I need some more clarification for adding a laser

to make this quick as I’m finishing my build. My Diode laser had a motor driver fail. I was wondering if any body has been able use a laser with a skr 1.2 board with a light burn file. with having to reflash the firmware so I can switch back forth fairly easy? I have replacement parts coming from china, But i need it to for my business.

The skr pro firmware has some laser features enabled. I haven’t kept up on the details. You would configure light burn to make marlin flavored gcode and I know there is a lot of experience here with it. Just not me :slight_smile:

So there are a few things to consider here. Laser support was enabled starting about version 510 for the SKR Pro V1.2 in the V1 maintained Marlin firmware. If you have an older version of the firmware, you will need to update. If you have something other than the SKR Pro, then you will need to update and make changes in the configuration files to enable laser support. In terms of moving between the laser and the router, the only conflict will be spindle speed. The laser support uses the S parameter of the G0, G1, G2 and G2 g-codes. So if you are using a PWM signal to set your spindle speed from your control board, there will be issues. But if you are like the vast majority of us that use a router, or use a spindle and set the speed manually, there is no conflicts, so you can use the same firmware for both routing and laser jobs.

As for LightBurn, it an be used in two ways: the g-code can be written out as a file and then run using some other g-code sending mechanism, or LightBurn can be used as a direct g-code sender. I use the first method and write g-code to a file, then I run it headless (from an SD card) in the shop. Repetier-Host and any other g-code sending solution will work using LightBurn written g-code. There are some features you gain by using LightBurn as a g-code sender. I don’t have a computer I want in the shop, so I’ve not tried this configuration. I know about six months ago there were issues with this configuration (LightBurn talking to Marlin), but I’d be surprised if the LightBurn developers have not fixed the problem.

As for your laser module, you need to figure out what voltage of PWM signal it can use. The SKR Pro firmware maintained by V1 is setup to use pin PC9 for the laser. This is a 3.3V pin. Most module that are designed for 5V PWM will accept an incoming 3.3V PWM signal.

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That helps alot. i think the laser module will work. since it uses a stm32 knock off. i know just enough about marlin to be dangerous. How ever hardware is my jam.