Our Laguna EX-C laser – Dorian – is up and running and available for members to book on Skedda (given that they have taken the Big Lasers Class). Last night was the first Big Lasers Class to include Dorian and all subsequent classes will cover it as well.
This laser uses Lightburn software and has a controller similar to Tarkin (not quite identical, but close). There is a laminated and spiral bound workflow at the laser that should be enough to get members familiar with Tarkin up and running on Dorian, but don’t hesitate to reach out on Discourse if you need further assistance! @Bwarez has worked with this particular laser extensively in another shop and is a friendly helpful resource
Huge thanks and shoutout to @Bwarez@jamesfreeman@dannym who helped bring this laser online and @JoeN who donated the computer workstation and helped get that up and running!
These two lasers behave almost identically with two important exceptions:
How to control Z to raise and lower the bed for focusing:
On Tarkin: the bed is moved up and down using dedicate Z buttons.
On Laguna: the bed is moved up and down using a sequence of keys: Enter Z-travel mode: hit the Z/U button (middle of arrow keys) Raise and lower the bed: hit the Left or Right arrow buttons Exit Z-travel mode: hit the Esc button
(Laguna’s control panel doesn’t have dedicated Z motion keys.)
Design elements can be flipped in Lightburn due to different origins.
On Tarkin: the machine origin in Lightburn is Back Left.
On Laguna: the machine origin in Lightburn is Back Right.
This is important to know as a design elements can get “flipped”.
(The two lasers have limit switches in opposing back corners.)
If you design on and use a single laser’s computer then there will be no issues.
If you have your own Lightburn and are aware then you’ll have no problems.
The fix is an easy edit in Lightburn, just be careful if you bounce back and forth.
Hopefully @dannym can figure out a way to fix this short of moving switches.
The second issue visualized (note the easy fix is the Flip button in the tool bar):
Thanks for the good info. Two follow up questions:
Can we possibly get a handy wireless remote like Tarkin has? And if those are generally Ruida-compatible, maybe that would allow a simpler Z axis control workflow?
It is bizarre to me that Lightburn wouldn’t have some device-specific config option to auto-flip the origin coordinates based on device type. I mean, I believe you that we haven’t found one yet (and perhaps they really don’t have a clean solution), but from what I know about software design it just baffles me that it would be a difficult feature for them to enable.
Regarding the wireless remote, for consistent operation across the machines it does make sense to have one for the Laguna as well. @dannym has been an excellent laser steward and he purchased the unit for Tarkin so I suspect we’ll see him do the same for Dorian. A version for the Laguna’s 6442 controller is available.
Regarding the vector flipping, it’s not all or even most vectors that get flipped but just fonts and basic SVG shapes which are defined outside of Lightburn. I’ve had this issue in San Diego for years and haven’t found a software solution. Instead, we concluded that moving the X/Y limit switches to the same corners was our easiest path. That said, we don’t have a @dannym on our team.
There may be a solution and we’ll keep looking. Meanwhile simply being aware makes it a relative non-issue because it’s so easy to recover from. Also, I’ve found that people settle into a habit of using one machine or another, will configure their copy of Lightburn for that machine and have no issues. I raised the issue here because the Laguna is new and people should be told since nobody has used it yet.
OK, that is even more bizarre, and frankly sounds like a flat-out bug. If it is a common issue, I’d be amazed if the LB company hasn’t at least heard about it, though. I haven’t found time to spend searching the LB forums about it, will try to take a look.
