Thanks, it seems to be a real and disturbing struggle… 
The topic you refered to is for the G version of the controller - which sadly is an entire other thing than the S version → firmware’wise atleast
I plug mine into the Y.
The machine is useless for ‘non rotary’ use with the rotary sitting in the middle of the machines workspace and it’s taller than my lenses are long.
Might be nice to just plug it in, but I haven’t seen a good fix yet…
There are some firmware out there that’s supposed to work… I have the 6442G, so it isn’t on the top of my list. Seems I’ve seen some using the Z axes…
May I ask what your workflow is? What happens when you turn on the controller - won’t it mess with the default attempt to do a homing sequence?
Really astounished that this seems to have been an on-going topic for years
The RDC6445S-V26.01.16 firmware I mention in my original post, is one of those mentioned “fixes” - but I dont see any difference at all.
I also tried plugging my rotary into the Z-axis instead of U-axis, but in the rotary settings the option to pick Z-axis is disabled (greyed out)
My habit is to power up the machine and let it home, and ‘hot’ unplug the Y, with a ‘hot’ plugin of my rotary… Use it almost weekly and have about 7 months of doing it that way.
It didn’t seem to make any difference when I power cycled it and had to hammer the ‘esc’ key. The hardware looked pretty tough, so I started and have been just doing ‘hot’ swaps.
You can ‘esc’ out of the boot or reset…
I don’t know of a way to enable it at the controller
There is an option in ‘edit → device settings’ for enabling the Z axes, but I don’t remember it showing up in the rotary menu…
I cringe whenever I power equipment up, that’s when it always fails.
I have 6445S and use U axis for rotary with no issues.
I bought a 3rd Axis driver and installed it on the U axis, added a port into the machine to plug the Rotary into, and also added a switch to turn it on/off if not using it.
All I have to do is set rotary -yes on the controller (or via LB) send the file from LB to the controller and hit run from the controller. It just runs the rotary from the U axis driver because Rotary is on. I can have all the settings for the rotary set on the U axis, and no need to keep changing them by plugging it in the Y axis.
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How does it know to use the U axes?
My rotary menu dose not have a U axes option.
Just because you set rotary to Yes, I assume.
But it just works from the U axis when plugged in and rotary is set to Yes. without changing anything else (run from the console, not LB)
Ill do quick Video tomorrow when at work to show
Do you have separate control of the Y axes while using the rotary?
Please do - would be very interesting to see your setup @ approach.
I haven’t tried what you’re doing:
Running it directly from the controller vs. running the job through Lightburn. I can move the rotary via the U-axis +/- on the controller itself, so could make sense that it would perhaps work.
Although would be great if it could just be run through Lightburn. But I guess right now, any solution that can work via the U-axis would be cool
Awww yeaaa, “hot swaps” was the thing I wanted to avoid in the first place buying a controller which actually had place for all axis. And my wiring is so flimsy, so would really want to avoid pulling the plug in and out 
I’m pretty sure the answer is yes, everything except that U-axis would work intact from Lightburn - just the job itself which would use X + U-axis directly from the controller.
But let’s see what Neil shows us 
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What A Nightmare!!! Went to do the video this morning
I upgraded the firmware a few months ago, have not used the rotary since and now it doesn’t want to work like it did before…it wants to use the Y Axis…I can still turn the Rotary manually using the U axis controlls but when running the job, it tries to move the Y axis (very slowely) instead of the U like it did before…
Does anyone have the old Firmware still on their machine? 26.01.13? or have a copy of it please? (NOT 26.01.16) this latest update seems to make it want to use the Y instead of U for rotary, and I cannot find anything in the settings to revert this…
and you worry about a ‘hot swap’.?
No reason to push my luck
Ugh, I guess we jinxed your working setup to act like ours now 
Sorry to hear that… I’m actually not sure where to get the “default” initial firmware - but i’ll surely try and keep my eyes open!
Good thing he wasn’t ‘hot swapping’ anything 
My rule on firmware. Like most other things, “if it works don’t mess* with it”… bricked too many of these newfangled devices…
- don’t actually use the word ‘mess’…
@LaserCuttingPro like a backup, keep a couple of firmware versions, if possible. I wouldn’t update without a backup if I could help it. Of course i realize you probably don’t have the original. In that case I would have attempted to locate the ‘installed’ version somewhere before the update… It’s a bit of very low cost insurance.
It’s probably out there…somewhere
Good luck.
Sorry for digging up an old chat, well not that sorry because I am. Did you find the .13 file and get things working .17 is out now too which I will be testing later today. If you search “rds 6445s lightburn firmware” your will come back to this forum where Dave has a link to his google mod page (drive) that has .13 and .16. The text file with the explanation that .13 goes to U while .16 goes to Y is also in there. Thanks Dave, if you’re reading this. I will be trying both of those as well as .17 later today. Yes it’s 2:23 AM and I’m about to close my eyes.
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Hi Greg - Would you mind sharing v. 17? Where did you get it? Any changelog?
I don’t see v. 17 on the google mod page:
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