LaserCube

BeamTracer drives the Wicked Lasers LaserCube directly over your local network through the free BeamTracer Bridge. LaserOS is not involved: once the cube is in the right mode and LaserOS is closed, every BeamTracer laser tool sends its frames to the cube the same way it sends them to any other DAC. This page is the reference for that path. The output panel itself — arming, power, point rate, color delay — is covered once for every DAC on Laser DAC Output.

Which LaserCubes work?

The cube reports its own maximum point rate, buffer size, firmware, power source and temperature to the Bridge, so a model we have not tested is driven within the limits it declares rather than assumed ones.

Use Ethernet. The manufacturer's own FAQ describes Wi-Fi as intended for single-device outdoor use and recommends a wired connection for everything else. Every result on this page was measured over Ethernet.

Set the cube up

Three settings on the cube, then one rule on your computers:

1. On the cube's display, set Control Mode → LaserOS.
2. Under Settings → Connection, choose LAN client, and plug the cube into the same network as the Mac running the Bridge.
3. Confirm the cube's key is turned and its interlock is closed. The Bridge reports an open interlock and the cube will not light until it is closed, whatever the software sends.
4. Quit LaserOS on every computer, phone and tablet. While LaserOS holds the cube, the cube tells the Bridge it is unavailable and BeamTracer cannot take it. If the Bridge reports the interlock open although the key is in, LaserOS is almost always still connected somewhere.

The Visualizer and ArtNet modes on the cube are not network control modes and will not be discovered.

Connect through the Bridge

1. Install and open the BeamTracer Bridge on the same Mac as your browser.
2. In the Bridge's menu-bar panel, click FIND NETWORK DACS. The cube appears with its firmware, connection type (Ethernet or Wi-Fi), power source (Mains or a battery percentage) and temperature. Cubes do not announce themselves, so the Bridge asks; a cube that goes quiet is re-checked every few seconds and marked offline if it stops answering.
3. Open any BeamTracer laser tool, choose LaserCube in the DEVICE zone, and pair once with OPEN BEAMTRACER from the Bridge or the four-digit PAIRING CODE.

Discovery takes well under a second on a wired network. If the first scan after launching the Bridge lists nothing, scan again.

First light

1. Load simple, static content — the ILDA Viewer's orientation pattern or a single word in Text to Laser is ideal. The ILDA Test Pattern page explains what each element of a calibration pattern shows.
2. Set Power limit low. See the color thresholds below before you decide what "low" means: at a few percent, green shows and red does not.
3. ARM, then START. STOP ends the stream and the cube goes dark.

The picture lands the same way round as the canvas. BeamTracer already accounts for the cube's native horizontal orientation, which is the opposite of the ILDA convention; LaserOS's own test pattern and BeamTracer's output read the same way on the same wall. If yours is mirrored, check the cube's Flip X / Flip Y in LaserOS Projector Setup — those are stored on the cube and BeamTracer cannot see them.

Color thresholds

The three diodes in the cube switch on at very different drive levels, and this matters for every low-power test:

Two consequences:

• A "low power" red test that shows nothing is not a fault. Raise the power limit toward 30% for red content, or test with green.
• Blue dominates mixed colors. At equal drive the blue diode is the strongest, so a green with a little blue in it (for example #00FF55) reads blue-cyan on the wall. Text to Laser and Image to Laser default to pure #00FF00 for that reason. White at 2% reads cyan; at 30% it reads white.

Per-channel Color calibration curves in the ADVANCED zone can lift red's turn-on point so mixed colors balance at the power you actually run. Color-delay ticks at stroke ends are tuned with Color delay in the same zone — Color Delay Explained shows each symptom and how to dial it in.

Point rate

The Ultra Mk2 reports a maximum of 35,000 pps and clamps anything higher at the device, whatever the app asks for. The Bridge's panel shows the effective rate and the rate that was requested when they differ, and the browser is not told, so that panel is the only place a clamp is visible. The manufacturer rates the scanners at 35K pps at a 7° angle, which is a narrower test than the 8° ILDA standard, so treat the cube as a 30K-class projector: STANDARD 30K in the scanner preview and the default 30,000 pps are the right starting point. Understanding PPS and Scanner Ratings explains why test angles matter, and Scanner Load shows how to check whether a file fits that rate.

There is also a floor. The cube silently ignores a rate request that is too low — 5,000 pps was ignored and 12,000 accepted on our bench — and keeps its previous rate instead. Stay at 12,000 pps or above.

Firmware

Firmware 2.0 (14 August 2026) is the current release. The Bridge reads the version from the cube and shows it in the device row. Updating is done from the SD card: place the firmware file in Lasercube/Firmware/ on the card and accept the prompt on the cube's display. The manufacturer states the wire protocol is unchanged across releases, and we confirmed BeamTracer output on both 1.16 and 2.0; the visible differences on 2.0 are a larger receive buffer, which the Bridge reads and adapts to, and improved blanking.

After any firmware update, check orientation once against LaserOS's own test pattern — one earlier release mirrored output until the next fix.

When the stream stops

We measured what the cube does when frames stop arriving, because no manual says:

• The cube goes dark on an empty buffer. Fed a single frame and then nothing, it drew the frame once and went dark — no parked dot, no replay of the last frame. Measured on firmware 1.16.
• The Bridge blanks the cube when the browser tab closes, the Bridge quits, the Mac sleeps, or the connection drops, and it sends an explicit stop before closing the link rather than relying on the cube to notice.
• A late frame holds dark, not lit. If a frame arrives late the Bridge holds the beam dark at its last sample rather than repeating the previous frame, so a stalled producer never leaves a lit shape on the wall.
• BLACKOUT in the Bridge stays latched. Pressing BLACKOUT darkens the cube; RELEASE leaves it dark until you ARM and START again in BeamTracer, and the latch survives pulling and replugging the cable.

Known limits

• Network only, for now. The Bridge contains a USB path for the LaserCube, but it has not been checked on hardware.
• One cube per session. Driving several LaserCubes at once has not been verified.
• macOS Bridge, Chrome or Edge. See Browser Compatibility.
• Any frame lights the cube. By design, a LaserCube in LAN client mode enables output as soon as a data packet arrives from any host on the network. Keep the cube on your own switch, not the venue Wi-Fi.

Troubleshooting

• The Bridge does not find the cube. Confirm Control Mode → LaserOS and LAN client on the cube, that it shares a network with the Mac, and scan a second time after a fresh Bridge launch.
• The Bridge lists the cube but reports the interlock open. Turn the key and close the interlock; if both are fine, LaserOS is still connected on another device — quit it there.
• Stuttering or dropped segments. Move from Wi-Fi to Ethernet. The manufacturer's guidance and ours agree.
• Red content is invisible at low power. Not a fault — red needs about 30% on this cube. See color thresholds above.
• Green text looks blue. The swatch has blue in it. Use pure #00FF00.
• The image is mirrored. Check the cube's own Flip X / Flip Y in LaserOS Projector Setup; BeamTracer's output matches LaserOS's test pattern when both are off.
• The rate never changes. Anything above 35,000 pps is clamped at the cube and a very low request is ignored. Check the effective rate in the Bridge panel.
• The cube went dark mid-show. That is the cube emptying its buffer or the Bridge blanking on a stall or disconnect. Check the Bridge panel for the reason, then ARM and START again.

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