Set laser position not working with 3018 Pro

[whmeade10 (Bill Meade)]

I have been using Lightburn for years on a CO2 laser with Rueda Controller but now I have a 3018 Pro with a GRBL controller. All axis’s move correctly until I try to set laser position by clicking on the page. My home position is in the front left corner. After homing the laser I shut down Lightburn then turn back on so the X, Y, and Z are set to 0,0,0. When I select the set laser position icon and click 1 inch to the right and up the laser move in the opposite direction and hits the Y limit switch. I can’t find any setting that will fix this. I tried the $3 but didn’t work. Any help will be very appreciated!

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

This is worth review to ensure you are set up properly:

Configuring a 3018 CNC (or other CNC-based laser) for use with LightBurn

The summary: Turn on Laser Mode to get rid of the travel lines You’re trying to move too fast, which is why you don’t get enough power You need to zero the machine 3018’s are pre-configured for use as CNC machines, not lasers, so their settings and speeds will likely need to be changed to give you acceptable results with LightBurn. To see the existing settings, you can type $$ into the console in LightBurn and press enter, or go to Edit > Machine Settings. Both are showing the same values, b…

[LightBurn (Oz)]

@whmeade10

After homing the laser I shut down Lightburn then turn back on so the X, Y, and Z are set to 0,0,0

LightBurn isn’t the thing that keeps track of those - it’s the laser controller. You’d need to power cycle the laser itself for it to think that position was the origin.

[whmeade10 (Bill Meade)]

Thanks OZ, so I need to power cycle the laser after I home the laser head with LightBurn home button? My bed is set at (X) 300mm x (Y) 180mmx (Z) 50mm and after I home the laser it will go out 5mm on the X,Y, and Z. When I look at the position of the laser it show X: -295.00 Y: -175.00 Z: -5.00

Shouldn’t it show: X: 5.00 Y: 5.00 Z: 5.00?

It seems like the laser is homing to the front left corner but it thinks 0, 0, 0 is in the upper right corner.

[LightBurn (Oz)]

Most of the 3018’s I see don’t have homing switches, so they’re usually manually homed, and power cycling resets the machine origin to the current location of the head.

In your case the problem is that you have a workspace offset configured, which is common when working with CNC software.

Type this command in the console to see your workspace offset values (and press enter):

$#

You should see a few lines, with the first (G54) having values other than zero. If you type this line in the console and press enter, it will clear the offset:

G10 L2 P1 X0 Y0

That assigns an offset of X0 Y0 to the primary workspace coordinate (G54). Using the $# command again should show it zero’d out, and the ‘Get Positions’ button should report correctly after that.

[whmeade10 (Bill Meade)]

Thank you so much. I will give it a try tonight.