So I was getting a bit frustrated with the laser engraving and it the camera capture mode and wanted to just position the laser manually. After a lot of experimenting I can now do it and its very easy.
Apologies if this has been covered already. But these are the steps to do it:
install laser module and home printer
Run the laser calibration routine and note the laser focus and z offset value. Subtract laser focus from z offset and you should get around 1-2mm. Note this value.
Go to Luban workspace and In printing mode in Luban, turn off Printing Auto Mode (this is what seems to cause overriding of any user defined origins)
Move the laser module to the desired X Y Z location with the Z position with the laser module just touching the surface of the material to engrave or cut.
Move the Z axis up by the value noted in step 2.
Got to the laser gcode generator, load your .svg file. DONT click camera capture or anyting.
Set your settings, generate G code and load it to the workspace.
Click start printing and the head will print at the postion in X,Y and Z that you specified
Please be careful with this and check every step and get ready with the power button if things go wrong but it does work
The laser should engrave on the designated area only. It should engrave where you set it in Editor in Laser G-code Generator, right? Then why the need to position the laser manually?
I was finding that I needed very precise laser engraving of objects that have could be say 70 mm 100 mm high etc. Sometimes the camera capture routine wasnt high enough to avoid the object i wanted to engrave.
Also some engravings needed very high precision to align before engraving and easier to do manually and leave the SVG file on Lubans origin than via camera capture and moving the SVG file to the right place in the captured image.
When i was just starting engraving, I expected that when I set the work axis origin in X,Y and Z it would engrave from that work origin. But if the SVG is left at Luban editor origin, even with a work origin somewhere else, the laser engraver would go to the luban origin front left of the bed in XY and always drop down to the Z height from calibration causing me to crash the laser into objects a couple of times
So, I just like the flexibility the above process gives me and I can rely on it to work and not do something unexpected
Manual is the best way. Just find the correct distance by trial and [mostly] error, create a spacer out of a piece of wood [or plastic, or handy object] that matches that distance and use it every time, lowering the laser slowly. Auto is bullshit, disaster after disaster in poorly designed software.
