ULS rotary Calibration Frustrations

[Dan Hintz]

Not having much luck with my new ULS machine this week :(

I'm trying to calibrate the rotary so I can quickly crank out a sample bottle for a customer. I follow the manual's instructions, focus it to the top of the rotary's wheel, click save, the carriage re-homes, and everything looks hunky dorey. Z-axis setting is around 1.84".

When I go to actually print something, the table drops about an inch and tries to print the job from there. Going back into calibration, it shows the Z-axis setting as 2.700". Nothing I do can seem to change its belief that 2.700" is my requested Z-axis setting. I've tried rebooting both the laser and the PC but no joy.

The ULS tech support team is going to love me this week...

[Dan Hintz]

I may have figured out what the problem is/was... I just noticed the Z-axis setting for black is 2.700" :o

[Dan Hintz]

Yeah, crisis resolved... once I turned off the Z-axis for black, it stopped trying to change the Z height. The manual's instructions for manually adjusting the focus makes significantly more sense now. One would think, however, that if the machine knows the centerpoint of the rotary and the item's diameter, it could focus automatically.

[Frank Corker]

Sometimes these things can be frustrating, fact is, you sorted it out yourself and deserve a pat on the back. That's the weird thing about Universal and the ability to vary your x and y axis, it's positively straight forward with Epilog they are set automatically.

[Scott Shepherd]

Frank, they are on the ULS as well. Once you set the rotary up the first time, then it knows where the center is. Only thing you'll have to set it the Z height (focus), so it's not different in that aspect.

It just requires telling it where the center is the first time you use it, then you hit calibrate and it'll know where it is from that point on.

[Dan Hintz]

Steve (difficult not to call you Scott :(), it sounds like you're saying I don't have to manually focus... if that's truly the case, I haven't yet figured out how to do so. I ran the calibration on the rotary as specified in the Service manual, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what purpose it served. According the the User's manual, I still need to focus manually on each item placed in the rotary. With flat materials, I simply measured the thickness and plugged it into the driver along with all of the other settings... with the rotary, it didn't appear to take the diameter into account (though it certainly may, I didn't test it... I should probably lower the table several inches, hit run, and see if the table raises before the run.).

[Scott Shepherd]

Dan, you do still have to do that, but you actually can do the math if you like. I had some things set up at one time where I knew the distance and I could enter it there.

What I was referring to was Frank's comment about the X and Y Axis and not having to set that on the Epilog. Once you calibrate the Y-Axis, then you don't have to do that again. My comment was more directed at Frank than you, sorry about that :)

I haven't found much of a use for the ULS Rotary. I used to play with the Epilog one fairly frequently. Not so much with the ULS. I think I have said elsewhere that while it's an awesome piece of equipment, with all the scaling and stuff you can do with it, it sure isn't as easy to use when you just want to pop something in and give it a try.

If I had to do 1 thing different on my laser purchase this time, I would have skipped the rotary and exchanged it for a 1.5" lens and a 4.0" lens, and whatever else I could buy.

[Dan Hintz]

You know, I didn't think of just doing the math and adding it to the black Z-axis. Now the calibration makes more sense, too... it was setting the Z-axis "zero height" to the rotary's axis. It's all becoming clear, though why they didn't simply mention this in the manual is beyond me.

Interesting that you say that about the rotary... almost everyone willing to offer their opinion (including Paul (our local ULS rep, for others reading this)) suggested the rotary would be wasted money. I may be one of the few people who actually have a need for it... to the point of it may constitute a significant portion of my business if I play my cards right. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't hesitate to add it to the order form. I held off on picking up the vector table and 4.0" lens, even though I knew vector cutting was in my future, as I felt the rotary was a more immediate need. Maybe I am one in a million ;)