I’ve been using Lightburn for some time now with my 50w JPT Fiber laser.
I’ve just recently installed and setup my rotary, my problem is once I have successfully setup the rotary for the current project and run project, then saved it for multiple runs. I then create a new project which requires a different rotary config, set that up and save it.
When I return to first project and load it up the rotary settings do not update to the requirements of that project but come up as the last project which used rotary.
Should the rotary settings save to project?
If not users are very likely to ruin jobs if they do not double and triple check settings for specific rotary jobs, can this feature be added??
The rotary should only need to be set once. I doubt that Lightburn stores that with the project, but I don’t know. From the sounds of it, you pretty much have told me it doesn’t.
What is happening that you need to change the rotary settings. This, in itself, it not normal. Please explain…
Depending on the size and type of your project you may need to change “split” to match / be compatible with dot size being used, along with project diameter and possible start position etc
So quite a few things can change between projects, like for annealing stainless steel, you’d use a different dot size to removing powder coatings from tumblers!
Also to add, obviously the step per full rotation would remain the same for every project as it is rotary based.
Also what if you had more than one rotary and the steps per full rotation were different, a rotary for rings, one for tumblers and maybe a roller for glass.
I agree with you. I’ve got a checklist on my white board before I start a batch of tumblers now. The file saves everything specific to that file but I have to change the rotary settings each time to account for the tumbler diameter. I’d love a tumbler specific page, maybe with pre-set sizing and the box in box design so they’re easier to build and get correct. Then they can be saved for each type of tumbler.
In addition to this I also believe that cylinder correction should fall under this as well. Same reason, once you have set-up cylinder correction for a specific file/job, you don’t want to have to set-up again if you’ve changed these settings for a different job!
Any news on this topic? Would also love to have the rotary settings saved in the project file.
There is also an old feature request from 2021, but it seems like nothing really happened yet:
Click me for explanation, why I need this feature
We basically have three kind of products we use the laser for:
flat material
round with 45mm diameter
round with 80mm diameter
Most of the time just a few pieces of the same type, so we have to switch between aforementioned 3 settings many times a day. (Customer walks in and wants his customized product, so not really much production planning or sorting we can do to minimize settings switching.) Currently this means:
load project file
check/change rotary enabled option
if rotary:
change step size (different for 45mm and 80mm)
change overlap (also different for 45mm and 80mm)
change part diameter
run job (mostly 5 - 30 seconds)
repeat
We destroyed lots of parts because someone didn’t check all the settings and tried to engrave the 45mm part with 80mm rotary settings or vice versa. The operator of the machine also does not like to enter all the values manually, this is to complicated for a insert part, press start-type of operator.
I would be very happy to be able to save the following settings in the project file:
rotary enabled
step size
overlap
part diameter
Would also be fine to just have these in the lbrn2 file and edit these with an editor. Just about anything would be better than entering numbers after each project load
I will leave it to @JohnJohn to get back to you with the official word on this, but I just wanted to suggest a potential approach you could use now.
When you save your project file, let’s say ‘projectname.lbrn2’, make also a duplicate of your device (Devices list, right-click and ‘Duplicate’, then label it) e.g. ‘JCZFiber(D80Tumbler20oz)’ - this device profile will contain your rotary settings (and cylinder correction values), so you can switch to this device when you require those settings again.
If you are programming the job for somebody else to run or as a reminder to yourself you could use File>Show Notes to name the device profile.
You could also optionally export the device as ‘projectname.lbdev’ to accompany the project file. Before you open your projectname.lbrn2, drag ‘projectname.lbdev’ into LightBurn and that device along with the rotary settings would be immediately reinstated.
Thanks for message, the work around for me, it just won’t work, I’ve so many different items I’d have a machine list as long as my arm.
Having working in the user acceptance testing team for a business using SAP and having to accept changes made to it, it’s just not user friendly, a save file that’s saves half of the parameters required to run a specific project just isn’t right, it’s like having Microsoft word saving the words of the document you’ve typed but not the layout or font needed to display as you’ve produced it and every time you open the file you have to modify it to look right before printing!
It’s not user friendly, these parameters are key to producing repeatable output on users projects.
Thanks for the workaround with duplicated devices, not the perfect solution, but better than nothing.
The .lbrn2 files we use are automatically generated from our webserver, our planned workflow is basically:
customer designs object on simple web GUI
design is send to server
server converts customer data to .lbrn2 file with fitting cut settings for the selected part
.lbrn2 file is transferred from server to laser pc
server sends UDP command to lightburn to load the file and shows message on screen like “insert part xy with material color yellow”
operator (robot in the future) inserts requsted part and pushes start button on the machine.
In a perfect world our operator wouldn’t have to use the lightburn GUI at all.
I tried the .lbdev export, but if I drag the file back into lightburn it always creates a new device and shows the following message:
Not really a solution, because this would create hundrets of devices a day…
The .lbdev file can also not be automatically loaded via UDP command:
At present, LightBurn works the way all the other laser software works in this regard, saving the settings to the device or device profile, not the project. It’s done this way primarily because we wanted to be consistent with other software people were used to, so the transition to LightBurn was easier.
We’ve talked about having an option to save the settings for things like diameter, split size, etc in the project, but it would need to be an option.
Thanks for your comments. Replicating what other software does is ok.
Including this feature either as an option or by default is must for users who have lots of varying sizes of media and type, when they have to do lots of one-offs, constantly changing settings is time consuming and puts job at risk of being run with incorrect settings if you not concentrating.
This would make your software standout even more than the competition and just because they don’t have the option doesn’t make their software right either.
Mirroring what other software provides is ok as long as you make it the same or better, IMO the current option just isn’t right and I’m sure there are many users mirroring this opinion.
You are absolutely correct that this is your opinion.
Ruida hardware, for example, stores the rotary settings in the hardware itself - it is not a thing that LightBurn directly controls, and it is not part of the file uploaded to the controller. If the user saved a machine file to a thumb drive, and carried it over to the laser (which many still do) there would be no way for us to update the information in the controller.
For galvo or gcode systems, where the rotary settings are effectively embedded in the job sent to the laser, this method of working would be possible, but claiming that it is somehow “wrong” just because you don’t like it, or it doesn’t work for your specific workflow, is hyperbolic at best and we try to avoid that here. State your case, give your reasons, we listen.
Sorry I don’t mean to sound critical of software, Lightburn is awesome, I’m just trying to put across a change which I think is needed to make it more user friendly than it already is.
When I say the “current option” I refer to the workaround of saving multiple machine profiles, I’d end up with a list of around 30 of them, and would have to manage multiple burn libraries and if for some reason a setting changed in way software works or I’d needed to do a lens correction change for instance I’d have to update every machine to ensure it’s correct.
Having a “ save rotary settings “ option in the save file settings would work then users can toggle as needed.
Is there enough info in this forum discussion for LB to consider a change?
We’ve been talking for a while about having the ability to save a list of rotary presets, and be able to choose them from the Rotary Setup window - this would be more compatible with the range of controllers we have, but wouldn’t save with the file.
Adding the option to save the rotary settings with the file on systems where it’s not stored in the controller is certainly an option. It won’t happen for this release, but it’s not an outlandish request, and I could see it making things easier for some.
