Will LIghtburn work with Xtool D1 Pro with a non-XCS recognizable 3rd party laser addon?

LightBurn Hardware Compatibility
1

I purchased a Laser Tree 20W optical laser as an add-on to my CNC router. I didn’t realize the limitiations this has compared to something like an Xtool. I have purhcased (yet to receive) an Xtool D1 pro 5W system to which I had planned on adding this as a 3rd party laser module. Laser Tree has shown me how to connect it to the system. However, X-tool said that 3rd party lasers are not recognized by the XCS software.

My question: will Lightburn allow me to use the 3rd-party-laser-upgraded Xtool? I have read how to get the right file to set up the Xtool d1 Pro, so I’m hoping that lightburn won’t care what laser is attached to the xtool system…

Thank you!

2

I don’t have an answer… but let me explain how the laser modules connect… This is generally how they are wired…

Very low power lasers can be driven off the controllers pwm signal… These can be identified by the connector only having two wires, ground and the pwm signal… My early CNC3018 was wired this way.

Most lasers have a three wire connector, with power, ground and a pwm control signal. In this configuration, the pwm is a low current connection and only signals the laser module when to lase.

I also have a NEJE 40630, it has 4 wires, the same three as above and an extra one for the modules/lasers temperature.

I don’t know what this software is, so I can’t know what it does…

Someone will probably chime in on it…

:smile_cat:

3

Hi.

I don’t quite follow, what are the limitations You speak of?
The head is just a head (xTool IR is something from “optic-source”, haven’t opened the 20W head but assuming the same “manufacturer”) with power, PWM and shared or individual grounds, and the xTool controller is just a microcontroller with their somewhat IMO strange firmware.
It’s of course possible that either the Laser Tree controller or the firmware is worse than those from Makeblock, but somehow I can’t see how that’s even possible :wink: .

That statement doesn’t surprise me at all, XCS is a rather finicky piece of software.
I’d avoid that POS at all cost if possible.
Also, I’d assume that “3rd party lasers” refer to the whole system, not just the head.

That said, AFAIK there’s no data feedback (=open loop) at least on the 20W Pro or the 2W IR head, so I for one can’t see any reason why just the head, any similar head for that matter wouldn’t work with any PWM capable controller.
The xTool controller on the other hand is a completely different matter, not that long time ago it didn’t work at all with Lightburn either.

The controller/driver and the power supply has to be able to supply the required power obviously, it’s pretty safe to assume 20W (4*5W) optical power head won’t run as-is on a system designed and optimized (costwise) for 5W optical power head.
On the other way around, no problem.

Also the wiring for the head is probably a bit different, all higher power heads most likely use several pins/wires for GND PWR and PWM in order to reduce wire diameter, so making a new loom is probably required as well.

Regards,
Sam

4

is this the supplied software with the machine?

–
I replaced the 500mW head on my jl1 with a NEJE 40630 30W and ran new ground/power lines (actually all three) to the new module.

Of course it didn’t mount up, but the acrylic mount I cut out is working fine. The green board is the interface that came with the NEJE…

before-after
before-after1920×1275 204 KB

Good luck

:smile_cat:

7

Xtool connections4RIGHT ONE
Xtool connections4RIGHT ONE800×496 290 KB

Thank you all for the advice. I await getting the actual xtool, but I think I found the connector on the web, showing pin assignements. The converter to attach it to my current laser driver board uses pins 1,3,6 which make perfect sense. I think that if I were to wire in a 3v crosshair laser, that it would be using pins 7 & 8, or am I reading this wrong? It looks like the board will supply 24 v so that will hopefully be sufficient…

8

I don’t see any pin numbers or connector id’s to know what you are talking about…

How are you counting and which connector?

:smile_cat:

9

Here is the picture of the adapter going from the 9-pin xtool wire to the 3-pin for the driver board for the Laser Tree laser (the picture from tech support shows it plugged in to the board output instead of the board input–so don’t worry about that part). But the wires used of the 9-pin cable are 1,3 and 6th wires. as compared to the xtool connector for the 9-pin cable. So I’m assuming that pins 7&8 of the connector have to be for the 3v crosshair laser.

XTOOL-adapter
XTOOL-adapter883×657 143 KB

10

Is this the animal you’re trying to hook up?

https://manuals.plus/laser-tree/lt-4lds-v2-high-power-20w-optical-power-laser-head-manual#laser_module_introduction

Is the black cable the output from the controller to the laser control module?

:smile_cat:

11

You are correct in both identifying my laser, as well as the black cable being the 9-pin cable coming from the xtool control board. Here it is currently connected to my CNC router.

Laser1
Laser1480×640 126 KB

Laser2
Laser2480×640 133 KB

12

Here is the million dollar question: would I even need to use the driver board if the input signal is TTL/PWM and output is the same? If I don’t have to use external power going to the Laser Tree driver board, it would be easier and far less bulky to simply convert the wire connector into the 5-pin input on my laser.

13

Interesting question since it appears the controller is a 3.3V system and the laser is ttl 0 to 5V…

ttl-3.3v
ttl-3.3v1180×710 122 KB

It will probably work, but it is not a ttl level signal… just be aware of the difference…

Anything over 3V should be a logic high with ttl, but …

:smile_cat:

14

The only wires from the xtool connector that would be attached to the LT driver board would be 24V, the 3rd wire = ground, and the 6th wire = PWM. That appears to be the only input in to the LT driver board–from which the output wires go to TTL/PWM, ground, and VCC 22-24V.

I think the only connectors I can see (in pictures) going to the xtool is the 9-pin connector as noted on the board. At least what is needed to drive my laser is only the three wires. I was thinking that the 3.3V was the cross laser power? I obviously am showing my ignorence here-- Is the PWM wire from the xtool cable not going to be the same signal as the output from my laser board? The input connector on my laser itself is TTL/PWM. The listed output on the LT driver board is TTL/PWM. And if you had to guess as to which of the 9 wires on the control board above would control the crosshair laser, which would you guess to be the right ones? Here is a closeup and connections I use from my Stepcraft system, as well as the input that Laser Tree showed me to use in a tech support session.

Driver Board connections
Driver Board connections1148×825 177 KB

15

The control board, with the 3.3v markings are sending a pwm signal to the interface board. This is a pwm signal, but not at ttl interface levels.

Standard TTL circuits operate with a 5-volt power supply. A TTL input signal is defined as “low” when between 0 V and 0.8 V with respect to the ground terminal, and “high” when between 2 V and VCC (5 V)

Most of these newer boards use a supply of 3.3V not 5V… It should work but it’s not really a ttl signal… Notice it states above 2V it should be logic high, so you should be OK…

The input and output designation is usually relative to that device.

Make sense?

:smile_cat:

16

It kind of makes sense. So what you found about my laser was that it was:
PWM modulation: 0/5-12V, 0-5kHz

Does that mean that if I tried to not use the driver board, then the signal to my laser would not be sufficient to use power to control % burn as readily? Or does my laser input mean that anything between 0 and 12 is acceptable? How would the driver board know what the input to it was that it had to modulate? If I tried without the board, would I need to simply see if/how well it worked with a test burn pattern with/without the board, or would it be an all-or-none scenario?

Which leaves the question about which of the connections on that 9 pin connector feed to the crosshair laser on the xtool laser? It has to be two of them–one power, one ground I assume. I know that for a crosshair laser I have for my CNC router, it was a 3v laser–so I would assume that it would have to be a similar voltage for the xtool crosshair laser. So the 3v3 (7th wire/pin on the board) and the Laser ID (8th wire/pin on the board) would not be what would power/regulate the crosshair laser on those systems? I don’t think that there is any other connection for the Xtool 20w pro laser module, so what would control the crosshair locater on that? That is what I’'m going to try to emulate as well if possible. Is the Laser ID connection feedback from the laser to the xtool board? Sam in an earlier post said that AFAIK that there was no feedback. I don’t know that anyone has tried to do what I’m trying to do (have my $450 laser and trying to get it to work/imitate the $700 xtool laser features). Every video for setup for the Xtool module shows only the 9-pin connector as controlling the laser, including the calibration laser (crosshair). So some of those wires has to control it, and with a much lower voltage. So any thoughts which wires would do that? 3v3 or Laser ID? I think the last is a smoke detector system for the 9th wire.

17

Generally speaking the 3.3V pwm output will drive your laser…

I have no idea about the cross hairs or what generates them, so I can’t help you there… 3.3V is an odd voltage to put out for leds… but it might be since the board is a 3.3V board…

The interface board is there for you to merge the more powerful power supply to the laser without too much difficulty… I don’t know your system, but you could probably bypass the board. You’d have to wire things up manually.

I think you are worrying too much about this… lots of people do it successfully with a 3.3V pwm source.

Take it one step at a time… Did you ever see anything about how the crosshairs are generated and how to hook them up?

I’d suggest you figure out how to get the laser working in a basic mode… It could be the new head doesn’t have those cross hairs anyway… so you’d need to know what generates them…

:smile_cat:

18

Hi.

Re. XCS

Yes.

XTool Creative Space is the official name for the software.
While I don’t know (and quite frankly don’t care about) the origins of that software, it looks suspiciously like Win Paint(brush) derivative -to me anyway- and the worse, or more precisely worst part is that it’s an absolute and total power hog.
So not all that creative IMO.

I battled with it for days and pulling the little bit of hair I have left (didn’t touch my silverish red beard :wink: ) trying to find out why on earth I couldn’t get it working with my few years old “entry level” HP225 4g 8Gt laptop that I do all my CAD and multitrack DAW stuff, only to find out after much searching that the absolute minimum that XCS runs on is i5-6300 8Gt and recommended minimum is i5-13000 16Gt, or something along those lines, I’ve stopped paying attention to the PC generations at P1 stage :slight_smile: .
For us laptop users, that set of requirements pretty much makes the idea for repurposing and dedicating an older cheap/free laptop for laser work next to impossible.

LB OTOH seems to run on almost anything that resembles a modern computer, and has ~100 times the features of the XCS.
I’d be literally and royally screwed if it wasn’t for LB, and/or if xTool wouldn’t communicate with LB.

How, and especially why the folks at Makeblock have even been able to make that simple a software to require that much computational power even on idle is beyond me.
And as for the why part, I’ve lived through the PC period in the 90’s when every new Windows release was so huge that it alone always required to purchase a new or a second HDD because it alone didn’t fit on the old one :grinning: .
Those were the haydays indeed for the folks selling HDD:s and other PC related stuff.
But that can’t be the reason for writing/repurposing an intentionally heavy software/code, now can it?

To be honest, I did read before I decided to choose the xTool laser that the supplied XCS isn’t that good and is rather limited, but automatically assumed that it was just a case of the ever so popular net dissing, boy was I wrong.
And even if it was as bad as they claimed, I was going to do all the designing on CAD anyway, so I would’ve not needed a new software for that.
Never in a million years would’ve I imagined that a simple CNC control would require anything but next to no computuational power at all.
LB is a testament to that, it draws a measly few percent of resources and doesn’t affect any other programs that are running.

That said, I do admit that I was also a bit suspicious how the same reviewers who didn’t like XCS that much or brushed it off in one sentence, praised LB beyond belief, but the ability to use a constantly evolving third party alternative was also one of the reasons I did choose xTool in the end.

Regards,
Sam

19

I was suspicious that it was a Chinese product…

It’s probably dumping all your data to some Chinese spy group… :rofl:

Thanks for letting me know… I use Linux, so I don’t bother with them. I did steal the spouses laptop to run EZCad2, the corfile2 program for the fiber lens alignment… I get so frustrated with Windows… it takes it toll on me…

I wouldn’t have any of these lasers if Lightburn didn’t exist… so I know what you mean.

Good luck, take care

:smile_cat:

20

lol my laser dumping data ha ha! Not until I hook it up to wifi…

21

The Chinese, could care less about your laser, they made it. No hacker or whomever cares about your laser…

If it’s got an Internet connection that’s all it needs to grab everything that is connected to your pc, like your mass storage …

Maybe that’s why it’s so slow… :face_with_spiral_eyes:

:smile_cat:

22

Hi.

Yeah, it sure is.
What somewhat perplexes me is that when the chinese -or any nationality in general- can write excellent code, why on earth would someone choose to intentionally publish bad or inefficient code :thinking:
Their firmware also leaves a lot to be desired, so one have to wonder what exactly are they selling, or more precisely, basing their business plan on.
AFAIK at least the diode heads are bought from the same source as every other diode laser “manufacturer”, as are obviously the electronics.
Almost all that’s left is the frame and rails, which are IMO very well engineered and made.
At that price point at least.
But, as a BEng Mech. , I for one don’t see much (~none?) profit margin on those.

Unlikely, but always a valid concern nowadays.
Even more so just now, as we’re finally part of NATO.
I have a reasonably good security program though, so I’m not that worried about those kind of threats.

No problem.

I’d very, very much like to use Linux -for a Finn that’s kind of a obvious thing- but over these few decades I’ve tried to get the hang of it quite several times, and failed to like it enough to dig deeper.
And returned to Win world :frowning: .
I do dislike anything Microsoft as much as anything else, but as much as I hate to admit that, Krusty Burger ideology wins.
And that’s what they’re counting on at Microsoft.

Even though the Linux builds are getting better and better, and closer and closer to plug and play it’s IMO still a “OS from nerds to nerds”.
Mr. Torvalds had a different vision in the 80’s, but visions don’t always mature quite as planned.
Just as the laser, a computer is just a tool for me, and I’d prefer not to spend time endlessly tinkering with it, optimizing and polishing a “hammer” if You know what I mean.

A year or so ago I did for a while use, and even liked, “Audio Linux” build that was MX based at that time IIRC when doing a few audio projects with Ardour (DAW), but since the installation had some severe problems in it (the dedicated touchscreen laptop won’t boot or work unless on wall power), I installed Ardour on Win PC, finished the project and didn’t look back.

Most likely I will revisit Linux sometime in the future, but that won’t help with my XCS issue, there’s no XCS Linux version that I know of.
And NO, I WON’T try to run it in emulation mode :grinning: .

The beotch of it is that xTool (controller :wink: ) user has to be able to use XCS.
If for nothing else, for the firmware update at the very least.
EDIT: If someone knows or can think of a workaround for the firmware update, I’m sure us xTool users would like to hear about it.

Regards,
Sam