Snapmaker Artisan 10W laser not full power

Hello hobby friends

Hope someone can help me , i,m trying to use lightburn on my artisan 10W.
I want to lasercut and engrave using Lightburn , engrave works but lasercut does not , seems to have way to less power , setting 100% and 5mm wood. somehow when I save the Gcode in Lightburn it just does not have enough power. when using Luban and create Gcode then it,s very easy too cut untill 6-7mm. What could be wrong , i,m using firmaware V2.5.21.
I,m missing something in the settings ?

It is a grbl-type firmware? Then first check the s-avlue max in device settings. If you added the laser as type “grbl-m3”, this is probably set to 255, which results in 25% power maximum.

Hello Melvin, how can I check if it,s grbl firmware and if 255 is 25% , what value should I use then 1000 ?

The Artisan is running Marlin. GRBL works well enough because it’s close, since most gcode is the same, just some nuances are different. Like homing in Marlin is G28 and homing in GRBL is $H.

The laser max s-value for the artisan should be 255. You should also, when cutting, make sure “Constant Power” is enabled. This uses M3 to turn on the laser, whereas if it’s turned off, will use M4, which will cause the firmware to automatically reduce laser power during acceleration and deceleration.

I have selected Marlin and M3 , S-value 255 under device settings but still the laser does not cut the 4mm wood, under cut settings selected "
speed 30mm/sec
power 100%
mode : line
number passes: 1
perforation mode: off
Cut dept: 5mm

Saved the G-code and tested on the Artisan which resulted not in cutting, laser is far to weak.
Any idea what could be wrong ? latest firmware was installed

Can you upload the gcode file so I can review it?

FULLCUT2.nc (9,0 KB)
FULLCUT.nc (11,6 KB)

Fullcut2.nc : GRBL-M3
Fullcut nc : Marlin M3

Looking at the two, the Marlin one looks correct, yet horribly inefficient. Make sure the Artisan is fully updated and swap to “Inline” method in device settings.

; Layer C00
M03 S255
G1 X0.037F600
G1 X5.963
M05 
G0 X0.1
M03 S255
G1 X6
M05 
G0 X0.1
M03 S255
G1 X6
M05 

It’s properly setting the power to 100% via the M03 S255 line, but it’s wasting serial bandwidth having to stream laser off (M05), move 0.1mm (G0 X0.1), laser on (M03) repeat. It can be done in single lines with inline mode. Otherwise it should be working Fine :tm:. I assume you have a perforation enabled creating the tiny tabs.


GRBL-M3 settings, however, are not correct.

M3
G1 X0.037S1000F600
G1 X5.963
M5
G0 X0.1
M3
G1 X6
M5
G0 X0.1
M3

According to the second line, where power is set with S#, it’s calling for S1000, so you have your S-Value wrong. Again seeing the perforation movements. Which is odd to see in GRBL, I would assume it would have just done X0.1 S0 instead of all the M5. :thinking:

EDIT: Also on both, you’re moving way too fast for a single pass. Change your Lightburn settings to mm/min instead of mm/sec.
Screenshot 2023-12-10 095518

10mm/sec is 600mm/min, Snapmaker’s default cutting speed for 5mm thick basswood is only 180mm/min, which is only 3mm/sec. Which you may need multiple passes faster (say 240 with 2 passes) or slower speed, simply because you’re using plywood instead of solid wood. It’s harder for the laser to get through the glues and resins holding the layers together.

Skreelink thanks for your help , seems getting better now . change to 240mm/min in 2 runs. I need to learn how the G-codes works…

One more question, do you know if I can send multi layer to the Artisan , to cut when the engraved is finished or copy single layers and create them into luban ?

You can setup and run the entire project in Lightburn without Luban, what exactly are you trying to do?

I try to laser an etsy project house where some parts are cut out and some are engraved and need to cut but this are two layers, can I make the G-code in lightburn and send the artisan? when I save the project in SVG and import in Luban it shows only one layer

Luban cannot handle two layers, Lightburn can. If you want to use Luban, you will have to export as two different SVGs, one for engrave, one for cutting, then line them up properly and assign different settings.

You can generate the gcode in Lightburn to put on the Artisan instead.

Mucho gracias , got much further now:) thanks alot for your help :slight_smile:

Glad to hear it. Hopefully your projects come out well. :slight_smile: