I recently started using my Snapmaker 2.0 again recently and was having 0 luck getting anything to work. I’ve been using my Ray without issue and had updated Lightburn several times. I think I’ve narrowed down the problem to the thumbnail output in the gcode that was added in Lightburn 1.5. If I just hit “Start”, nothing happens. If I save the gcode, remove the thumbnail, then run the gcode, it seems to work. If I run the gcode unmodified, nothing happens.
Is there any way to disable this feature or am I doing something wrong?
So far, i didn’t find a setting to turn off the preview generation.
Can you save Gcode with the Snapmaker Luban program? Could you send such a file for comparison?
Here are some gcode from each of those. Neither one runs as is with the thumbnail, both will run with the thumbnail line removed.
Lightburn.gc (2.3 KB)
Luban.nc (14.8 KB)
Interresting… Since the Luban gcode also does not run with the thumbnail, is there maybe a firmware update for your Snapmaker that could resolve it?
The formatting does look the same.
I was able to decode both base64 codes to an image using this website: Base64 to Image | Base64 Decode | Base64 Converter | Base64
Not sure, if it’s relevant:
Luban is generating a thumbnail with a 720×480 resolution. The thumbnail from LightBurn is 345×342.
I installed the newest firmware before I started using it again, I’ll revert a few versions and see if it makes a difference.
I tried several firmware versions to no avail.
I do also want to clarify, the Luban gcode does not work if loaded into Lightburn. Luban does work on its own.
I ran a capture on the serial communications. There seems to be nothing output from Lightburn while the thumbnail is present. I have attached screenshots of the capture. In both cases, Lightburn was idle when I started capturing. I then loaded the gcode and either let it run, or waited 30secs and clicked Stop.
Anyone with any ideas why Lightburn wont communicate?
First try connecting with 115,200 Baud Rate.
Check if a Custom GCode with Snapmaker Flavor device will work for you.
Also check:
In the most recent firmware, Snapmaker presents itself as GRBL instead of Marlin. This is a good choice, as Marlin is mainly used in the 3D printer world. Not a good choice was to make the switch without giving the devs of LightBurn a heads up.
Please see: Announcement: Snapmaker firmware updates have affected LightBurn usage
You will need to add a new GRBL device by importing the corresponding .LBDEV file from here: Using Ray/Artisan/2.0 with LightBurn | Snapmaker Wiki
There is a confusion, but the system (at least as far as the 2.0 and should be Artisan) is still Marlin. The Ray is actually GRBL. Updated my machine to the latest yesterday, 7 July and here’s the firmware report;
> M115
FIRMWARE_NAME:Marlin SM2-4.7.2 (Github) SOURCE_CODE_URL:https://github.com/whimsycwd/SnapmakerMarlin PROTOCOL_VERSION:1.0
However; I’ve used a GRBL profile to connect to my 2.0 ever since I got the machine years ago, and the “official” lightburn profiles supplied by Snapmaker also list as GRBL. I’ve never had a connection issue, the only issue being it doesn’t understand the GRBL commands sent on connect, but it’s been fine.
Personally, I’ve never had a single issue with any updates affecting my Lightburn usage, so it’s hard for me to help.
First, I have already tried the GBRL setup and it does not work as expected. All commands are sent twice and I get repeated “unknown command” in the console.
While appreciate everyone’s input, I think the point is being overlooked. When the thumbnail line is present in the gcode, Lightburn does not output any commands. Nothing. There isn’t an issue with the machine not understanding the commands, none are being sent. I can edit the thumbnail line out of the gcode and everything works perfectly. There is a reason the thumbnail line is causing an issue with Lightburn.
I haven’t been able to get the Snapmaker’s Lightburn profiles to work correctly. Plenty of “unknown commands”, Home does not work, commands always are sent twice sort of things. The only setup I have ever been able to work with out issue has been the built in “Snapmaker Marlin”.
The reason for the unknown commands and most built in buttons not working is the aforementioned confusion between GRBL and Marlin. Setting the machine up as GRBL makes Lightburn default to GRBL commands, which Marlin doesn’t understand. So for a lot of things, like movement, you either have to hand-type the commands in the console, or set up your own macros.
Using the “Snapmaker” device in Lightburn makes engraving super slow as it uses the old stop/go method for each dot vs pulsing the laser. (I could be wrong about this and they’ve recently updated the snapmaker profile to have inline, maybe one of the LB team can chime in).
It’s been a while and I am still trying to find a proper solution.
To recap:
- When the thumbnail line is present in the gcode, Light burn stalls and does not output anything on the usb/serial output.
- There are no issues with the connection setup as removing the thumbnail line removes the issue.
- The Snapmaker GRBL profile does not work properly and causes other issues.
- I have no issues with pre-1.5 Lightburn, when the thumbnail was added.
- Firmware is kept up to date.
Going to @Aaron.F as well on this.
It’s the line length. I tested with my Snapmaker and XTool and it stops on both. I tested the symbols and changing out a few things before I figured if I trimmed it short, it ran fine. It seems to have some form of 127 byte/character limit on lines.
;0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123
Adding this comment, which is 125 characters/bytes (; + numbers) runs fine. Keep in mind, this is 127 characters with two hidden for the return.
However, just adding another digit, like 4 to the end.
;01234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234
This will cause it to hang up. 126 character line, which then also would contain a non-printed carriage return and line feed (which you can see by toggling all characters in a rich text editor such as Notepad++, see below) makes it 128 bytes.
So the limitation is some form of limit on how long the line can be when running a project via USB. I don’t know if this is a limit in Lightburn or serial transfer method.
EDIT: Or if it’s a limitation of the command buffer size. Maybe make an option in Lightburn to ignore thumbnail lines?
Did you test with Custom GCode to see if the thumbnail lines are produced?
Just an idea.