Hi,
I have a Stepcraft with DL445 Laser. Connected to my Laptop via USB. Normally I use WinPC NC - runs seamless but it has no “open interface” and is locked to my machine. Now, when I wanted to use Lightburn (because it has some basic shape capabilities…) I am running into problems.
During install and automatic detection Lightburn is detecting a “GRBL-M3 (1.1e or earlier)”. Also when starting the program the USB LED on the Stepcraft is going on (green). But as soon as I try to send data or move the machine (by the way, I only see the “motion” tab under Linux version, not under Windows) Lightburn says:
“waiting for connection USB or Stepcraft is OFF” (translated from German text)" and the USB LED is turned off.
Does anyone knows if the “GRBL-M3 (1.1e or earlier)” is the correct identifcation for the Stepcraft with DL445 ? What do I need to configure when not knowing which controller is in the Stepcraft machine - does anyone knows?
By the way, similar behaviour with the Windows version.
I was in discussion with a different Stepcraft user a while back.
Follow the start of that discussion here:
Uccnc Lightburn support - LightBurn Software Questions [OFFICIAL] - LightBurn Software Forum
We continued in DM for a bit and arrived at this conclusion:
Based on the last test I think I have a procedure to make this work.
- Setup a device type as Marlin in LightBurn.
- In Device Settings make sure S Value Max is set to 255
- In Device Settings make sure to select M03/M05 for Laser Control Command
- Create your design, then push “Save GCode” in Laser window and select a filename
- Open the saved G-code in a text editor and make the following changes:
Replace all 'M05' with 'M11' Replace all 'M03 S' with 'M10Q' Add a line with just 'M3' before the first line with 'M11'
- Run g-code in your control software
Hi,
first, thank you for the quick response. Unfortunately this does not solve it. I think, the problem is the controller. Seems not be UCC100 compatible… I selected Marlin and set the rest as you wrote. Same behaviour: first Green but as soon as anything is send “Waiting for connection” even though Lightburn first says “Laser ready”. OK, in the console I can see - from the beginning - “Waiting for connection”.
But the port (COM6) is definitely there and working - at least WinPC NC is working through this port… So I assume that the communication protocol between Lightburn and my DL445/Stepcraft is not working correctly…
I think you misunderstand. The approach is a completely offline approach. This is just about generating the gcode and running the modified gcode in your native control software.
What software do you use to control your Stepcraft? UCCNC?
Ah, ok, I understand. No, that was the reason for chosing Lightburn instead of my existing control software. I am using “WinPC-NC USB” “(WinPC-NC Overall View)” - it accepts several file formats like DXF, HPGL and then directly controls the machine.
Now I wanted to add some basic CAM capabilities like Lightburn has. So for example I want to create two circles to cut a ring out of paper and then send the commands directly from this software to the machine.
So I want to avoid any intermediate steps between drawing and running the machine… and for sure no offline activities…
Got you. I didn’t recognize this as a program the first time you mentioned it as I was unfamiliar with it.
The platform seems similar to Mach 3 or LinuxCNC type setups. Are you able to convert the system to work with LinuxCNC? If so, then you can configure LightBurn directly for that.
That would be a software only shift.
If not, then a full controller swap to something like GRBL, Smoothieware, or even Marlin would be your best bet to getting the machine to work with LightBurn directly.
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