There's more to RTLink!

LightBurn Hardware Compatibility Ruida controllers
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I got the BWK301R wireless hand controller for the Ruida 6445. That might seem silly, but this is a 1610 machine and it’s a significant way from the panel to the far side of the bed. I’m liking this!

So, this plugs into the 3-wire RTLink port, plus you have to find +5V from somewhere else on a 3rd wire. I’d previously read this was only for providing power supply data for some niche reason- no idea what the panel would do with it, either.

The dongle says “RS232”, but certainly that’s not right, is it? RS232 is serial UART but with obsolete, difficult electrical levels. Surely that wouldn’t literally mean RS232 levels, would it?

I checked at first without it plugged in, and I see 5V levels on both input and output, so I was thinking 5V UART, but nope, once I plugged in the BWK301R I’m seeing -5v idle then +5V bits, 9600 baud. Which isn’t exactly RS232 but definitely not regular UART.

So, this port is capable of more than I knew. It can jog, origin, frame, start/stop, fire, etc.

I’m curious if it can support ANY Ruida command. Are the bits “lightly swizzled”? I’ll slap a logic analyzer on it soon and record some data, maybe an RS232-USB cable to log it to a file?

Not sure what benefit I can get, but I don’t believe that they would have gone to the trouble of filtering out some commands and not others, and this is just a clone of the USB/ethernet port. So, you could do ANYTHING from here, maybe.

Hmm could make a different remote, but this one isn’t bad. Not sure what I can do with this port.

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There’s a couple apps for your phone that go in via Ethernet and allow you to do everything the control panel allows.

Lost the use of it when I went to the Lightburn Pi bridge. My machine is only 5030, but it’s still hard to reach the panel when your at mirror 1…

Keep us updated…

:smile_cat:

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RTLink is designed to display info from the laser PSU at the bottom of the control panel screen.

Ruida has a basic free Android app on the software tab at the bottom of the list, and there is a guy on here that has developed a much more detail paid app.

I use the Ruida app when ever I’m doing alignment or power testing. Like you said, working back at the tube and #1 mirror is a pain without something. Especially if you have the probe in one hand ready to take readings.

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Right, that’s ONE thing it can be used for. But the RTLink can take motion and operational commands, too. START, STOP, ORIGIN, FRAME, etc.

Looks very short-sighted, as RS232 is not expandable. If you have a PSU monitor, that takes up the one and only RTLink port, you could not use the remote alongside it.

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I believe it was only set up for a link between the laser PSU and the controller.

Can it take the other commands, probably. But that is what the hardwire and Android remotes are used for. I can’t speak directly to the hardwire remote as I use the Android remote.

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I’m saying I actually have the BWK301R remote, and it’s designed to issue motion commands through RTLink. Operation would obviously be either/or with the PSU monitor, RS232 isn’t multidrop. Nothing is hacked, the RD6445 just listens for traffic on the RTLink. It appears to have a TX and RX so the RTLink can send out info too, but not sure what

I haven’t tried the Android remote. This device having physical buttons, as poor a feedback as they are, is still slightly better than a touch screen. Main benefit though is this is a makerspace with a lot of members so asking casual users to install an app would be a barrier. Also many have iOS. It’s well worth it to get a physical remote for us, IMHO.

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If I were rolling in dough… Happen to have an android phone… low cost…

Can’t afford a nice RF excited laser either, you bum… lol

I keep hoping…

Take care

:smile_cat:

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Yeah, Makerspace is a whole different animal compared to single user. I’d have to say stick with the physical remote, although how many of your users are you going to trust enough to get in and start messing with alignment and power testing?

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I’ve gotten much more into programming settings for the Library. This has made the laser SO much more approachable.

We do not do supervised usage. Once you’ve taken the class, you can come in any time, boot it up, and start going, for better or worse. So far, with the new setup I keep improving on, very few problems.

I sometimes get stuck on misunderstandings like “what’s a simple, foolproof focusing tool design?” and get suggestions about more risky tooling etc. It’s about what’s 1) the most intuitive, and 2) the least likely thing you could screw up badly and crush while raising the Z. I don’t worry about ME screwing it up. It’s casual users who half remember the whirlwind of class instruction and we want to be able to say “go ahead you can do it!”

I don’t even have a good way to broadcast news about the laser. The remote, it’s magnetic, I just stuck it on the side of the machine and people will probably just pick it up and start pressing buttons.

One thing I fear is people asking about installing LB on their own machines and sending straight to the machine via its IP#. Because I can’t protect the Machine Settings with LB (yet), and I can see some confused person loading up the wrong machine parameters and writing them. Which really you can do on our official LB control station anyways (please please need a pwd control here!) but I can see someone trying to configure their copy of LB to work with our machine and instead writing config TO the machine. Worst thing you could ever do? Invert the laser’s “active” level. Yes I thought about that.

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Yeah, a backup of the vendor settings is a must in your situation. Lets you go back to a known configuration if somebody gets it too far out of whack.

How often do you do your power testing? I started doing mine yearly, but had an overheated tube because of a bad flow switch, so now I test twice yearly. Haven’t seen any power drop yet, but the tube is getting near three years old now.

11

I always thought a block with springs in between. The each block is set to the proper height for the desired lens.

If the block had strong springs pushing it apart, then lowering the lens (raising the table) wouldn’t incur as much damage, springs would take up a few mm. Thought about this myself, but too lazy to build it. I probably could with the 3d printer…

Do you mind giving me a hint, like a link to your rf excited unit?

Don’t know if I need (or can afford) that much power, but I’d get off on the amazing amount of control and response time…

Assume it’s air cooled?

:smile_cat:

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For me, a ramp is used to find the focal length, and a step gauge is used to set it once I know it. I did find that low power marking / engraving has a slightly different focal point than cutting, so I have paper target on the ramp for low power, and an MDF target that hangs off the side for cutting tests.

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