I have an Xtool P2 55 watt CO2 laser, running on a Mac. I’m in Lightburn 1.5… and am trying to fire off my Laser for Framing Purposes and also so I can see my Origin.
Was watching some videos on Laser Everything (Crash Courses for the CO2 Laser) and watched and read something in there that said you should NEVER, NEVER set a CO2 lasers laser to fire with the fire button.
Can someone tell me how you go about doing this so you can see where the laser is going to fire? Also, since the P2 has auto Focus in Xtools program, how are you suppose to set the Material Thickness in Lightburn?
Thank you ALL in advance and hopefully I can get this situation solved. Thanks again…Jim
Given that CO₂ laser light is invisible to the human eye, the only way you could see the frame is by burning the material, which leaves a permanent mark. Similarly, it will mark the origin.
Is that what you want to do?
Typically, a CO₂ laser has a visible red dot / crosshair laser on the head to assist in aiming. If Xtool optimized the pointer out of existence in favor of camera support, you’d be better off figuring out how to hack a dot into it.
Followed all those guidelines and still NO GO for a pointer. I don’t think that the P2 has one in the laser head. If I had known this I would have thought twice about the P2
Depending on how much room you have, you might be able to add a beam combiner with a red laser pointer. It will add you red dot through the laser path. No parallax issues like the ones that mount on the side of the laser nozzle.
i think lightburn has a way to calibrate an X-Y offset from the red dot to the actual laser target point. i have designed and built a lighter version of the laser pointer but have not tested it out yet since i don’t have lightburn (still trying to decide between lightburn and xcs for the xtool p2).
what do you think of lightburn on the p2? is it worth buying and learning it? thanks!
the “hack” in the youtube video is not intrusive at all, you apparently just stick a red laser pointer to the side of the P2 laser head pointing straight down, so there is nothing in the co2 laser optical path. the thing that makes it work is that lightburn can apply an X-Y offset from the pointer.
there is no red laser pointer in the P2 because it uses cameras (wide field and closeup) to view and position the objects (using the XCS software).
