Repeatable Origin In Luban

[Skreelink]

To preface; this is a bit hacky and requires you to make an edit to one of Luban’s installed files. This is mostly for those who want a repeatable origin (we’re setting up the lower left) in Luban without paying for Lightburn. After setup, it does require you to add a single line to your generated code. Just a G0 Z# for your material thickness. MAKE A BACKUP OF THIS FILE FIRST. You will also need multiples to swap in/out or modify if you have multiple lasers. i.e. your X/Y/Z will be different between 10W, 40W, IR, etc.

Let’s get into it.

First off, we’ll need some prerequisites. I’ll be doing this on windows, so you’ll need a proper text editor that does not break code in any way with hidden characters or such. For this I’ll be using Notepad++. It’s free and very powerful once you learn your way around.
It can be downloaded here.

After installing it, the file you’ll be needing to edit is C:\Program Files\Snapmaker Luban\resources\app\src\server\Pool.worker.js Once you open it, it’ll be an annoying one line, but we’ll deal with that in a moment.

EDIT: AGAIN MAKE A BACKUP OF THIS FILE FIRST

Next we need to build our start gcode that actually sets the origin. To find your Z height follow Section I of my guide found here for IR/40W or here for 10W.

Once you have your Z focus height, here’s a generic start gcode;

M106 P0 S255
M1010 S3 P100
M1010 S4 P100
G28
G90
G54
G92 X0 Y0 Z0
M3 S0

This includes 2.0 enclosure gcode, the two M1010 lines, to turn LEDs and Fan on 100%. You can remove or modify with your own code for the artisan or other custom gcode lines you want. Insert the Z height you got from the above guide on the G92 line replacing Z0 (my own machine is Z277.7 for the IR.

Open a blank tab in N++ and paste the code in.

On your keyboard, hit Ctrl-H for the replace dialog. In find put (.+) in replace with "\1" and search mode Regular expression click replace all.

You’ll get this

Back in the replace dialog, find \r\n, replace with ,, and search mode Extended. Click replace all.

Results in a single line as such.

"M106 P0 S255","M1010 S3 P100","M1010 S4 P100","G28","G90","G54","G92 X0 Y0 Z0","M3 S0"

Now this is the start gcode line we’re going to put in the Pool.worker.js file mentioned at the very start. NOTE: YOU WILL HAVE TO DO THE FOLLOWING TWICE. The first time, N++ will say it cannot edit the file without elevated permissions, i.e. run as admin, and will ask if you wish to. Click yes and allow, this is needed because you’re editing a file in the programs folder.

In the tab of Pool.worker.js hit Ctrl-F and search for M2004.

Place a , after the " like between the M2003 and M2004, and past your resulting line after it, inside the )

Ctrl-S to save, this is where it will prompt for administrative rights, allow. Now that when you generate a project in Luban, this start gcode will be inserted into the start, which homes the machine, and sets its current position as 0,0 origin. Now we need to find the actual corner origin.

Start up Luban, 3 axis job, using lower left workpiece.

Place a 10x10 square, 25x25 from the lower left corner. (keep in mind, when you align anything, Luban uses the center of the object, so wherever you want to place anything, take the X/Y size and add it to the X/Y coords).

Assign a vector engrave and then export to file.

Open the .nc file you just saved in N++ and you will notice the header gcode we just injected right there in the gcode.

The only other thing you need to do now is insert a G0 Z# line for your material height. Measure your material and put this line under G-code Start

Save the file and send to the machine via Luban or USB drive. When you run the file from the touchscreen, select “input height manually” and just max it out, which I think is 145mm. Just smash through the start buttons, don’t set an origin. You may also just run it directly with my drag/drop batch files.

Follow sections IV and V of my guide linked at the start of this guide to dial in your X/Y values. Mine for the IR are X-26.6 Y339 using my printable corner square. Input your results for those two numbers in the G92 X0 Y0 line in the Pool.worker.js that we had pasted in.

After you get it dialed in to your acceptable tolerance, just keep in mind all you have to do from now on is put your material Z height in and enjoy.

Luban Repeatable Origin

The second post explains how to do this without editing the file and is a more recommended method. Just have to remember to put your code in each time.

[Skreelink]

This guide is mostly a proof of concept to help automate things, however, there’s another way. If you do not want to edit the file, or want to setup multiple lasers, AND since you have to open the gcode file anyway to put in the material height. You could simply save a file with the gcode header and paste it into your .nc gcode file in the appropriate position seen above for every file.

Keep in mind, once you paste the origin gcode into the file, it WILL ALWAYS DO THAT so you cannot use the material thickness and work origin setup in the future. However, that also means you can just run your file, change your material, and run it again. It’s a lot quicker than manually setting up the origin and focus height every time, and it’s fully repeatable so your results are always the same.

[Boxkite]

Even though I am not yet in need of such hackery ( ), I really appreciate the time taken to produce this guide.

[Skreelink]

Can always just try saving to file, and putting in the gcode directly into the file yourself. If you have Lightburn, you can just use the start gcode section in there. That’s basically what this is, adding a Lightburn feature to Luban.

[kchu001]

@Skreelink I really appreciate the time and effort for this post. I don’t understand why @Snapmaker do not create in Luban, like many others a setting for adding start and finish gcode. this is specially helpful if you are doing a production run of 1 item so that you can just drop the material in place and hit start.