Low-cost Diode Laser Buy

Special Interest Groups Laser SIG
#61

New problem here.

My Ortur was working just fine, but I realized the other night when we went through the agenda at the Help meeting that I had never updated the Laser’s firmware. So, I printed out the instructions, made sure LightBurn was off, and put the laser into USB drive mode. I tried to copy OLF_000.BIN to it, and it timed out and the thumb drive icon disappeared from my desktop. From that time on I’ve been in trouble.

I can’t get any response from the Ortur, the power switch, the reset button, or from in LightBurn. I can remount the Ortur on my Mac as a thumb drive, but then I can’t properly eject it. I have to go into the Unix Shell and force unmount it. There is a very dim red glow on one of the LEDs on the Ortur when it is plugged into either USB or AC Power or both. The only way I can get this LED off is to unplug both power and USB. Then, when I plug either back in it begins its faint glow again.

It seems to be stuck in USB mode, maybe, but I can’t get it out. Nothing seems to elicit any other response. It no longer shows up as connected in LightBurn, and, yes, I have tried right-clicking the Devices button.

MacOS Catalina 10.15.4
LightBurn 0.9.11

Any ideas?

-e

#62

I’m guessing this “timeout” event is why the instructions say to have the firmware files unzipped and ready. Lesson learned.

There is no use in attempting to get Lightburn to connect until you can get the firmware properly installed.

So, when you follow the first part of the instructions and you hold the power button for 5 seconds, then push the reset button and release it then the power button… do you get a USB drive connected event on your computer?

If so, on the Mac at a command prompt and in the directory with the OLF_000.BIN and OLF_134.BIN files, Mount the USB drive and IMMEDIATELY copy the OLF_000.BIN file, type “sync” to flush the buffers. Do it a second time for kicks and then push the reset button on the Ortur.

Repeat this process with the OLF_134.BIN file. Again, being quick about it, run the sync command and then reset. You should get normal operation back. ie pushing the power button for 2 seconds turns it on and light burn should be able to see the device and connect.

IMPORTANT: I saw a post where another Mac user was not having any luck but did the process on a Windows box and it went off without a hit. I used Linux( Ubuntu ) and it worked exactly as the instructions stated. So maybe boot Windows or Linux and see if the update works. It seems the BIN files are getting modified or something unknown is happening during the unzip or the copy.

#63

First, let me thank you for your response. I really appreciate the help.

So, these two files are .BIN, not .ZIP. I tried to unzip them and got an error message that they were in an unsupported format. I assumed they were already unzipped.

I have tried unzipping them now with several other utilities, and all report that they are in an unsupported format.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a Windows or Linux machine. Do you know if I can bootstrap a linux partition? I would hate to have to buy Windows just to get my Laser working…

-e

#64

I also have a Mac computer and am having problems installing the firmware. Was unsuccessful, but in the process probably ruined what was already on the Ortur when shipped.

An Apr 20 (today) post on the Lightburn forum said that the more recent Ortur lasers do not need the firmware update. An email from Ortur (ortur@ortur3dprinter.com) to me today said this
" -The firmware listed in LightBurn forum is for the users, who have the old Laser Master with engraving problem.
-If the laser engrever is working properly, it don’t need to update.
-Some MAC could work, but most of them cannot, and would broke the framework or even the bootloader, because of the compatibility issue of MAC."
Using a Windows machine for the firmware update was recommended.

DougL: On the Mac, are you using the Terminal app? What exactly are the commands for “mount the usb drive”, “copy”, “sync” ?

Exactly how, on a Mac, do I get the correct form of the two BIN files? What size are they? How can I tell if they are in the correct format?

In the mean time, I am going to find someone to lend me a Windows computer.

#65

Marty,

I really wish I had known all of this (as I’m sure you do).

WARNING TO ALL Mac users: DO NOT ATTEMPT to update the Firmware if your ORTUR is working.

@SDFWA sent me the two files as unzipped files from a PC, and they are exactly the same as what we have, so uncompressing them was automatically done as we downloaded them.

In the Unix Terminal I have tried to cd (change directory) to the ORTUR LASER and cp (copy) the …/Desktop/OLF_000.BIN OLF_000.BIN and got an error that it is a read only volume.

I tried chmod 777 to change it to a very promiscuous drive, but that did not work either.

FYI - to make it work in UNIX I had to change the name of the drive to ORTURLASER (all one word). umount was still unable to unmount it, but I was successful with ‘diskutil unmount ORTURLASER’.

Still not able to find anything that works.

-e

#66

You can boot your Mac with Linux from a USB drive. Using a program like Etcher, you can have it make a bootable USB thumb drive from a Linux disk image: I made an image for another project which you can try: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wZw8pMqie79joUVorC_FchuROzjEAywZ

I’ve used this technique when teaching classes of many people with different computers and the only problems I had with Macs were sometimes the wifi card would not work. In that case I had small USB hubs and a Realtek WiFi card and that was what worked.

Once Linux is booted, you can try to connect your Wifi to the network, get the needed firmware file and unzip it. If you have the zip file locally you can put it onto another USB disk and copy it into the Downloads folder once the computer is booted and go from there. I tested this and the GUI works for file browsing, extracting the zip files and copying the file to the folder which pops up when the Ortur is in USB drive mode.

The 2 firmware files you need have been uploaded to my gDrive:

Briefly:
Boot the computer into the live session( don’t click install if that option shows up… )
you’ll get a Linux desktop
look for the network icon(lower right corner) and try to connect to the network
Open the browser and get the zip file from the gDrive( you’ll have to type the URL in manually ).
It’ll download into the default user(lubuntu) Downloads directory. /home/lubuntu/Downloads
There’s a little folder like icon on the task bar in the lower left corner and that’ll open your File Browser.

  • double click the zip file and an option to extract will pop up. Extract the files in place and close the extraction/unzip window and you should see the new directory in the Downloads folder.
  • open that folder and you will see the BIN files.

NOTE: get the Ortur into its update mode with the USB cable connected and there will be a window which pops up asking you to open the file browser. do it and you’ll see the Ortur USB disk with one file in it.

  • drag and drop the OLF-000.bin file to the Ortur USB drive. Wait 10 seconds and hit the reset button.
  • the file browser window will disappear.
    REPEAT for the OLF-134.BIN file

If you want, you can go get the Lightburn for Linux version and see if it works. I think it will work in a live environment. I got an error when I tried to use the “trial” button but after I loaded my emailed license file I was able to get it to connect after I changed the /dev/ttyACM0 device to let everyone read/write it( sudo chmod 777 /dev/ttyACM0 ). Seems I didn’t add the default user to the dialout group when I created the bootable system. Will have to fix that.

#67

I was able to use Mac’s Terminal app to copy the first BIN file to the Ortur. But after that, everything was worse. Later, I found that the BIN file was no longer on the Ortur.

So, I have boxed the Ortur up and am considering paying someone to fix it or perhaps just selling it. I have wasted three days worth of time that I could have been working with real wood, and that is enough.

#68

@marty.blake.jacobson when you copy the firmware file to the Ortur USB drive and then hit the reset button the Ortur consumes the firmware(loads it) and removes the file. Otherwise it would be in an endless loop loading a BIN file every time it started.

So you get it to load the reset file( OLF-000.BIN ) and then you get it to load the latest firmware( OLF-134.BIN ) and from then it’s running with the latest firmware.

#69

There was a new crazy message, maybe from the Mac, saying something like “this is so f—d up that there is no way I can communicate with this gadget”. I could not add the 134 BIN file.

#70

An update for everyone.

First: DO NOT ATTEMPT to update firmware on an Ortur Laser from a Mac.

Out of the box, my Ortur worked with my Mac with no problems. Hearing that there was a Firmware update, I attempted it, since I believe on keeping software up to date. It bricked my Ortur.

For a while I was still able to mount the Ortur as a USB drive per the instructions, and I continued to try different things to get it to work. As of late yesterday I can no longer mount it.

Ortur (ortur@ortur3dprinter.com) have indicated that, since I can no longer mount it, they will provide me with a new motherboard free of charge by mail (4 weeks) or by DHL ($27.60 shipping).

I have sent them the money to ship it and I will let all know how it goes when it arrives.

-e

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#71

Bummer but good to hear they are providing a replacement. Can I ask you for the old board? I would love to see if I can debrick it. If you want to drop it off, there’s a chance I can do this before the new one arrives. PM me for my home address if interested.

#72

Ortur is also sending me a new motherboard, too. I chose the free post option, so I can take a break. Looking forward to hearing that yours installed easily and that it worked!

#73

Just so you know I appreciated the time you took to note these instructions…

I did download the disk image and used balenaEtcher to place it on a thumb drive. Then i tried a couple of methods to get my Mac to boot from the thumb drive, but couldn’t get it to work.

Though I have some past UNIX experience, I’ve never really tried Linux, unfortunately I couldn’t get this to boot for me…

-e

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#74

@databaz just to make sure it wasn’t something I did in generating the ISO, could you try a stock Lubuntu 18.04.3 image?
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/18.04/release/lubuntu-18.04-desktop-amd64.iso

#75

Ok, I was able to create an image that did boot on my Mac, however neither the keyboard or the trackpad seemed to be recognized. I then rebooted and find that the USB thumb drive is unreadable now. I tried an erase with Disk Utility, but it ends with an error that it is unable to modify the drive.

:slight_smile:

-e

#76

I have seen that happen on my MacBook Air when it wakes from sleep. I just put it back to sleep and rewake and the keyboard and mouse work again. Finicky stuff for some reason but I will say I enjoy the feel of the Apple hardware. Also, the USB drive is booted READ-ONLY so you can’t erase or copy anything to it once it is booted. If the USB drive is created with a 2nd partition then that partition can be used for saved files.

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#77

Doug went through hardware/software/mental gymnastics and resurrected my laser’s motherboard!

With appropriate social distancing methods I have it back now and will attempt to install it later and confirm that I’m back up and running.

Thanks, @DougL!

-e

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#78

It’s alive!!!

All seems to be working!

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#79

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#80

Hey, he can engrave THAT now!

1 Like