Mercury III Laser Cutter and Windows 11 - PCL Command 0 Error

[mullet_man]

Hi all,

 

The PC that runs our Mercury III Laser Cutter has died, it's been on the sort out one day list for about 3 years now but now need to sort with it finally giving up.

 

Was thinking instead of using a dedicated PC the teachers can plug their laptops in using the USB lead, I've downloaded the latest drivers which says they are Windows 11 compliant but when we print something from 2D Design V2 the cutter just displays a PCL Command 0 Error. 

 

Has anyone else got this setup and has any ideas?  

 

Thanks.

[machy]

I'm having a similar issue, but with a different make/model

from what I can see although the drivers should work with Win 11 Driver isolation/security/core isolation something in that collection of security settings is saying no 

 

[mullet_man]

5 hours ago, machy said:

I'm having a similar issue, but with a different make/model

from what I can see although the drivers should work with Win 11 Driver isolation/security/core isolation something in that collection of security settings is saying no 

 

Thanks.  Am not sure who to try and contact for support, the laser cutter is years old so it will be long out of support I suspect.

[Steve21]

Did you check what mainboard your Mercury 3 is using? (5206, 5272 v1, or 5272 v2/3)

There are 3 different versions of it (all 3 called Mercury 3), but they have different drivers for each one, and the latest driver on some sites only work with some firmware versions. 

For example, one of our Mercury 3 was mainboard 5206 running firmware 1.0.6 and another was mainboard 5272 running firmware 5.03 which needed different versions of drivers installing else gave that same PCL errors when using the highest driver on an older mainboard

Steve

Edited September 18, 2025 by Steve21

[mullet_man]

That's very good to know @Steve21, thank you so much for the reply.

 

I just grabbed the latest drivers from the GCC website and hoped for the best.  

 

I'll do some digging tomorrow and start by checking what mainboard version we have and see if I can work out which driver version I think need.

[Steve21]

Go for the laserprona page for the older ones for different mainboards Mercury III Drivers

On the machine you can find the current firmware on the panel if you go to func -> information -> firmware or something similar to that

 

5206 Mainboard is something like 1.0X~
5272 V1 Mainboard is around 3.0X~
5272 V2/V3 Mainboard is around 5.0X~
 

Steve

Steve

Edited September 18, 2025 by Steve21

[mullet_man]

You sir are amazing, thank you @Steve21.  I'll let you know how I get on, hopefully I'll get time tomorrow to have a look.

Edited September 18, 2025 by mullet_man
Grammar

[mullet_man]

I got a few mins to have a look and we are on a 5206 mainboard, the drivers worked on my laptop but then I had some trouble on the teacher laptop but this was possible related to me installing multiple versions of the drivers.  So going to try again another day and after removing all the drivers and rebooting the laptop.

 

thanks again, am nearly there now.

[mullet_man]

So I've finally got around to having ago at getting this sorted and am stumped.

 

I tested with my laptop using the Mercury III Driver for 5206 Mainboard and it seemed to work, sent the file to the laser cutter. 

 

So changed my plan slightly a setup a spare PC to use that instead of the teachers laptops.

 

So imaged a PC with Windows 11 24H2, installed the driver and thought that would work but no nothing.

 

Then plugged my laptop back in to test that and now that isn't working.  

 

So am confused now.  Any ideas?

[mullet_man]

Just doing some Googling and there is a USB mode setting, could it be this?  I'll have a test tomorrow changing the USB mode as I have a feeling it's set to GCC USB and for 64bit it seems it needs to be set to Common USB.  

 

[mullet_man]

It's not that - it's currently set to Common USB mode.

 

So if I install the latest driver, although you get the PCL error it does send the file and does engrave although on screen you can see if buffering the file.  

 

It's a workaround that will have to do until for the time being.

[Boredguy]

Had similar issue with Windows 10 PC running our Mercury III cutter deciding that its hard drive should eat the boot sector.

Fresh Windows 11 PC with drivers from the website gave same PCL error, but thankfully due to @steve21 post dropping the 5206 driver on now has it working for now.

 

Still very tempted to get a old PC chassis, install Windows 10 LTSC on it and have the cutter computer air gapped.  But that will annoy the students since it won't have the same fonts (issue we've had with the previous W10 PC), and we block USB devices.