Start Here: Your First Lightburn Project

End-to-end walkthrough: from "I just installed Lightburn" to "I just successfully ran my first job." Aimed at the user who has unboxed a laser, has Lightburn open, and doesn't know what to click first. ~30 minutes of reading; ~30 minutes of doing.

Step 0: Before you open Lightburn

1. Confirm the right edition. CO2 (Ruida or GCode controller) and diode (GCode controller) use Lightburn's standard / DSP edition. Fiber galvo lasers (BJJCZ / JCZ controllers) require a separate Lightburn Galvo license, same vendor, different SKU. If you have a galvo and you bought DSP, contact Lightburn to swap. Verify current pricing and licensing model on the Lightburn website.
2. Power on the laser, connect the cable. CO2 and galvo: USB cable is reliable; some Ruida/galvo controllers also support Ethernet. Diode (GCode): USB only on most consumer machines.
3. Don't skip the manufacturer's setup checklist: focus stick / focus tool, lens cleaning kit, key, eye protection. Have safety glasses ON when running anything, even "just a test."

Step 1: Install Lightburn and create a Device profile

The Device profile tells Lightburn your machine's bed size, controller type, origin, and homing behavior. This is the most error-prone step for new users, get it right once and the rest is gravy.

1. Install Lightburn from the official site. Activate your license.
2. On first launch, Lightburn opens the Devices Window. (If not, top-right of the Laser panel: click Devices.)
3. Click Find My Laser first, Lightburn will scan USB and detect most controllers automatically. If detected, follow the prompts and skip to step 7.
4. If not auto-detected: click Create Manually.
5. Choose your controller type:
   • Ruida: most CO2 lasers (OMTech, Thunder, Aeon, etc.)
   • GCode (GRBL/GRBL-LPC/Marlin): most diode lasers and some entry CO2
   • JCZ Fiber / BJJCZ: fiber galvo lasers (requires Galvo edition)
6. Enter the bed size (X × Y in mm). Match your machine's actual workable area, not the marketing dimension.
7. Set the Origin, the corner the laser homes to. CO2 typically Top-Left or Top-Right. Diode typically Front-Left. Galvo: doesn't apply (galvo always uses Absolute Coordinates).
8. Save the device.
9. Verify connection: in the Laser panel, click Home. The machine should drive to its origin corner. If nothing happens, see Troubleshooting at the bottom of this module.

Step 2: The workspace tour (90 seconds)

The five panels you'll touch every job:

• Cuts / Layers (right side), every shape in your file lives on a colored layer. Each layer has its own settings (speed, power, mode, passes). Output ON/OFF toggles the layer for this job. Most-used panel.
• Laser (right side, below Cuts), the run controls. Frame, Start, Pause, Home, Send (Ruida-only, pushes the file to controller memory for offline running).
• Move (right side, below Laser), jog the head, set Z, save positions. Useful for setting origin manually.
• Toolbar (left side), drawing tools (rectangle, ellipse, polygon, text), select, node edit. You'll mostly import and arrange rather than draw from scratch.
• Workspace (center), visual representation of your bed. Designs sit here.

Every other panel (Console, Camera, Library, Shape Properties) is optional and can be opened from the Window menu when you need it.

Step 3: Set up your first job

1. File → New. Lightburn opens a fresh workspace at your device's bed size.
2. Import a design. File → Import (or drag a file into the workspace). Best formats: .svg for vectors (clean cuts and fills), .png for raster images (photos and shaded artwork). For your first project, draw a simple rectangle with the toolbar, easier than fighting an import.
3. Place it. Click the shape; in Shape Properties (or the bottom status bar), set width/height. For Hello-World, a 50×20mm rectangle is perfect. Position it near the front-left of the workspace so framing is easy.
4. Pick a layer color. The shape uses whichever color you last had selected in the Cuts/Layers panel. For a simple test, leave it on the default red (Layer 00), that's a Line layer.

Step 4: Set the layer to Line, Fill, or Image

Three primary layer modes for every job. Pick the one that matches your goal:

Mode	What the laser does	Use when
Line	Follows the path of each shape, outline cuts and outline engraves.	Cutting through a material; outline-only engraves; thin scribed lines.
Fill	Sweeps back and forth inside each shape using a hatch pattern.	Solid filled engraves on text and graphics. The default for most "engrave the inside" work.
Image	Renders a raster image with a chosen image mode (Threshold, Grayscale, dither, etc.). Used on imported PNG/JPG.	Photo engraves; halftone artwork; depth-map relief work.

Double-click the layer's color square (or click the Layer in the Cuts panel) to open the Cut Settings Editor, this is where you set Speed, Power, and any mode-specific options. For the Hello-World test, set the layer to Line, speed and power to safe values for your machine (a CO2 will run at ~300 mm/s, 15% on cardboard; a galvo at ~3000 mm/s, 30% on stainless; a diode at ~3000 mm/min, 25% on basswood). Always start lower than you think, you can re-run with more power.

Step 5: Frame before you fire

Framing traces the outline of your job at low/zero power so you can confirm where it'll land on the material. Always frame before every job. One missed frame = engrave landing off-material = wasted blank.

• Bounding box / Bounds frame (gantry), runs the four corners of the design's bounding rectangle. Standard for most jobs. Hotkey: F4 or click Frame in the Laser panel.
• Rubber Band / Hull frame (gantry, Lightburn 2.0+), traces a tighter convex hull around the actual shapes. Useful when your design is irregular.
• Live Frame / Contour frame (galvo), galvo lasers typically use the red pointer to trace a continuous outline of the design at low power. Hold framing on; nudge the head with arrow keys until aligned.
• Tool Layers Only (galvo + DSP), only frames layers you've assigned as Tool Layers (T1 / T2). Critical for jig and registration work. See Layer Settings Deep Dive for the technique.

Step 6: Run the job

1. Open Preview: top toolbar, or Alt+P. This shows you the simulated path the laser will take, the time estimate, and (with cut planner enabled) the exact order of operations. Always preview before pressing Start. Catches missed Output toggles, wrong layer settings, runaway pass counts.
2. Inspect the time estimate. If it says "47 hours" for a small Hello-World, something is wrong, check pass count and line interval.
3. Close Preview. Press Start. (On Ruida, you can also press Send to push the file to controller memory and run it from the laser's panel, useful for repeat jobs.)
4. Watch the first 30 seconds. Confirm the laser is firing in the right area, smoke extraction is running, no flames or sparks. Most catastrophic failures (mask peeling, material warping, focus drift, fire) start visibly in the first minute.
5. Job runs. Stay near the machine. Never run unattended.

Step 7: Inspect & iterate

1. Wait 30-60 seconds after the job finishes for fume extraction to clear before opening the lid.
2. Inspect under good lighting. Daylight LED at a low angle reveals depth and edge crispness better than overhead fluorescent.
3. If the result is too light: bump power 5% or drop speed 50-100 mm/s. If too dark / charred: drop power 5% or bump speed.
4. Re-run on a fresh scrap. The first job in a new material should always be a small test patch, not the full design.

The workflow loop you'll repeat forever

Every Lightburn job follows the same 8 steps. Once you've done it 3-4 times, it becomes muscle memory:

1. Open / create file: File → New, or Open a saved .lbrn / .lbrn2 project.
2. Import / arrange: drag in artwork; size and position on the workspace.
3. Set layer modes & settings: Line / Fill / Image; speed, power, passes, line interval.
4. Pick origin / Start From mode: Absolute Coords / Current Position / User Origin (see Alignment, Origin & Framing).
5. Frame: confirm placement on material.
6. Preview: confirm time, paths, layer order.
7. Start: watch first 30 seconds.
8. Inspect & iterate: adjust settings, re-run on scrap, save the working settings to your Material Library for next time.

Connection troubleshooting (first-job failures)

• "Find my laser" finds nothing. Check USB cable seated firmly at both ends. Try a different USB port (avoid USB 3.0 hubs, known to drop Ruida connections). On Windows, check Device Manager, you should see a COM port appear when the cable is plugged in.
• Lightburn finds the laser but Home does nothing. Limit-switch / homing not configured. On Ruida: vendor-set; usually correct. On GRBL: send $$ in the Console and look at $22 (homing enabled) and $23 (homing direction).
• Laser fires but the job is mirrored / upside down. Origin corner is wrong in your device profile. Edit the device, fix the corner.
• Laser fires but the job is at the wrong scale. Bed dimensions in your profile don't match the actual machine. Re-measure with calipers or run Lightburn's calibration wizard.
• "Stream completed" but nothing happened. Output is OFF on every layer. Check the Cuts/Layers panel, every layer needs the Output toggle ON.
• Galvo: red pointer is in a different spot than where the laser fires. Lens calibration is off (red diode and IR laser don't share an optical axis until aligned). Run the lens calibration wizard for your specific lens.

What to read next

• Layer Settings Deep Dive, every checkbox in the Cut Settings Editor, when to use each.
• Image Modes & Dithering, when to use Threshold vs Jarvis vs Grayscale vs 3D Sliced.
• Material Library Files (.clb), how to save your validated settings so you never have to re-test the same material twice.
• Your machine-specific Lightburn module (Fiber → Lightburn for Galvo, CO2 → Lightburn Setup, or Diode → Lightburn for Diode) for the controller-specific quirks.

Verified against Lightburn 2.x. UI specifics may shift in future versions; verify against your installed version.