WOW. I finally fully converted to LightBurn. I mashed the laser into the plate while learning but it has been so worth it. I JUST learned InkScape and moving to LightBurn was TOO easy. I couldn’t get my head around how easy it is.
So, follow directions for connecting to Lightburn on forum.
The 'trick" is to use the SM2 to find calibration for the thickness of wood you are using and to set work origin. Set work origin to lower left corner using jog. Make sure Z height matches calibration. I fire the laser at 1% and try to get dead center on allen bolt head in lower left corner of plate EXACT every time i set Work Origin on SN2 here. The rest of the work from here is in LightBurn.
Once you have origin on SN2 perfect using console, connect USB cable and START LightBurn. At this point if you click Get Position in the Move tab, it should say 0,0.
The epiphany was when i realized I had to restart LlightBurn right after zeroing on the SM2 console. If you use “Get Position” button on move tab, it should say 0,0 when you are at origin.
If you line up wood right along the X,Y edges in lower left every time, you can replicate easily and even resume jobs after moving wood.
It is so quick to set up and start burning compared to InkScape/Luban assuming you are doing ANY multi-layer burn. Single layer, single laser power is easy in Luban.
The touchscreen does a very simple routine involving issuing a G54 command that can easily be written to a macro in Lightburn. Then you never need the touchscreen.
I’ve set up a few handy macros for how I use the software. My Set Origin macro does a G54 to set the work origin to where the touchscreen does, middle of the board, with Z=0 at the laser focal length.
If you set the job origin in Lightburn to “user origin” with the material height set in properties then it will work as intended and no need to use the touchscreen.
Also a goto origin macro is handy, I have mine set to go to the user origin but at a Z above 0, say 50 or so.
I wish I could use lightburn but my printer isn’t close enough to my system to use a USB cable. )venting out a window) Wish there was WiFi access like with Luban. I understand though, the lightburn dev doesn’t have enough of a user base for Snapmaker to justify it.
I don’t set thickness in lightburn. I do all my calibration on the device touch screen. There i set the thickness. If i change thickness of wood, i just adjust the work origin Z height by same. So if I am calibrated at 6mm Z height and 2mm wood, i would go to Z height 7 for 3mm wood.
Hi to all.
I’m new here and I got my 10watt SM laser. I do use lightburn on another laser and it works very good. I love the software.
But tried all the suggestions on this site and I’m still unable to have lightburn recognize my Snapmaker 2.0. I do get comport 5 as Snapmaker 2.0. But nothing works or happens. Any place to other step by step instructions? I’m doing somthing wrong.