Hello everyone,
I have an 80W Omtech laser that I would like to add a camera to. At this stage, not a camera for precise positioning, but just to better see what is happening inside the machine, since the glass on the lid is very dark.
I have a small USB camera that I use for the same purpose on my Elegoo 3D printer, which windows 10/11 recognizes without problems, but when I connect it to the Omtech laser - there is no image.
I would get another camera, also a cheap one, because I don’t need a better one, but I don’t know what special quality it must have in order to work with the Omtech/Ruida/Lightburn combination…
Until now, I have not had a USB camera that, for example, Windows would not recognize it, but for this, some special qualities are obviously required.
If anyone knows and can give advice - please.
There is no specific requirement for which USB camera will work with LightBurn. I have tried a number of different cameras, including a cheap inspection camera for pipes and the like.
You should be able to find and select your camera in the selection menu in LightBurn.
However, if you are going to buy a camera, it pays to buy the right camera with the right angle and field of view. Even if you will primarily use your camera to watch the machining process, you will quickly find out how valuable a good camera setup can be in your daily work with the laser.
This implies you’re plugging the USB camera into one of the Ruida controller’s tempting USB ports. It turns out that those ports are dedicated to the PC connection (which you’re probably using) and the controller’s USB flash drive reader.
The camera must plug directly into a USB port on the PC, not the Ruida controller.
If you’re already plugging the camera into the PC, then something else is awry. Does the USB camera for the Elegoo work correctly when plugged into that PC?
Hello everyone,
All the forums I’ve participated in so far, no matter how much they were visited, always had one or a few regular “all-knowing guys” who made sure that not a single post went unanswered… I’m glad that this forum is no different, so I thank everyone who spent their precious time reading and responding to my post.,
I’ll try to consolidate everyone’s answers in one post…
First, I’ll explain how the web camera works on the Elegoo 3D printer (which uses a makerbase controller).
I control my 3D printer via a wired ethernet network! (all other options are useless because I want to access my device from Papua New Guinea, London or Reykjavik in exactly the same way) The camera is connected to its USB, which is normally intended for a USB stick with files for printing. So it’s obvious that the camera must be recognized by the internal OS so that it can present it to me through the network no matter where I am. It goes without saying that my PC recognizes the camera if I connect it directly.
On my Omtech laser, I do the same, I connect the camera to the place where I would normally connect the stick and hope that the laser’s internal OS will recognize the camera, but that doesn’t happen.
As we know, my PC recognizes it without any problems, so if I connect it directly - it appears in Lightburn and I could probably calibrate it and do everything I need with it.
The problem is that I also access my Laser via wired ethernet (everything else is child’s play because it can be used from just one computer!!!) and my Lightburn communicates with the printer no matter where I call it from - the only thing is that there is no image - because (if you remember) the image only works on the computer to which the camera is connected via USB.
I don’t know if you managed to understand what I’m talking about, but the problem is clearly that the Ruida controller does not recognize the camera and then sends the complete information over the network.
So the question is what kind of camera does it need to be for the Omtech Ruida controller to recognize it on its USB and then send the complete information via Ethernet?
It is LightBurn and not your laser that controls a camera! I can control my laser and computer with camera over LAN and with a little extra effort over WAN. But that is a bad idea and I will never do it.
You can easily transmit the image from a USB camera attached to a headless PC around the planet.
However, LightBurn has a straightforward policy of discouraging remote operation of a laser machine, even one located within the same building, so questions on that subject won’t produce any useful replies.