Upgrading a Chinese laser for engraving
Hi guys.
Recently I posted something for a friend looking at getting into industrial engraving....which got me into testing some engraving on my shenhui, something I haven't done a lot of since it was new....cutting is the main use as it never seemed too fast or too good at engraving.
If you look back at my posts, you might also see that I haven't been super happy with the cutting accuracy of the shenhui either.....and I still haven't figured that out but just do more QC or use the CNC for the jobs that need the tolerance, I work around it.
Tying the two things together, after upgrading to closed loop steppers to try and fix the accuracy issues (didn't help).... I never tried to use that closed loop advantage to speed up the acceleration for engraving. Well, after posting about the industrial engraving, I tried some more testing and it *did* occur to me to up the acceleration. I took the stock 3000mm/s acceleration value and bumped it to 8000mm/s. no problems....which is to say no problems different than any other time engraving with the shenhui. 400-500mm per second speeds, about .6mm and single direction passes worked well at a lower power setting.
Anyways, it cut the time *way* down, at least 200% faster, maybe more. I will try do a run when tomorrow to quantify the improvement. So, long story short, if you have a chinese laser and want to engrave faster, spending $3-400 bucks to replace the XY with "hybrid" or servo-steppers from china is money well spent. Make sure the cables are long enough, shaft is the right size, etc. but they are pretty much drop in replacements.
Though I would share this as a separate post for those interested and as thanks for all the help when I ask!
Cheers, Greg
Still going to be using for more cutting than anything else, but I'm glad I took the time to experiment.