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laser burner on linux
Last update: Tue Nov 28 13:33:18 2023
Bought myself a HTPow P7 M30 laser burner and I'm doing the setup on Ubuntu 22.04 so let me share my experience here, in case it helps you.
Setup
Bill of materials
Assembly
My manual was in Japanese but clear enough so just RTFM.HOWEVER there was 1 problem: the Y axis (not the one with the laser, the other one) was too stiff, and had some simili positive stops, make the laser stuck it if reached those points (belt wasn't strong enough and anyway the bouncing would have been a catastrophe). The reason is a one line I missed so please don't : at step 1 make sure to loosen the hex bolt on the X (the one with the laser caddy). Which direction? No idea, but after some tweaking and lots of cursing it ended sliding smoothly enough.
Computer setup - USB connection
First use a recent Linux, I tried on an old Mint19 (which was OLD in 2023) which owed me a few hours spend on upgrading and setting up my laptop to a Ubuntu 22.04 (the LTS of the time - March 2023). Reason is that recommended beginner (=me) software has a dependency on a quite recent glibc, not matched in old Mint 19 and installing mutiple glibc is heavily non-recommended on the net.Then install LightBurn which works on Linux as a 30 days demo. Hopefully enough for me to level up and move to some free software like LinuxCNC but let's not skip steps.
Then you plug the USB, launch LightBurn aaaaaaaand ... it doesn't work. It doesn't find you LaserBurner. Yes it's normal, for some time the USB setup on Ubuntu and its consorts need a few steps. I had the issue on Mint with my ATmel AVRISP mkII programmer. So let's make it work.
Get the USB to work on Ubuntu 22.04
See the EXCELLENT tutorial of that gentleman : https://diode-laser-wiki.com/documentation/setting-up-the-software/#USB_Driver, basically I'm just doing a slight variant. Credits go to him!Reason is that it emulates a serial port on USB to communicate GBRL commands, a CH340 as per lsusb. And now if you want to use it WITHOUT being root, you need to add a few steps to make it a "familly and kids approved" device. But there's even a catch ... see below.
First add your user to the dialout group :
sudo adduser my-user dialoutNow logout and login again to make it effective.
Then lsusb and find the vendor ID and product ID of your device.
> lsusb ... Bus 001 Device 008: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter ...
EXTRA FUN: the vendor:product ID pair is in fact maybe ALREADY registered in your system as a Braille reader! You need to un-register it first!
Check if you have the britty file: edit the /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/85-britty.rules file, find the line with your vendor ID (1A86), find your product (7523) and hashtag that line or remove it.
Now let's give access to non-root users: edit an existing file in /usr/lib/udev/rules.d/ (NOT the files in /etc/udev/rules.d/!!!), add to the 70-uaccess.rules and add the below text in the “3D printers, CNC machines, laser cutters, 3D scanners, etc.” section (should be at the bottom of the file):
#QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter for HTPOW P7 M30 Laser burner (Serial over USB for GRBL)
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="1a86", ATTRS{idProduct}=="7523", GROUP="dialout", MODE="0666"
Then to be safe remove brltty if you don't need it (or if above didn't work):
sudo apt-get purge --auto-remove brlttyNow restart the udev service (or to be extra safe if it doesn't work, Windows style reboot):
sudo service udev restartIt should work now...
Moment of truth
Run LightBurn, it won't find your burner anyway so make a generic GRBL, and when you're in power cycle the laser (important!) and try the Move window => Home : the head should reach its home position! Check the Console window which shows the connection status, sometimes a few stop/start are necessary to get connected but it works at the end (for me).Now Device menu and import the settings from the machine, it will help correct whater you misinput at the GRBL device creation.
Softwares
LightBurn (non-free)
Seems the best for beginners, 30 days trial, but after that 8,000JPY/year (~= 60USD/y) ... I ended up paying because it's the best of the market.WIFI:S:;T:;P:;; as QiFi.org says.GRBL WebStreamer
Once you designed you have to execute and with a lightweight 5W laser that can take A LONG TIME. Like 1h or more if complex cuts of thick materials. You don't want your laptop stuck there, risking low battery or buffer underrun. So use a streamer that takes care of that.A Raspi Zero W connected via USB presents a web interface, so you can upload your job, frame it (see where it will be burnt), simulate or run it. And once done, sends you an alert. In the meanwhile, go do something else!
LaserWeb4
https://github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4/wiki/1.3-Installation-on-Linux-(x86-only)kkengraver
https://github.com/aquamorta/kkengraverKiri:moto
https://grid.space/kiri/LinuxCNC
Even the userspace version (non-RT kernel) version didn't want to install, my Ubuntu 22.04 is too recent, needs old libraries so... maybe worth a try as a version on a USB stick? Makes it nomade, doesn't polute your "normal" PC nor forces you to run on their frozen environment and RT kernel, but would require some config to make it pleasant to use maybe (file exchange, mails etc.) Or just do your designs in Inkscape on your main PC and use this as a "burning station" only?Pictures
Links
Helpful sources
Inspiration
electrogeek.tokyo ~ Formerly known as Kalshagar.wikispaces.com and electrogeek.cc (AlanFromJapan [2009 - 2025])