Coletech fiber engraver - set-up help needed

[bill collier]

We purchased a Chinese fiber laser from Coletech and are struggling with getting the laser to connect with our PC. I see there are some Cole-tech owners on Sawmill Creek, so I'm hoping someone can help.

The instructions - such as they are - give 2 IP addresses, one for direct Cat5 cable connection and one for wireless. Here's what it says:

1. Set up IP Protocol 4 for IP 192.168.3.XX, with the XX being any value from 3-198.
2. Set subnet mask the default, which defaults to 255.255.255.0
3. In the marking software (which came with the laser), click on Device Management and add a device with the IP address which was set up in the first step.
4. Click "Connect" and the icon in the software should indicate the PC and the laser are communicating.

Instead, we get a pop-up error telling us the connection has failed. We've tried both hard wired and wireless with same results.

One of the images in their instructions show the bottom 2 fields in IP Protocol 4, DNS1 and DNS2, being blank. We've tried them blank and also tried various values in them with no results.

I suspect it's something simple that we're overlooking.

Any help appreciated!

PS - We have 2 other fiber lasers and 4 CO2 lasers from Epilog and others, so we're not complete newbies. We bought the cheap Coletech for little one-off jobs so we can keep our "real" lasers productive.

[Glen Monaghan]

If you are connecting the ethernet cable from laser to router, the 192.168.3.XX must be changed to match your router setting, which is more likely to be 192.168.1.XX or 192.168.2.XX. Make sure that the XX part of the IP address that you enter on the laser is different from any other device on the router. If you are connecting the ethernet cable from laser directly to computer, then you need to make sure that the IP address you enter on the laser and the IP address for the ethernet interface that you are using on your computer are both in the same subnet (eg, both are 192.168.3.??) with a different last number (the ??) on each. The other issue is how the interface on the laser is set up, ie, is it set up to connect to a router or directly to a computer, because the cable you use (normal straight through, or crossover) depends on that and how you actually hook it up.

[bill collier]

Glen - Thanks for the help! Got it going!!!

Now I can add "Cheap Chinese Fiber Laser" to my equipment list!