Start lasering

The Laser button at the top right opens the laser assistant. It guides you through the start in four short steps.

1 Safety

Laser radiation can seriously injure eyes and skin and start fires. Before the start you confirm four points:

• I wear safety glasses rated for my laser's wavelength, and so is everyone else in the room. Never look into the beam, not even at reflections.
• Nothing flammable is nearby, an extinguishing aid (blanket, water, extinguisher) is within reach.
• Extraction or fresh air is on and the material is suitable for lasering. Never laser: PVC and vinyl, chrome leather, Teflon, ABS, polycarbonate, carbon and glass fibre.
• I stay at the laser during the job and can reach the emergency stop or the plug immediately.

Stop in the app is not an emergency stop. An emergency stop must work independently of software.

2 Check the laser

The laser must be connected (Machine menu, USB). If it reports an alarm, the Unlock ($X) button unlocks it.

Then the app checks laser mode (Grbl $32). When on, the beam only burns during cutting moves. When off, it would also burn during rapid moves, and the assistant will not let you continue until you turn it on with Turn on laser mode ($32=1).

The app also compares the controller's highest S value ($30) with the profile's. If they differ the laser would burn at the wrong power. One button adjusts the profile.

3 Position

First choose the start point:

• Project zero point: move the laser head with the jog pad to the corner where the work starts (per the project zero point) and set X/Y zero there.
• Current position: simply move the head to where the design should go and pick in the nine-point grid which point of the job sits there (for example the centre or bottom left). When tracing the frame and at the start, the app uses this position as the reference. This puts a design onto an offcut quickly without measuring the zero point again.

Then:

1. Focus: set the distance between laser head and material as your laser's manual describes (focus spacer). The laser only moves Z when a Z step per pass is set in the profile.
2. Trace the frame: the head traces the outline of all paths with the laser off. You can see where the design will land.

4 Start

The assistant shows the estimated duration and the profiles. Before you start: lid closed, glasses on, extraction running. Start lasering starts the job. Pause, Resume, Stop and Speed are in the control window as when milling; speed acts as a percentage of the feed rate.

If the project uses several profiles, several programs run one after another. After the first you choose the next in the control window.

When something goes wrong

• The laser burns on rapid moves: laser mode $32 is off. Turn it on in the assistant.
• Too weak or too strong: check the S range $30 and find new values with a test grid.
• The cut does not go all the way through: more passes, slower, check focus, lay the material flat.
• Smoke drifts into the picture: improve extraction or air assist.