[Xavior]

Hi there,

How are you today? I just stopped by the forum to see if i can get some help with a recently acquired laser from auction. It appears to be an older 98/99 rofin starmark C02 10/20W laser that is air cooled and not water cooled. That being said, i have started to put things back together as it was not working prior to purchase. I was able to get the windows 98 computer to boot without a concern, but there is no Rofin laser software anywhere to be found. Does that mean i can just use like microsoft word and print..? I highly doubt this, but a stick on the machine from the previous user states to "go into microsoft word and press print".

Does anyone have a copy or an idea of a software package i could use for windows 98 etc such as Rofin's LaserCad 2.26 (Need this if someone has it).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, this is my first venture into the world of lasers.

Photos of the laser: https://app.box.com/s/9bi42d8t3ebti5djeccyu0pbq65yp8n8

[Louis_Cannell]

These machines used to use postscript and TT Fonts so it may well be previous user instructions are correct give it a try?

[wklaserliu]

Hi there,

How are you today? I just stopped by the forum to see if i can get some help with a recently acquired laser from auction. It appears to be an older 98/99 rofin starmark C02 10/20W laser that is air cooled and not water cooled. That being said, i have started to put things back together as it was not working prior to purchase. I was able to get the windows 98 computer to boot without a concern, but there is no Rofin laser software anywhere to be found. Does that mean i can just use like microsoft word and print..? I highly doubt this, but a stick on the machine from the previous user states to "go into microsoft word and press print".

Does anyone have a copy or an idea of a software package i could use for windows 98 etc such as Rofin's LaserCad 2.26 (Need this if someone has it).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, this is my first venture into the world of lasers.

Photos of the laser: https://app.box.com/s/9bi42d8t3ebti5djeccyu0pbq65yp8n8

HI Xavior，

You hd bougth machine or not ?
http://www.wklaser.com/index.php?m=c...151&l=2&id=514 here is our Rofin laser makring machines.


for more news maybe you can contct me.

Quiven form weike laser
skype:wkquiven
[email protected]

[Xavior]

These machines used to use postscript and TT Fonts so it may well be previous user instructions are correct give it a try?

Hi Louis,

I am not quite how i can give it a try? Once i booted the computer there was no software available at all and the only word document was the old "word processor" in windows 98. That being said, i figured there would be a better way to communicate with the laser as i am not quite sure how you can position text without a cad software.

Do you happen to have a copy of LaserCad 2 or something? I can't imagine the version 7.78 floating around right now would be the verison windows 98 can run but i could try it. The only issue is that it is a large file and the computer does not even have a USB drive with only CD and floppy.

Speaking to your comment about "postscript" and "TT" fonts, how do i get this up and running for example? Is there any instructions by chance you can run by me?

I appreciate all your help!

[Louis_Cannell]

To communicate with laser it must be in your device manger and have a driver installed, it is possible it has done this already or you will need to find an appropriated driver, check the device manager and see what you have attached to the port to which you are connected this will help in identifying which software required or which may be compatable.

[Xavior]

To communicate with laser it must be in your device manger and have a driver installed, it is possible it has done this already or you will need to find an appropriated driver, check the device manager and see what you have attached to the port to which you are connected this will help in identifying which software required or which may be compatable.

Hi Louis,

What i noticed when i had the laser in front of me with the device manager open was some infrared protocols installed and appears to be in the task bar by the clock in windows 98. This was the only indicator that would suggest that this was for the laser as there was no other "devices' in the manager that appeared out of the usual found on the every day computer.

There is a infrared transfer program by the clock that was disabled, maybe because the laser is not in use. Either way, once enabled it asked me if i wanted to send a file through the protocol.

Could this be it?

[Louis_Cannell]

Quite possible that the operating system misidentified the driver required and infared was favourite to misdiagnose and install under 98 right click on my computer and select properties or in control panel select device manager and you can view by connection type and see what the laser is registered it will be connected to the port physically plugged in to, until we know that there is no way to help.

[Xavior]

Quite possible that the operating system misidentified the driver required and infared was favourite to misdiagnose and install under 98 right click on my computer and select properties or in control panel select device manager and you can view by connection type and see what the laser is registered it will be connected to the port physically plugged in to, until we know that there is no way to help.

Hi Louis,

How are you today? Just wanted to shoot you a little update regarding how far i got with the laser today. I was able to start the laser and get the entire box to power up which contains the computer and power supply for the laser. I also was able to get in touch with Rofin to get a copy of LaserCad 2.79 which was great. Now that i have it installed i am at another problem; for some reason my LSB card which is essentially the dongle to run Lasercad and to communicate with the laser appears to not be doing its job. The software is telling me the card is not inserted and the dongle is not found. Called Rofin and they advised that 24 volts needs to be going to the card to power it up from the enclosures power supply and not from the computer, i verified that and it looks good with a volt-meter. The 24 volts goes into the little green plug on the receiving end of the card. I have attached some photos for you to see. Further than that, the card is properly inserted but we are unable to get it working.

Not sure where to turn to from here, but i am stuck! To be honest, i am not quite sure its the card either, but the computer does not detect it for some reason so I am not quite sure about it.

See link below for Card images and Laser Itself.

https://app.box.com/s/9bi42d8t3ebti5djeccyu0pbq65yp8n8

[Louis_Cannell]

Sounds to me like the card lacks a driver installed, couple of things to try first check software you got from Rofin may be a driver in there get windows to search that location if not ask Rofin if they have an appropriate driver for your operating system, not sure on your ability or age but kids today have far better knowledge of these things than most my age having grown up with computers and often advise to people to ask the children regarding drivers etc, search onlline for driver by card Model but most success from I have is to search by the FCC number you will find on the card, beware of any software claiming miracle fixes a most are malware. Looks like card should be showing as a com port in Device Manager and possible that software needs the address obtaining from properties panel in device manager and entering in order to communicate. If still having problems details of Device manager Ports (screen print) would help advise further .

[Xavior]

Sounds to me like the card lacks a driver installed, couple of things to try first check software you got from Rofin may be a driver in there get windows to search that location if not ask Rofin if they have an appropriate driver for your operating system, not sure on your ability or age but kids today have far better knowledge of these things than most my age having grown up with computers and often advise to people to ask the children regarding drivers etc, search onlline for driver by card Model but most success from I have is to search by the FCC number you will find on the card, beware of any software claiming miracle fixes a most are malware. Looks like card should be showing as a com port in Device Manager and possible that software needs the address obtaining from properties panel in device manager and entering in order to communicate. If still having problems details of Device manager Ports (screen print) would help advise further .

Hi Louis,

I think you are absolutely correct on this one, the likeliness of the card or slot being dead in an industrial application is low in my mind. I had a eureka moment last night thinking about the problem and the condition i received the laser in with no software at all on it from Rofin, suggestive of the previous owners inability to get it to work which led him to wiping the hard drive and reinstalling windows. The operating system which is windows 98 is a consumer grade thus needs to be tailored in the bios to pickup how the cards are arranged inside this industrial application. I am willing to bet that there is some setting in the bios to handle ISA card and that we just need to turn it on and windows will do the rest. When i spoke with Rofin about drivers for the card they advised me that lasercard software install should have everything i need, but maybe they are right. Maybe the drivers are in place, but just need to tell windows that an ISA card is there or something to do with IRQ's and slot settings in Bios.

Any ideas as to my thoughts? I have gone into device manager and found all the missing drivers, there was quite a few of them. Ended up replacing the Nic card driver, video card driver, monitor driver and now today plan to replace the 56k modem driver and PS keyboard and mouse driver that is missing. Other than that, they are all found and nothing is showing up as that yellow question mark in the system.

Thoughts or ideas as to my approach to the bios provide?

[Louis_Cannell]

Without knowing what is in your device manager its difficult to comment as I say this will likely show as a serial com port and may load a default driver to identify which is the correct card it is as simple as with card inserted check control panel/ device manager and record the devices installed then pull the card restart repeat and see what is missing, once the card is identified in device manager you can go on to update driver, as I say update driver and first search software you acquired from Rofin then approach them for a driver if not found. It was always advisable under XP to disable devices and reboot prior to updating drivers and not let it do an automatic search on restart as it will continue loading incorrect drivers.

[Xavior]

Without knowing what is in your device manager its difficult to comment as I say this will likely show as a serial com port and may load a default driver to identify which is the correct card it is as simple as with card inserted check control panel/ device manager and record the devices installed then pull the card restart repeat and see what is missing, once the card is identified in device manager you can go on to update driver, as I say update driver and first search software you acquired from Rofin then approach them for a driver if not found. It was always advisable under XP to disable devices and reboot prior to updating drivers and not let it do an automatic search on restart as it will continue loading incorrect drivers.

So you are in the camp of the driver or device is already recognized, since its not in the missing questioned marked area but windows has allocated a default driver or something to it instead? What i can do is like you said, take some screen shots of the device manager before and after to see if we can identify any changes adding and removing the card. The only concern is that when i asked Rofin for the drivers they advised me that the software "lasercad" is all i needed and it was going to install it all, but in my mind there must be some drivers for their card that they made. I should touch base with my technician again to see if i can squeeze some more information out of him.

Or we have my approach, suggesting that the card is not identified yet as the bios has been reloaded to its defaults and not properly seeing the card at all in the slot. This may be best to check out first before what you advised as if its not visible, it nothing may change in the device manager.

[Louis_Cannell]

It will be fine in the bios but likely misidentified by windows and wrong driver installed follow my instructions and see what windows thinks it is. if windows installs wrong driver it will not be marked as having a problem. Drivers would be issued with software as a rule or it may just need standard Com port driver.

[Martin1967]

Hello All,

The LBS card has 2 interfaces, LPT2 and com3
They are on the card. You need to reserve IRQ 5 in the bios for ISA

Then you should see in the device tree of windows 2 LPT ports and com 1 2 and 3

Best regards,

Martin

[Louis_Cannell]

Cheers Martin makes sense of original instructions found to print from Word.

[Martin1967]

a bit curious, How do you print from Word ??

I am a service engineer at Rofin and never seen this....
The LBS card normaly only works from LaserCad.

[Louis_Cannell]

Not sure guy I have been trying to help had some original instructions from previous owner saying to do so which seemed strange until you mentioned the Com & LPT ports, seen word printing on many unusual items from Vinyl cutters to laser and CNC engravers in the past using Postscript output which creates vector graphics.

[Xavior]

Hello All,

The LBS card has 2 interfaces, LPT2 and com3
They are on the card. You need to reserve IRQ 5 in the bios for ISA

Then you should see in the device tree of windows 2 LPT ports and com 1 2 and 3

Best regards,

Martin

Hi Martin,

Thanks for that clarification, i had a strong hunch that the reason the card was not picked up by my system was because it was not setup in the bios properly due to the previous owner completely wiping the device and starting fresh with windows 98. Now the big question remains as i am not too familiar with the bios settings or working with the bios of an older day computer, do you think you can point me in the right direction as to which settings needs to be changed. The PDF here is from pages 29-33 which shows the screens in the bios of the rocky 3702ev v4 inside the computer. ftp://ftp.nematron.com/DOC/Rocky3702EV.pdf .

I do believe the card sits in ISA 1 as per this PDF of the back bone board that holds all of the cards in place. http://www.icpamerica.com/uploads/pr...0_20080328.pdf

I don't know which port or slot in the bios to change or reserve IRQ 5 for the ISA card. Does the offboard card setting need to be enabled or something? Gah sorry, sorta lost here.

The original instructions for some reason on the laser machine by the previous owners was to goto to microsoft word and press print. Then again i am probably taking that sticker out of context and may be something completely different to what is actually going on. Lucky for me the people at Rofin were able to help get a copy of Lasercad 2.79 to get installed along with the Dongle software needed to keep the program running. It appears that if it can't detect the card or the apparent dongle it shuts down.

I can see the light at the end of this tunnel! Super excited to hear we are making progress on getting this laser working. I will send you all a personal thank you laser'ed out from some nice wood !!!!

[Xavior]

Hello All,

The LBS card has 2 interfaces, LPT2 and com3
They are on the card. You need to reserve IRQ 5 in the bios for ISA

Then you should see in the device tree of windows 2 LPT ports and com 1 2 and 3

Best regards,

Martin

Martin,

Being a service Engineer for Rofin, welcome and thank you for helping me out. I did want to ask, when we installed the LaserCad software onto the machine i trust that we do not need any additional drivers to run that card?

Furthermore, what i have noticed that when the system is on although not communicating with the laser turning the shutter key to ON does not shield a light on the front panel as it should. Could this be a fault or an issue that could prevent me from using the device? Keep in mind that i have the covers off the cabinet and all along with the cover exposing the shutter itself. It probably doesn't like the cover to be open as it looks like it have a relay or switch that needs to be depressed on the cover, but there is nothing on the cabinet that would suggest it needs to be all together before we can proceed.

Can you shed any light on this at all? I unfortunately had to remove the key mechanism as the previous owner did not provide that to me, so right now we are using a nice square screw driver to switch between shutter off and on but have this issue with no system lights coming online when we do so. Sounds like another bump in the road to get this thing up and running as the shutter acts as a door to open and close when its time to use the device.

[Martin1967]

Hi Xavior,

On page 27 you see on the bottem of the screen IRQ 3 PCI/PNP

You have to scroll down a bit on that screen until you see IRQ5 PCI/PNP
Change that to Legacy ISA (Page up/down button)

That should do the trick

Please also check the settings in the configuration software, should be laser type Co2


Best regards,

Martin