You never cease to amaze me. The fact that you know this is so rad. I read that and went “hmmm that is random garbage, could have been anything” Boom, read your message and you actually understand how that could happen. DUDE, hats off to you.
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Well, let’s wait to see if that is a possibility before congratulating me 
Humm strange because only Lightburn is supposed to use that serial line, but it could makes sense as i use a multi purpose USB-C to USBs/HDMI/Eternet/SD… to connect my Macbook to my board and it creates 2 serials for the same connection, maybe a classical tty and a virtual one.
I recently bought a simple usbc to usb adapter, i will try with it from now and see wether it happens again.
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I was thinking more like you had a tft screen and the light burn running at the same time, and the screen and the computer were talking over each other.
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it’s worth looking at here indeed, thanks Jeff
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I’ve seen windows do attempts at plug and play detection on serial ports. Maybe the MacOS is doing similar? If a system process is periodically sending queries out the port, it would do things like that.
I had one of these types of “hubs” on my PC to control my Maslow CNC and it seriously affected the way my machine cut. It bogged down the Tx rate and the machine (which already moves slow) was almost pausing after every line was sent, even with only the machine plugged into the “hub.” I think it is the fact that the PC is trying to keep and read all the available ports on the hub through just one USB, so it has to play traffic cop, even though nothing is coming from the other ports, it still has to “listen” to make sure there isn’t anything. I switched to just a regular USB-C to USB adapter, and it worked great after that.
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Could you have something else kicking on in your shop that is creating electrical noise? I have seen this sort of interference created by a wonky AC fan. Maybe something is adding some noise to your comms. Any chance you could try controlling it through something other than the mac and that hub?
Also never walk away from your machine while its running mate! I know its been said but it bears repeating.
Oh, came back to edit this… this is a long shot but could you possibly be using different grounds? This is sometimes possible to do especially with USB since standard usb cables don’t isolate ground. You could easily create a ground loop and that would create noise although I would think it would be a more consistent issue if that was the case. Just a thought.
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For those who are the “belt and suspenders types”, using a flame retardent on your wood surfaces in your laser setups might buy you a little extra time… it’s not as cheap as water, but, might be cheaper than an all consuming fire…
Master Flame - Class A Fire Retardant - Spray on application - 1 Spray Quart 32 Oz Amazon.com
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Alternatively, you could just get a pet…
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What I ended up doing is covering the whole work area that the laser could reach with a metal sheet I had laying around. There have been a few more incidents of the laser parking itself somewhere other than over the laser table, but no further harm has been done.
I still want to get GRBL running, but I’m not even sure how to get started setting it up. I’ll ask in a separate question, I think. In the meantime, everything is working fine (and much safer) now.
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