Why no K40 w/ Lightburn

What’s the name of the 50$ board that work with LB please, I have a used k40 I bought at bargain price collecting dust in the shop, the guy i bought it from already upgraded the bed , exhaust system and air assist but after few days I got bored of having to use k40 whisperer and manually having to adjust the power , i have another 90w laser compatible with LB and it’s day and night when it comes to controlling the engraving and cutting. i’m not willing to invest money upgrading the k40 but 50$ seams like a reasonable price to me to use it with LB and give it a chance to at least pay for it self and do some small side projects.
Cheers mate

In a nutshell any grbl control board should work…

I think this Monport board is a plug compatible with the nano, along with this OMTech… The Monport is a 328p based controller (8 bits) … the OMTech is a 32-Bit ARM Cortex-M3 based controller… it also comes with Smoothieware firmware… about 3 times the cost of the 8 bit board.


There is also a relatively low cost controller for these that lots of people use, but it’s not a direct plugin as far as I know.

Search this site for threads on using the DLC32 control boards… It’s open source and open hardware… lots of people sell these, like Amazon

:smile_cat:

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I’ve seen a video showing meerk40t compatibility with lightburn ruida version, there is a grbl command that should work as well but I’m not able to make it work, not sure if I’m missing something but if it work it will save me the hustle of buying and wiring a new board, not sure if you came across a solution to grbl version of lb ?
Cheers

You can read up on it

They talk about it, but I didn’t attempt any of it as I don’t have a K40. The dsp version of Lightburn is a cost upgrade, the gcode or grbl version is the lowest cost version.


I dislike routing code through multiple unrelated software packages, I’d just rather drop in a new board.

Good luck.

:smile_cat:

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How have you attempted to do this? There have been many updates to the GRBL and g-code backends as of recent.

I created grbl LPC machine using the standard localhost IP , in meerk40t i entered the command grblcontrol , I made sure meerk40t communicate properly with my M2 nano board by jogging the laserhead then when I go to lightburn and I try jogging nothing happens, not sure what I’m missing?
My lightburn version is the v1.4.04

The basic steps seem to be correct.

What version of Meerk40t are you running?

Do you get a GRBL welcome message in Console in LightBurn when you attempt to connect?

I have tried with the latest version of meerk40t and also with the pre released version.
I didn’t not check lightburn console because I didn’t get any error message or misbehaviour at all , lightburn just not controlling the k40, I will check the console and late you know in an hour or so. Thank you for trying helping me out

Can you list specific versions please when you get a chance?

This will determine if it’s a connection issue or something deeper.

If you’re familiar with telnet can you try telnetting to the localhost port 23 (or whatever port is identified after issuing grblcontrol) to see if you get a connection.

Meerk40t version v0.9.3010
The message I get cmd after telnetting localhost port 23 is (after issuing grblcontrol) is
Grbl 1.1f [‘$’ for help]
[MSG: ÔÇÖ$HÔÇÖ | ÔÇÖ$XÔÇÖ to unlock]
In lightburn console I get
Grbl 1.1f [‘$’ for help]
[MSG:$H|$X to unlock]

Okay. This is good. It’s at least connecting. But sounds like not able to control the laser.

Can you try running this command from both LightBurn and Telnet? What happens?

G0 X10

I just need to type G0 X10 ?
If that’s the case nothing happened in lightburn console

If you typed in exactly what is listed then yes. That’s all.

Can you also try in Telnet please?

Also, to confirm. The laser works properly with Meerk40t on its own?

telnet G0 X10
Connecting to G0…Not able to connect to host
X10 port: connection error
Meerk40t work fine but with a bit of lag now and then

You were able to connect with Telnet earlier. What’s changed?

You need to connect first, then send G0 X10 as a command once connected.

Telnet to localhost port 23 is fine
In cmd I typed telnet G0 X10 but I got connection error
In lightburn I get nothing when I type G0 X10

This is not how you connect. You connect by typing:

telnet 127.0.0.1

After connecting you should get a welcome message. Then type:

G0 X10

Nothing happened after I type G0 X10 in cmd
Just like in lightburn
It just shows another line with G0 X10

Okay. That’s a bit surprising.

Can you run this in Telnet and make sure it returns output? I noticed this doesn’t seem to work on the LightBurn side.

$$

When I typed the first $ I got
error: 3
Ok
Homing
Ok
On both CMD and lightburn and the machine reacted and homed
After that I was able to type $$ in cmd and a lot of commands showed up in both lightburn console and cmd
now when I try to jog the laserhead with lightburn navigator the green laser bar shows busy on the left and 100% on the right but the laserhead doesn’t move at all, when I try to close lightburn I get the message: You are currently streaming to your device. Are you sure you want to close?
In cmd a new line shows:
<Idle|MPos:0.000,0.000,0.000|FS:10.0,1000>