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Welcome to another Lightblade learning Lab, um, up to now, I’ve been using my
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little ultrabook here as my programming tool for RDWorks and
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I’ve always output the file onto a memory stick and transferred it to the machine now
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this works extremely well and I’ve been doing all my work up to now with you
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guys in this manner um today I’m being a bit opportunistic because I’ve got a
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service engineer from Thinklaser visiting, Purex have decided to change
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the specification of some of the filtration inside their unit and he’s
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coming down to fit new filters for me, now while he’s here, he’s a very competent
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technical guy I’m going to get him to set up a Wi-Fi system between my machine
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and my Wi-Fi system in here so basically my machine is out in the cold workshop
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and I certainly don’t want to sit out there using and controlling the machine
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I’d much rather do most of the programming, send files down and keep it linked up to
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something like this which I can walk around with either in the office or in
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the workshop and control the machine although most of you guys will
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find life very easy because you’ll have a cable near your machine so you can
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plug straight into your network now the other alternative is to hook this
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machine up with a USB to the machine but again that means that you know I can’t
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walk around with it I’ve got to be stuck at the machine to do the programming and
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the downloading I think the best solution for me is to have a Wi-Fi link
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between here and the Machine my competence level of doing that is pretty
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close to zero so what I’m going to do is I said I’m going to be opportunistic I’m
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going to use his skills to set that link up between the Machine and my PC
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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here so today’s session is really all about enabling my machine to be a Wi-Fi
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driven machine we need to connect this up via an
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internet connection just to get everything set up and to do that he
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needed an Ethernet port in here now this does not come; because it’s a little
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compact ultrabook it doesn’t come with an Ethernet port the best that it’s got
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is a couple of USB ports so I’ve been back into my computer museum and dug out
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a really old laptop which has got every port you could ever imagine on it and
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we’ve had to use this horrendously slow machine to set up with I’m now going to
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hand you over to a technical expert that is going to interfere with my PC and my
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network in the nicest way possible he knows what he’s talking about so I’ll
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let him carry on with the conversation {TL ENGINEER} although your laptop is on the Wi-Fi if
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you had network available in the garage you could just plug the machine into the
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network and you’d be connected via your Wi-Fi but the key thing is that there’s no
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LAN available in the garage for your machine so the bridge effectively gives you
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a gap in the cable link
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{Russ Yeah} {TLEngineer}so the as far as the machine is concerned it will
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be wired into your home network via this wireless bridge and then any
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machine on your network could then then access it whether it’s wired or whether
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it’s wireless, regardless of whether you’re going to be connecting the
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machine directly on a Ethernet cable or via your bridge then the machine itself
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the Lightblade will need an IP address. okay so most devices that you connect to
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your network like your phone or your laptop they they ask your home router
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for an IP address but in the case of the Machine it only does static IP addresses
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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so first of all we need to work out what range you want the machine on so the IP
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range so to do that because this laptop is connected to your network already
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then if I ,if I check what IP address the machines are, I’ll know what range
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that the routers using {Russ} but you can find you can create an IP
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address for the laser? {TL ENG} I’ll find out what range that the router uses and then I
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just pick an IP address that not being used on that range
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we’re on Windows XP here but it’s it’s no different if you’re on Windows 7 or 10
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and so you just go to your start, or your button on later operating
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systems and type CMD and then press Enter or click OK
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{RUSS} so that just gets into the command line {TLENG} that gives you a command prompt and then
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In here is one command so if I type “ipconfig /all” then it will spew
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out a load of data to me but because we’re on the Wi-Fi I’ll look up the
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wireless connection on here so there is an adaptor wireless network
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connection that’s telling me that the laptop IP address is 192.168.1 {RUSS}which
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laptop is that? {TLENG} That’s this laptop here is 191.681.1.162 the router is this DHCP
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server or default gateway that is on 254 so it’s on the same range 192.168.1
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and then to get to your router it would be 2 5 4 or this device that’s a
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client for that router is on 162 just to prove that and check we’ve got
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connectivity I will bring up the the login page for your router yeah by just
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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tapping that address into the browser and so I already know enough
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information which is that the laser will need to be on 192 168 1 and then a spare
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address that’s not being used because otherwise you would have an IP
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conflict so every device has got its own number like an address and so I can
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stick the machine on .1.200 and I’d be quite confident that there’s
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nothing on there so if your browser starts up so if I type this number into
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the address {Russ}you sure you know what you’re doing?
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{TLRNG}oh I’m sure my computer’s faster than that one, so there you go so {RUSS} you had to
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build up a head of steam really {TLENG} yeah like it just reminds me of dial up. it’s fine so
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um so this Rooter is on that address and we’ve now managed to access your Router
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yes so for the laser machine we will use .200 okay your devices are this
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DHCP enabled yeah which means the device can ask the router for an IP address and
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then the router hands out IP addresses so here for example RussPC
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that’s telling me that the DHCP server as in the router has given your PC that
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IP address there 204 the machine will only do static IP addresses yeah so we
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need to pick an IP address that it will be and it can’t be used by anything else
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currently yeah we picked an IP address that’s not being used so we’ll go with
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200 okay if we want to confirm that that’s not being used just try and ping it
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1.200 if the device was on the network and it was live then this would
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come back with a reply it would send a little packet of data out it would
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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bounce back and we’d get a reply so we’ll use 200 ok that’s done so the next
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thing we want to do is in your case is set up this bridge okay so that we can
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connect your machine into your network {RUSS}okay now this bridge is basically taking
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the place of a piece of wire yeah which would normally be Ethernet cable is
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between the router and the laser {TLENG}because your machine is in your garage {Russ} in my
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workshop! it’s a workshop {TLENG} ah yes sorry workshop because your machine is in your workshop
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and there’s no physical cable there if you if you get a device
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that’s relatively inexpensive called a bridge that as far as the machine is
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concerned the machine thinks it’s directly connected via wire it’s a
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transparent connection {Russ}yeah but we’re connected by Wi-Fi {TLENG}yes so it will
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convert the ethernet signal from the machine to a Wi-Fi signal which will
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then connect to your router so there is your link so this one that you
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bought is an access point which probably does bridge mode I’m hoping {Russ} yes it does definitely bridge mode
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{TLENG}so it’s multi-purpose it’s not just a
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bridge {Russ} is a bridge cheaper? {TLENG} I think you’ll probably find they’re all
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much of a muchness but the key thing is because it’s a device that can do more
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than one thing {Russ} that’s a multimode one I’ve checked that it did do bridge mode
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{TLENG}yeah yeah so it just means that we know when we turn it on we’ll have to put it
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into bridge mode okay so we need to find that in the menu which I won’t know off
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the top of my head but it’s good to just show where to look, so we need to
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connect this first of all to configure it and turn it on and we’ll connect it
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in to the laptop directly your PC just so that we can access the settings for
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this you know just like we did on the router here we’ll be
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putting in the IP address for this; in 99.9% of houses the IP address will
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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start 192.168 okay and then either 0 dot something sequential number or 1 dot
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something sequential number you know so they’ll or they’ll be on this range
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because that’s known as a private IP to configure this {Russ} and basically what
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you’re doing is you’re telling my router that there’s another device that wants to
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access the router? {TLENG} we will be {Russ} but that’s what you’re trying to do?{TLENG}yes that’s the end result, you try to do that’s the end result you
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we’ll put this onto your network as a client yeah and then the device is
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connected to the cable on it will be then on the network ok so to talk to
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this instead of going by the Wi-Fi like we have been doing
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we need to force the laptop to go via this cable okay so {Russ} but that connection
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is only temporary we must add {TKENG} yeah so for now I’ll go to the network connections
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so we’ll disable the Wi-Fi the LAN tells me it’s connected already so which is
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good tells me this port is live but now that I’ve turned off the Wi-Fi if I try
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and use this browser and connect to the address for your access point which in
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this case is written on the bottom and the default tp-link address
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HTTP://tplinkAP.net tp-link AP dot net and then a
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little bit of luck, the adress into the browser now that were connected by a
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cable okay I’m going to come up with the web interface yeah for the access point
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the login details for this particular one is on bottom and currently means
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it’s set on the default we can tap the log in and we’re in so there’s a
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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quick setup for this one which may or may not work we’ll find out so we’ll run
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through this and change the login account I’ll go no for now and then
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we’ll reset that off-camera that though yes off camera yet so we’ve got hello
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bridge mode is it yeah well you got bridge with access point but actually we
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just want client or client it’s still British mode yeah yeah so that will mean
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that anything that’s coming into this port here will be sent out over Wi-Fi
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back to your router okay
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ok so client, this is where we need your access point details {Russ} yes which I shall delete don’t worry.
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{TLENG} yeah okay so we should be able to click survey {Russ}maybe the only people that are
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going to be able to use that are the people next door {TLENG} yeah pretty much yeah so I’ve done a
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survey and it’s seeing these three access points which we’ll use that one
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{Russ}now that is the extension one the .EXT {TLENG} yes because that’ll be the
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strongest signal once we’re in the garage {RUSS}exactly yeah yeah {TLENG}we’re on
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that {Russ}so that tp-link is now configured and connected up to my router so we can
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now move that TP link out to the machine and how does the machine then
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get connected back, you’ve got to tell it
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{TLENG} I said earlier about static IP Address {Russ} where are you going to give that IP
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address to the machine? on the machine itself? {TLEBG} we’ll do it we need to do it on the
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machine yeah okay yeah on the front panel truck
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{Russ}so will now go out to the workshop and we’ll connect this up to the machine so
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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here we can see the controller with the yellow cable there um being the
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ethernet cable out of the controller that’s now going to connect to the
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tp-link now I never had any intention of running this machine via a network but
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circumstances forced me to do it because otherwise I can’t tell you guys about
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some of the facilities that are available on RDWorks so that’s the
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main reason why I’m having this modification done okay let’s now go and
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see how the tp-link is going to be configured to talk to this machine
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{TLENG} so the machine is connected on the wire on the cable yeah on the ethernet cable
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into our nice new bridge that’s already configured so this should connect to
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your Wi-Fi yeah at the moment it’s saying it’s down because we’ve not got
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the Machine turned on
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have come up on there so we’re all connected yeah we need to
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go to the front panel on the machine to configure the static IP we’ve
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got our cable connected into the bridge that’s all turned on that’s all fine
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everything’s ready except for the machine which we need to put on the IP
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address which we worked out earlier so because it’s static IP address only you
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manually have to configure it so we’ll go into our menu we scroll here you can
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see IP config pretty straightforward self-explanatory IP config so here we’ve
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got an IP address and a gateway so currently 192.168.1.100 that may or
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may not be free already but we know for sure that if we put it on 200 it will be
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fine now normally on any IP device that if you’re used to configuring them you’ll know
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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that normally you put an IP address and a subnet mask for some reason these show
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an IP address and a gateway there’s no good reason why you’d want to give it a
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gateway address unless it wants to be able to see the outside world hmm
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which we certainly don’t want I’m just going to leave that on a random address
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we don’t actually need to do anything with that
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so can’t remember whether you need to reset it so we’re given that it’s new IP
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address so we’ll see if it’s actually connected now, so close your RDWorks which you
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have open and so like we did earlier
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no I’ll do it via a browser, I’ll go command file like we did earlier and I’m just
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Pinging the address Ping Space and then the IP address “ping 192.168.1.200 and I’ll see if I can see
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the Machine, so I’m getting replies hmm in fact the first Ping took a second, that’s not very good
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there we go, nice and stable now. um a couple of milliseconds it’s taking to ping from
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here to the machine and back again okay that tells me now we’re connected
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to the machine it’s working fine{Russ} as I see it at the moment
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it’s from that laptop on to my router and all the way back from the Rooter
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wirelessly to this to TPLink and then via the cable and then via the cable
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into the Machine {TLENG} and the last thing we need to do is just configure RDWorks
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so in RDWorks the port setting yep now by default they always come up with
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a USB yeah and auto for which port it is on the computer yep so there’s no other
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device available there, but if you go to port settings {Russ} this is my port
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settings yep {TLENG} you know this little dialog pops up here which will list all
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of the devices you’ve already configured whether it’s a USB device or if I click
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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Add down at the bottom so I will say it’s the 6090 no it’s not a 6090 will say this
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is only 4060 there we go and here we’ll put in {Russ}so that’s basically it’s name {TLENG} yes
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just any any strings you want in there okay and press test um ah see it’s worked the
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second time but the first time it came up with the firewall rule box you know
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that you have to accept for your laptop to be able to talk to the machine
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okay otherwise you’re blocking the ports it needs
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yep to talk to the machine so so I had to allow it on the firewall you
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and then you should know when it works if you press text and you’ll get port
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test success yeah so that’s all good so we’ll okay
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that and now here in our list we’ve got two {Russ}well so I can still use my USB
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as a connection {TLENG}you can yeah so if we just exit out of there you don’t have to
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tick that down in the bottom you’ll see you’ve got this extra device so you can
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either go back to USB if you decide a USB auto or basically call up for the machine
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which has now got our sixty at forty sixty two hundred and on and it gives
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you in brackets it’s IP address. okay so now that’s all set up {RUSS}I’ve got quite a
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few things to relearn on here now because I’m driving it I shall be
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driving it from here now the first thing I’m going to do is
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check this home position
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and sure enough sending it to the home X and home Y but
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that’s all it’s doing it’s not the same as a reset because when I press the
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reset button not only does it go to home like that it also resets to the previous
Transcript for How to WiFi Enable a Lightblade Laser Machine (Cont…)
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origin position whereas when I press home
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it does exactly that sends it home
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if I say at Z- and drive the table down I’ve got a similar facility on the
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z-axis which will send it up to the top of the stroke or I suspect to this
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position here where the sensor will detect it so it’s either or let’s just
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check
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now I’ve got these strange numbers here called offset in X&Y or they just called
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offset millimeters let’s just see if I do that’s Y – and that’s X – so if I
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click that I’m getting this 10 millimeter offset every jump click
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click
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then Y yeah so I haven’t got and I think if I hold the button down I don’t get
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continuous Y so all I can get are these increments of 10 millimeters at speed of
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50 millimeters a second so that’s interesting that’s a complete difference
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to operating on the keyboard when my challenge to Wi-Fi enable this machine
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has now been successfully achieved using the machine in this mode it’s going to
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be a slightly different challenge for me and I shall have to do some work in the
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background before I can talk to you guys confidently about how I use the machine
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in this mode so thank you very much for your attention again today and we look
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forward to seeing you in the next session