Laser Engraver, Windows and USB Ports

Brian Sep 17, 2010; 03:00pm Laser Engraver, Windows and USB Ports Reply | Threaded | More

I've worked through some troubleshooting steps with our laser engraving machine, Windows and USB ports and thought I'd post my results in case anyone else has run into this problem... maybe you all already know about it and are ahead of me but if not this may help.

I found that sometimes when I rebooted my laser engraving workstation or restarted the laser engraving machine itself Windows would detect new hardware and make me install the L-Solution printer again. If I cancelled out of this step hoping to use the one that was already installed Gravostyle wouldn't be able to send the laser print jobs properly. After a bunch of troubleshooting this is what I found:

- When I restarted my computer with the laser machine on, Windows would detect and install the printer on USB port 0002.
- When I turned the laser machine off and then back on when Windows was running, Windows would detect and install the printer on USB port 0001.

Each time I reinstalled the printer I would delete the old one and name the new one back to the original name and so I found myself often having reinstall the printer.

Solution:
Here's my final solution for getting things to work reliably: Always turn off the laser machine if you restart Windows and then turn it back on after Windows is running and *before* you start the Gravostyle software. This also ensures that if you have to restart the laser machine while the computer is still on it won't switch USB ports and should continue to work normally.

That's what should work for us anyway, if you have a different experience or suggestion I'd be interested to hear it.

Alex Troyer Sep 17, 2010; 03:06pm Re: Laser Engraver, Windows and USB Ports Reply | Threaded | More
Good post Brian, I think you're correct in your solution to this.

-Alex