Diagnostics¶

The panel's Commissioning tab runs hardware tests that take the machine over. This page tells you what each tool does, how long it takes, and when to run it. The setup runs the same tests as its coolant steps, with the automatic heater retry and the record (Commissioning); the tools here are the way to run one by hand.

What a diagnostic does to the machine¶

Every tool on the tab takes the hardware over: the active controller is suspended through the supervisor for the duration, the cooling engine stands aside and publishes fire-blocked, and the controller is restored on every exit path (completion, a tool error, or your pressing Abort). The laser stays latched throughout; a diagnostic never touches it. While a diagnostic runs, settings cannot be saved, /status reports diag: true, and the panel locks with a banner. Progress, both coolant temperatures, and a scrolling log stream to the page while it runs.

A diagnostic starts only when the machine is idle and no other diagnostic runs. The routes are POST /diag/flow-verify, POST /diag/flow-calibrate, POST /diag/aa-offset-calibrate, POST /diag/abort, and GET /diag/status for the live progress.

Cooling system: verifying and calibrating flow¶

The two flow tools prove and tune coolant flow verification, the check that tells a circulating loop from a stagnant one by heating the coolant and watching the downstream sensor (The cooling engine).

Both tools run at your configured duty, window, and threshold (cool_flow_heater_pct, cool_flow_check_s, cool_flow_rise), so the verdict applies to the check the machine actually performs, and both use cut-profile chassis fans, the condition the numbers were characterized under. Any pump-off window aborts immediately if the downstream sensor passes 48 °C.

Flow verify (about 3 minutes): one check with the pump running and one with it commanded off.

• PASS = your threshold separates the two readings.
• Margins under 1.5 °C add a warning that you should re-calibrate.
• A failure here means the threshold no longer suits the loop, or the loop has a real problem.

Flow calibrate (15 to 25 minutes): three trials of each case, alternating, with settle gates between them. It reports both bands and recommends a threshold midway between the highest flowing reading and the lowest stagnant one, with an Apply button that writes it to cool_flow_rise.

• If the gap between the bands is under 3 °C it refuses to recommend anything and tells you to raise the heater duty and rerun.

When to calibrate: after replacing coolant (a different blend carries heat differently), after changing or servicing the pump, if flow verify warns about thin margins, or if you see suspicions that you can trace to nothing real. The shipped default suits the factory loop; a rebuilt one may differ.

Coolant offset¶

Calibrate coolant offset measures the air-assist fan's effect on the two coolant readings. The fan's return current shares a ground with the thermistors' reference, so both coolant sensors read low by a fixed number of counts while the fan runs (about 20 counts, or 1.2 °C near 22 °C, at the run duty on the bench reference). The tool steps the fan from idle to run and back three times, with the tube dark and the heater off, averages the step on both sensors at every edge, and recommends the value for cool_aa_offset_counts; Apply writes it. Zero, the default, is the factory behavior, which never corrected the shift. Without the correction the over-temperature gates read the coolant about 1.2 °C cooler than it is while the air assist runs (Cooling and fans).

Other measurements from the panel¶

The dose-curve recorder on the GRBL tab measures your tube's own dose curve in one press. It is a laser job, not a diagnostic: it runs the ladder job itself, you press the physical button to start the fire, and every arm gate stands (LightBurn, Power).