LMCV4-FIBER-M

JCZ LMCV4-FIBER-M is a fiber galvo type laser controlled by Ezcad 2, the LMC boards are all controlled by Ezcad2. The board controls a galvo head laser through the standard XY-100 protocol on a DB25 connection. The board itself costs around $200 USD (Jan 2022). With the similar protocol Ezcad 3 board going for $800 USD (Jan 2022). The additional features of the Ezcad3 are likely not worth the value. The reason why people pay for them is so that they can use Ezcad3 rather than being stuck to using Ezcad2 which like a lot of laser software is disliked by users. In the case of Ezcad, it crashes often and the F1 let me see what my design is doing is right next to the F2 burn the project without the lining up the material buttons. There are some hacked versions of this software which provide dongle-less support and raises the ram limit which is baked into the ram starved program.

Reverse engineering

The reverse engineering of the product has been done (at least initially) https://www.bryce.pw/engraver.html and Jason Dorie (https://lightburn.fider.io/) the latter for inclusion in LightBurn, a highly regarded software program within the laser community.

Command codes are 2 bytes 16 bit little-endian numbers these starting either with high or low bit (0x00 or 0x80) depending on whether it is a commandList command or a single command. In the larger LMC Ezcad3 code set these can sometimes reach into the first byte when the code value exceeds 255 0xFF. The board communications are done through a simple USB connection with several endpoints connecting to:

idVendor=0x9588, idProduct=0x9899

• ep_hodi = 0x01 # endpoint for the "dog," i.e. dongle.
• ep_hido = 0x81 # fortunately it turns out that we can ignore it completely.
• ep_homi = 0x02 # endpoint for host out, machine in. (query status, send ops)
• ep_himo = 0x88 # endpoint for host in, machine out. (receive status reports)

Commands are sent and received in the clear without swizzling or additional control bits.

commandList codes:

0x800d is called in listJumpTo

0x8001 is called in listJumpTo

0x8005 is called in listMarkTo

0x8003 is called in listLaserOnPoint

0x8006 is called in listJumpSpeed

0x800c is called in listMarkSpeed

0x801b is called in listMarkFreq (if lasertype == 3)

0x800a is called in listMarkFreq (if lasertype == 4)

0x800b is called in listMarkFreq  (if lasertype == 4  and 0x800a returned 0).

0x8013 is called in listMarkFreq (if some_setting2 == 0)

0x800a is called in listMarkFreq (if some_setting3 != 0)

0x8012 is called in listMarkPowerRatio

0x800b is called in listMarkPowerRatio (if lasertype == 0 (CO2))

0x800b is called in listMarkPulseWidth

0x8026 is called in listIPGYLPMPulseWidth

0x8007 is called in listLaserOnDelay

0x8008 is called in listLaserOffDelay

0x800f is called in listPolygonDelay

0x8004 is called in listMarkEndDelay

0x8004 is called in listDelayTime

0x8004 is called in listDelayTimeUs

0x8002 is called in listEndofList

0x801a is called in listFlyEnable

0x801d is called in listFlyDelay

0x8011 is called in listWritrPort

0x8051 is called in ReadyMark

0x8002 is called in Run.

0x801c is called in listDirectLaserSwitch

0x801e is called in SetCo2FPK

0x8005 is called in listDirectMarkTo

0x801f is called in lsFlyWaitInput

0x8021 is called in listIPGOpenMO

0x8023 is called in listChangeMarkCount

0x8022 is called in listWaitForInput

0x8026 is called in listIPGSetConfigExtend

0x8028 is called in listFlyEncoderCount

0x8029 is called in listSetDaZWord (if this returns 0, listDelayTime is called)

0x8050 is called in listJptSetParam

0x8025 is called in listEnableWeldPowerWave

0x8024 is called in listSetWeldPowerWave

0x8006 is called in ScanBmpPtBuf (several times)

Single Commands:

Single commands are 12 bytes long in 6 2-byte words of little-endian command codes. Some commands in the DLC ezcad3 codeset move into 0x01xx range, nothing here appears to. These commands are usually followed by GetState which reads 6 bytes of data. This provides response information and state information. These do not use all six bytes to send every command many are padded with zeros.

DisableLaser 0x2 -- all zero

EnableLaser 0x4 --  all zero

ExecuteList 0x5 --  all zero

GetVersion 0x7 -- 1, 0 0 0

GetSerialNo 0x9 -- all zero

GetListStatus 0xa -- all zero

GetPositionXY 0xc -- all zero

GotoXY 0xd --  variable, stack value, 0 0

LaserSignalOff 0xe -- all zero

LaserSignalOn 0xf -- all zero

SetAxisMotionParam 0x26 --  variable, stack value, 0 0

MoveAxisTo 0x29  -- lower 8 bits, 16-24th bits specified by single variable, 0, 0

AxisGoOrigin 0x28 -- variable, 0, 0, 0

GetAxisPos 0x2a -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetAxisOriginParam 0x27 --  variable, stack value, 0 0

WriteCorTable 0x15 -- boolean, 0, 0, 0

ResetList 0x12 -- all zero

RestartList 0x13 -- all zero

SetControlMode 0x16 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetDelayMode 0x17 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetMaxPolyDelay 0x18 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetEndOfList 0x19 -- all zero

SetFirstPulseKiller 0x1a -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetTiming 0x1c -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetPwmHalfPeriod 0x1e -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetPwmPulseWidth 0x6 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetLaserMode 0x1b -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

SetStandby 0x1d -- variable, variable, stack value, 0

StopExecute 0x1f -- all zero

StopList 0x20 -- all zero

ReadPort 0x25 -- all zero

WritePort 0x21 - variable, stack value, 0, 0

WriteAnalogPort1 0x22 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

WriteAnalogPort2 0x23 -- 0, stack value, 0, 0 (stack value is 2nd)

WriteAnalogPortX 0x24 -- variable, stack value, 0

SetFpkParam 0x62 -- variable, variable, variable, stack_value

SetFpkParam2 0x2e -- variable, variable, variable, stack_value

IPG_OpemMO 0x33 -- stack value, 0, 0, 0

IPG_GETStMO_AP 0x34 -- all zero

ENABLEZ 0x3a or 0x39 (if a value is zero) -- all zero

SETZDATA 0x3b variable, stack value, 0 0

SetSPISimmerCurrent 0x3c -- variable, stack_value

GetFlyWaitCount 0x2b -- boolean, 0, 0, 0

GetMarkCount 0x2d -- boolean, 0, 0, 0

IOCLT control codes

And additionally there are calls to a couple different IO events:

See winsdk-7 header file https://github.com/tpn/winsdk-7/blob/master/v7.1A/Include/WinIoCtl.h

MIO_Cmd uses the dwIoControlCode 0x99982014

MIO_GetState uses: 0x99982010

MIO_NewCmd uses: 0x99982024

MIO_Reset uses: 0x99982008

MIO_WriteCmdBuf uses: 0x99982018

MIO_TransferDataZ uses: 0x99982020

MIO_ReadEpprom uses: 0x99982080

MIO_ReadAllEpprom uses: 0x99982090

MIO_ModifyEpprom uses: 0x99982088

MIO_EarseEpprom(sic) uses: 0x9998208c

MIO_WriteEpprom uses: 0x99982084

MIO_EppromSetMark uses: 0x99982094

MIO_EppromGetMark uses: 0x99982098

MIO_EppromSetTimeStamp uses: 0x9998209c

MIO_Verify uses: 0x99982028

MIO_WriteNxp uses: 0x999820c0

MIO_ReadNxp uses: 0x999820c4

External Links

• https://www.bryce.pw/engraver.html - Bryce Schroeder's work on reverse engineering the board
• https://charliex2.wordpress.com/2020/01/31/fibre-laser-arrives-let-the-games-begin/ -- Fantastic blog post on setting up a dummy dll