cheap cameras have fairly drastic distortion where straight lines are quite curved. How is that distortion handled in order to place things with any accuracy?
I have my Creality Falcon 10W set up on extension legs in order to use the Creality Rotary Roller (Chuck) below the side rails. I am mostly laser etching wooden flutes that average about 35mm in diameter and length up to 700mm, which is substantially longer than the working space within the side rails.
So my work piece is not at the same plane as the metal backing grid underneath.
When not using the rotary I use steel machinist V-blocks to securely support and centre the flute and the V-blocks are attached to the backing grid with large speaker magnets so they won’t easily slide around. That also places the workpiece at about the same height as with the roller.
And at some times I will switch back to the usual flat work piece placed on the backing grid. I imagine that degree of change in working height would require some recalibration? Can a set-up be saved as a camera profile to later be recalled for use?
yes you have to redo the settings and change the height of the camera, because originally you set it to the height of the honeycomb, with the rotary this height changes!
As a rule of thumb, I ignore anything offered for sale without key information in the description.
Pretty much any USB camera doing the UVC danceshould work, but low-end cameras (of the type I used to buy) tend to have janky USB interfaces and shoddy USB connectors.
You’ll only use the camera for alignment with the lid up, so what it sees with the lid down and the laser firing doesn’t matter.
Protip: if you don’t have a lid over the laser, the room will fill with smoke, so don’t do that.
That’s what the camera alignment does for a living: you calibrate the lens distortion, then align it to the platform, with the result being a nicely rectilinear
image of the platform and nothing else:
The ironclad rule: the camera and platform must not move relative to each other, not by a millimeter nor a milli·degree. This is difficult with an enclosed CO₂ laser and AFAICT nearly impossible with a tabletop diode laser; your arrangement may be in the “really difficult” category.
You can save / restore camera settings / alignments, but if anything has changed, that alignment will come heartbreakingly close to working again.
I depend on the camera for millimeter-ish alignment of stock /materials, but anything requiring actual precision calls for a fixture with Print and Cut targets.
Which may not work for your setups, but AFAICT the camera cannot produce sub-millimeter accuracy, even with extreme attention to detail.
Gotta have a camera, but don’t expect perfection.
