Page 3 – The Longer Ray5 Manual, operating the engraver and much more
I could fill up a lot of space with specs and instructions, instead I’ll direct you to the online manual – I could not find the full manual in their list of documents but stumbled upon it in the WIKI.
The engraver like all other laser engravers I’ve used, readily operates over USB with packages such as LaserGRBL (free) and Lightburn (much more comperhensive but not free).
WiFi
A potential big feature for engravers for me, is WiFi. Up to now it is possible to engrave GCODE files over WiFi – but the reality is not quite living up to what I at first imagined. My office is not that big, my computer sits on one side and my bench for the engraver is on the opposite side, so using USB is less than convenient. I looked all over to see how I might start the process of using WiFi and stumbled on it. The control panel on the engraver has an option to connect to your WIFI access point – so I selected my access point, entered the password and “connected”.
The online manual recommends you make a note of the IP address in the LCD panel, but it gets better. I have a WiFi scanner on my PC and they’ve given the device a NAME (I’m used to this when handling Tasmota IOT devices) – and it is grblesp. More specifically on my network where the default suffix is .lan – I can go, in my PC, straight to http://espgrbl.lan and be greeted by THIS:
The SPEED setting is obvious – but the DISTANCE setting… no idea for now (doesn’t seem to do anything – power possibly?) – as for light levels – I chanced my desk and hit the “OPEN LIGHT” button (BEAM ON would have been better) and on came the laser, thankfully at a low, safe level.
Now, it turns out that using Lightburn and WiFi together with the Longer Ray 5 is a non-starter for now – Lightburn have created some software called “Lightburn Bridge” to fit into a Raspberry Pi – and Lightburn itself has in the “device” section a device called “Lightburn Bridge”. However as far as I can tell, this assumes you can hook the laser to the RPi by hardwired LAN – the Longer Ray5 has only WiFi, no hardwired LAN – so , that’s one option dashed for now.
Back to USB connection – I could not find a profile for the Longer (well, it is NEW) but the standard GRBL profile seems to work ok with manual settings of 400mm x 400mm.
There is KIND OF a way to use WiFi and to test, I popped into PowerPoint, find myself a nice star shape, select the shape and exported as an SVG file and imported into Lightburn (all dead easy)… and found myself armed with a nice shape for an attempted cut into 3mm red acrylic but to burn the star with WiFi, I’d have to export the resulting gcode file so I could import over WiFi to the Loner web interface.
You can of course use the GRBLESP WEB software, despite the Chinese titles mentioned above. I was JUST ABOUT to give up on the WIFI as you’ll see above when it hit me… Lightburn can readily export .GC files – and that otherwise lacklustre, incompletely translated GRBLESP web interface can readily import .GC files onto the SD.
So, in Lightburn, via USB, I set the laser to 100%, 600mm/min and 10 passes (more guesswork than anything else, I know from experience that if I used a much slower speed, I risked deforming or discolouring the acrylic). And lo, I ended up with a near perfect (roughly 20mm across) cut-out STAR…
SO finally, I took my star and with the USB lead disconnected, I exported it from Lightburn and sent it over WiFi to the printer, put a piece of test wood in the engraved – and LO… actually that’s quite do-able though not as convenient as using USB directly from Lightburn – depending on your office/workshop layout.
So there you have it – the Ray5 will easily cut through wood and acrylic (multiple passes to avoid melting the acrylic or making a nasty burned wood surface). Now I’ve gotten this far, the sky’s the limit (well, for coloured acrylic and wood anyway).
That’s me done for now… I’m including some “Review guide” info from Longer below – I was not in any way involved in producing the information below and so I cannot guarantee it’s accuracy – I’ve merely re-worded where the original got too sales-ish, the translation needed work or I didn’t easily comprehend what the company produced – actually much of the info below IS actually useful and there are plenty of informative links:
The LONGER RAY5 provides support for 5.5w/10w laser heads. Meanwhile, the 10W laser head is scheduled for release in May and can be purchased separately for self-upgrading.
Engraver Product Price:
Coupon price: $309 (Normal price $339)
Coupon code: RAY5$30OFF
Promotion time: April 24, 2022 – June 30, 2022
The LONGER RAY5 is the first engraving machine with a built-in touch screen, suitable for offline engraving and cutting.
Suitable engraving materials include: all wood, paper, plastic, leather, PCB board, aluminum oxide, non-reflective plating, lacquered metal.
Suitable cutting materials include: cardboard, non-woven fabric, light wood, acrylic material, thin plastic board.
Materials to avoid include: PVC (poly-vinyl chloride), Lexan / thick polycarbonate, ABS, HDPE, polystyrene foam, fibreglass, polypropylene, coated carbon fibre.
New users should check the tutorials
1: LONGER RAY5 laser engraver assembly guide
2: Laser Engraving benchmark test file
3: Touch-screen operation
4: Software connection
5: Tutorial Videos – how to use the LONGER RAY5 for engraving different materials
6: Patterns for machine testing
User Manual
Quick Start Guide
Contact Email
Official Longer Users Group
Official Longer Facebook Page
Official YouTube Assembly Video
Operation Guide
Video 1 – LONGER RAY5 Laser Engraver Offline Carving and Cutting, Work without computer
Video 2 – LONGER RAY5 Laser Engraver 3.5 inch touchscreen built in controller
Laser dot comparison: Longer Ray5: 0.08mm by 0.08mm – average industry size at the same price is 0.15mm by 0.15mm
Features include a 240Mhz 32-bit motherboard for smoother and faster engraving which is smoother and faster than competitors. faster than an 8-bit motherboard and with faster transmission speed.
Safety Protection includes:
Thermal Protection: should the carving material set on fire, Ray5 recognizes and automatically stops working. It also gives off an alarm. Poster.
Motionless protection： Ray5 can recognize and automatically cease operating while providing an alarm when the laser head is motionless for 5 seconds. Video.
Acrylic eye protection for the laser is provided as well as safety glasses.
Support: Win XP, Win 7, Win 10 (I’m adding Win 11 as it works for me – Pete), Lightburn and LaserGRBL suported – MAC/Linus can use Lightburn.
Supported formats: BMP, JPG, PNG, DXF, AI, SVG
A predictably long list of suitable graphical versions – https://bit.ly/36AM4IE
The now-traditional warning is
“Do not stare into laser with remaining eye”
Hah.. I like it!! I’d love to steal one of those laser warning signs… the one I like the most would have to be on Shutterstock – I can link to that “remaining eye” image but I can’t steal it without ending up in court 🙂 It’s a winner.