I’m just getting started again in laser mode with my 350 and the 40W laser (THE BEAST!)
I’m confused as to getting the origin points to agree between lightburn and the SM.
When I do the focus, the machine expects the work to be at one certain point. It makes sense to me (at least) that my origin should therefore be wherever the SM leaves the head after focus.
I don’t know how to translate that back into lightburn so that my designs are centered on that point.
If you are using the touchscreen to start your projects, then you should use the user origin or current position options, along with which corner of your stock you’re using.
Most of my experience with the SM so far has been FDM printing where the slicer shows the bed and objects are placed automatically or manually, but the slicer knows the machine’s coordinates.
I am running from the touchscreen. Right now I’m doing a “run boundaries” and adjusting the position of the head till it lines up well enough with the material, but I will want to be much more precise later. Most of what I’ll be doing makes business cards look huge.
Is there a doc/video that explains the the various origins?
Is one of the nine preset positions the same as where the laser is after focusing?
The positions are relative to where you set your focus. I assume with the 40W you’re using the crosshair to line up your project. If you aim it at the lower left corner, tick the lower left. If you put it in the center; use the center, etc. If you’re wanting much better accuracy, you’ll need to use absolute positioning and go through the process of finding a repeatable origin.
That’s why I want to do this without moving the head from where it is at the end of focus.
However, since the focus probe (material must be there for the focus to work) is not where the laser is, I may not get my wish.
I just ran another test, and I am not getting the box that you’re showing.
At the end of focus, the touchpad reports the machine coordinates as X=172.5 Y=165 and work coordinates as X=61 and Y=25. I’m confused.
Seems like “too many cooks” going on.
In order to use the focus probe, my material must be under the probe. Not a problem for big projects, but my stuff will be small enough that this very much matters.
Given that my material must be under the probe, how do I tell lightburn to put the center of the work at 172.5/165 or 61/25, whichever is the correct version.
If you want to have a go at full automation and high accuracy, you can try to follow my guide. I don’t use the laser cross, nor do I do any framing, and I can get precision without much thought. It’s a bit of work to get setup, but once it is and you get used to it? It’s just such an easy workflow.
I see that the laser cross is definitely not pointing to where the laser is, which adds yet another variable.
I don’t have the machine connected to LB yet, they are quite far apart, so I sneakernet sticks which works well enough for me and helps discourage running the laser without supervision.
Do you know if SM has had the foresight to make the position of the laser beam relative to the mounting of the head a constant? IOW if I swap the 40W for any other laser, will the beam land in the same spot?
Mounting offsets are hard-coded into the firmware, yes.
So if the touchpad says X=100 and Y=100, and I swap heads and do not move the head, the touchpad would read some other number? Just making sure I understand correctly.
It should not, at the same time, your scenario can’t exist. You have to power down to change heads (or risk blowing them up), and thus the machine forgets where it is and must re-home. Thus, moving the toolhead.
Well, that was mostly theoretical. I do wish SM had designed the electrical interface better.
Fixed it.
Switched to LB2 RC2 which was still broken.
I created a new GRBL Profile for the 40W blue, and it’s all good now.
The air assist works fine, and as a bonus the alignment with the cross laser is perfect!
Under LB 1.7 it was 12.3mm high and when I dialed that into the pointer offset in 1.7 it didn’t change anything. I tested both X and Y pointer alignment in 2.0 RC2 by adding 10mm to both, and the box moved to 30.0X and 30.0Y as expected.