Connect your machine
Discover, select port, pick a profile, verify.
Beam Bench talks to GRBL-based gantry machines over USB serial. The first step is finding your machine and confirming the link works.
Do this
- Plug in the machine and power it on. Wait for the controller to boot fully (most boards take a few seconds).
- Open Laser Control (lower-right by default).
- Click the connect / port selector. Beam Bench scans for available serial ports.
- Pick your port. It is usually named something like
/dev/tty.usbserial-*(macOS),COM3(Windows), or/dev/ttyUSB0(Linux). If the port does not appear, see Port is not listed. - Choose a machine profile or accept the default. A profile sets the bed size, max speeds, and other firmware-specific values. You can edit profiles in the Device Settings dialog.
- Verify. Laser Control should show Connected and the Console panel should show the controller's welcome message (something like
Grbl 1.1h ['$' for help]).
What just happened
Beam Bench opened the serial port at the configured baud rate (usually 115200 for GRBL), sent a soft-reset, and waited for the controller's identity string. It used that string and your profile to set up coordinate handling and command formatting.
If you see an error, garbled text, or "no response", the most common causes are:
- Wrong baud rate. Check Baud rate mismatch.
- Driver not installed (CH340 / CP210x on Windows).
- Another app holding the port. Close any other software that talks to the laser.