Chinese Fiber Laser Controller Card

[Alan Carrier]

About 18 months ago I purchased a 30W fiber laser from a Chinese supplier (Liaocheng Foster Laser). The laser works great and I have had no issues so far. However, it appears that it will only work with a 32 bit version of Windows, so I had to set up a multi boot situation on my PC with a 32 bit version of Windows 7 along with the previous installation of 64 bit Windows 10 pro. It appears that the issue may have been that the laser has a knockoff controller card (picture attached) instead of genuine JCZ controller card, so I purchased a JCZ LMCV4-FIBER-M card. I'm hoping that this will allow me to run both my CO2 laser and the fiber laser on the 64 bit Windows partition and also allow me to update to the latest EZCAD 2 version when desired.

Now for the questions: Does anyone here know if the cable pins are the same on the clone card and the LMCV4? I contacted the vendor and after an email exchange, they basically said that the 64 bit board and 32 bit board are pin compatible if I didn't use the foot switch (which I don't), otherwise a couple of wires need to be changed. However, they didn't specifically answer if there is a difference between the pins on the clone and the JCV LMCV4-FIBER-M card.

Also, will the 32 bit version of the "softdog" that was provided with the laser work with the new card?

Of course the CD
that came with the JCZ card containing all of the documentation and the latest version of EZCAD software was in Chinese. I've contacted JCZ to see if they can point me to an English version so hopefully I'll hear from them before too long.

Thanks for any and all help!

Alan
397523

[Alan Carrier]

A bit of an update. I was a bit hesitant to change the cards without knowing for sure the pins were the same because releasing that magic smoke tends to cause problems. However, I went ahead made the change and everything works fine. The only problem I initially had was getting the foot switch to work. That isn't a big deal since I never used it, but I wanted it to work...just because it was supposed to work. My foot switch is wired to pin 9 (GIN15) and pin 12 (ground) on the DB15 connector (CON4). In the parameters (F3) under the port tab, there is an item called "Start Marking IO". I had changed that to port 15 (assuming that GIN15 was for port 15). That didn't work initially, but then I realized that it was set to high and I was providing a ground with the switch. I changed the setting to low and it now works as it should.The vendor also provided me with an English version of EZCAD so I'm up and running on my 64 bit Windows 10 pro with no problems.Alan

[Kev Williams]

Glad it's all working- my new ebay machine came with a non-working foot switch, what you just posted is very enlightening-

My con4 connector WAS wired exactly as yours, to pin 9 and pin 12. However, pin 8 is labeled "REMARK", which as explained 'when activated the controller will (re)mark the content in the cache'. So, I moved the wire from pin 9 to pin 8. Voila, I now have a working foot pedal! HOWEVER, 'remarking' what's in the cache is not the same as 'start laser'- the differences are (a) the foot switch won't start what's on screen, it only starts what's been run previously, so the laser must first be started by computer, then all subsequent repeats can be done with the switch. This means (b) if you put a new job on screen, then hit the foot switch to run the new job, you're going to engrave the old job and possibly ruin a part- which I've done already! And finally (c) remarking is machine-specific with no feedback to the computer, which leaves no way to stop or pause the laser! Once started, the only way to stop is to hit the 'laser on/off' button, (if you have one, my machine does) which does stop the laser but you have to wait until the job finishes out regardless...

Your post just taught me what I've never known much about, the port settings. My defaults were as yours, which would explain why I had no foot switch. So now I'm wondering if I can just switch my port settings as you did, only I'll use pin 8 since that's where I'm connected now...

My worry is if the start order will clash with the remark order, since the instruction will be to run an old AND new job at the same time-? It's no big deal to move the wire back to pin 9 and try it, but I won't have time for a couple of days. It'll be easy enough to switch the port instruction though, but I don't want to blow out a $400 controller either!

I learned something, which is I love this forum, thank you! :)