@DPE T2Laser supports 2 or 3 axis machines, it can do full 3D engraving or 2.5D cutting. It also supports home switches, rotary mode and much more. The trial is free.

@darty The controller is running open source Grbl firmware, it's a standard G-code interpreter.

@a.kusters It sounds like your Nano boot loader is corrupt or perhaps the Nano has failed. You can get a replacement for a few dollars, just make sure it has a boot loader installed or get yourself an AVR programmer and load the boot loader with Arduino IDE.

The severe lack of safety features on this machine, in hindsight, are completely inexcusable. I may post a video about this soon, but for now, just don't. Your eyesight can't be replaced and spending the extra $200 on something more usable is better for you and your projects. Please understand these risks before buying it and do research. These lasers are not toys and you can lose your eyesight forever in an instant. jiofilocalhtml https://forpc.onl/snaptube-for-pc

To finish this discussion: the coolant terminal on the ExtraBoard will give a 5V signal if the AirAssist setting is activated in LightBurn, and 0V if AirAssist is disabled. So I simply need to attach a Relais board to turn the compressor on and off.

@AsadSeeker Yes but you would need to add a Z-axis, which of course requires a 3-axis control board such as the EleksMana CNC.

@Zax Just closing the loop on this - the first of the new nanos worked in the old mana se board = so I'm back up and functional with the A3. Hopefully with some ready back-ups if that happens again. Thanks again for the help.

@Zax lol. I'm a sucker for good advertising

thanks

@camper56 said:

switch

Where do you have tha switch? I have also a Mana SE v3.2 board and could not find that switch.
I am running the latest GRBL 1.1 from https://github.com/gnea/grbl/releases (builded my self without any modification to sources) and the old fashioned 2 wire laser works ok when connected to Motor connector.

But the pwm laser that I connect to laser port will always turn on automatically when I power up the board. If I have understood correctly I should at least enable the laser mode on firmware for PWM lasers by changing $30=1. Will both the M3 and M4 commands use PWM if laser mode is enabled in GRBL?

In addition I have read that "grbl V0.8 used D11 for laser power and V0.9 is instead using the D12". Are there different hw versions of Mana SE 3.2 boards for different GRBL sw versions?

@numiesco Save as DXF from Inkscape and use T2Laser, it works perfectly and is designed for these machines.