FWIW: You can use your phone camera, in a darkened room, with the laser set to a low power to see your laser spot.
They can see the infrared, much like you would use your phone to see if your TV remote is working.
This is an at your own risk observation.
Use caution.
Thanks so much for your help Skreelink. Following your suggestion, I updated the Start GCode with the GCodes from the Saved Position move. Now it works by just hitting start. Also, I needed to switch the laser to half-diode mode to reduce the power and improve precision. Here is my final Start GCode for my Artisan 40 watt laser:
M106 P0 S255
M1010 S3 P100
M1010 S4 P100
G28
G21 G54
G90
G1 X13.32 Y0.25 F12000
G1 Z65.5 F12000 ; this is bed height without material
;G90
; set the 40w laser to half diode mode
M2000 L23 P0
; set the 40w laser to full diode mode
;M2000 L23 P1
M3 S0
Thanks again Skreelink for your advice.
Hopefully it leads you to making a lot of neat things. 
Hello Dakker,
We also have a artisan with 40w laser and had an tey and error en succesiion by arrange q working gcode. Ours is similair to yours.
With those codes you send the machine to height Z65,5 (we Z66,5) and settles this height with G90.
But this is impossible when we have placed the material on the bed right? How can we include a step in the gcode to place the material before it continues with the rest of the gcode? Or is there a way to set the settings without having the laser to go to that height.
Regards Nathalie & Pascal
Take your focus height, and subtract it from the homed height. Follow along the guide to find out how to do it. My guide is to fully automate everything, requiring you to find a repeatable corner origin, and to set the origin heights for auto focusing.
Steps 1-4 are the ones for finding out the Z height to put into your header.
I think we got it working with your directions, now finetuning on X-Y…
Glad to hear that.
With the basic settings and directions of Skreelink we got our Snapmaker Artisan 40W laser perfectly and save working. 10000x thanks!!!
IF YOU WANT TO USE THIS GCODE → Read the directons of Skreelink on top, always rember to understand what each step will do and configure your settings to your own XY and specially Z! Also make sure your gcode explanation after the ; is not to long. When it is too long your laser will not work.
Note: the workarea of the artisan is 400x400mm but the bed itself is larger, we have marked the non-useble space with tape to make sure we place our material in de 0.0.0. position.
Our start G-code
;header_type: laser
;machine: artisan
;gcode_flavor: grbl
;renderMethod: line
;max_power: 255
M106 P0 S255
M2000 W1 P50;[ P0/100% Set Enclosure Light
M2000 W2 P100;[ P0/100% Set Enclosure Fan speed
G28 ;[ Auto Home basic start Artisan Y406-X1-Z419 ] Machine coordinates when set HOME
G90 ;[ Absolute positie coordinaten ]
G54 ;[ Change back to work Coordinates ]
G92 X0.5 Y406 Z352.5 ;[ Set position start positie] Machine Home coordinates minus Z-Level Bed height. (Z-home =419 - Z-Bed zero = 66.5 remains= 352.5)
M2000 L13 P0 ;[ Crosshair Pointer Off (P1 = On) ]
M3 S0;[ Laser Stand by ]
Our end G-code
M5 ;[ Laser safe Off ]
G0 Z352.5 F2000;[ Laser Backing up ] ( Max height is Z-home minus Z-Zero) F= moving speed
G28 ;[ Go Home basis start Artisan Y406-X1-Z419 ]
M2000 W1 P100;[ P0/100% Set Enclosure Light ]
M2000 W2 P50;[ P0/100% Set Enclosure Fan speed
G4 S120 ;[ 2 min Enclosure fan refresh delay timer ]
M2000 W2 P0 ;[ P0/100% Set Enclosure Fan speed
Images of settings:
In 1-4 you mention writing down the Cross Line Indicator Offset and setting them to 0,0. What is the point of doing this and should we enter those values somewhere else. Also, how did the Indicator Offset get set in the first place… was it done at the factory by SM?
It’s done by the factory, and writing it down incase you ever want to put it back in. If you don’t zero it out, it shifts your engraving over by that amount, but since you’re not lining up the origin with the cross, it’ll throw your engraving off.
2 Likes
I’ve yet to check these offsets for my 2W and 40W - what’s the experience by other users: Is the factory value off very much, or is it generally OK? I yet had no need for utter precision, so I did not bother…
It also really depends on how you’re running things. During my testing, I had several groups of things that were engraved, the first one always got thrown off, as the offset was being added to the absolute position, but then it didn’t apply for subsequent items.
If you’re using user origin or current position, or if you’re using the crosshair to lineup your work from the touchscreen/Luban anyway, then leaving it on would likely not interfere.
Otherwise, it was throwing my projects off by the offset, -10mm in Y and 22.5mm in X.
1 Like
The Scanning Offset Adjustment shown in section II - 2, would that be the same for the 10W laser on a A350 with bracer and quick change installed? I’m new to Lightburn and Lasers in general, what is the purpose of the Scanning Offset Adjustment and is it Laser specific?
It’s machine specific. You can use mine as a starting point to dial in yours, but it really depends on the wear on your machine, and toolhead weight. It compensates for leadscrew backlash as it changes direction, or lag in change of direction. It’s worse at higher speeds with a heavier toolhead, so with the bracing kit, quick swap, etc. that would increase weight and distance.
Ok, so my machine has very little wear so far. However, I’m having a connection problem. I got to the step on engraving the little square to refine the machine origin. Laser showed ready but when I started the job I got an error on sending the data to the laser. The machine may be busy or paused. Restarting the Snapmaker doesn’t change this, any suggestions?
Make sure to manually home the machine first after a reboot first. On the touchscreen, go into the control app and it’ll offer to home. If you don’t, the machine refuses to do anything until it homes once.
Also double check which com port the machine is using, test another cable, and maybe try restarting your PC.
Follow Skreelink’s advice, as they are Snapmaker Lightburn guru.
Curious, when I run the Toolhead Focus Calibration I get 20 mm.
Manually homing and changing baud rate to 115,200 allowed the gcode to run. However, it printed a line at the left rear corner, not left front. Under your previous method I found the machine origin at x=-8.19, y =9.0. More fine tuning required.