Adrian Hill
08-04-2011, 4:27 AM
When I do engraving I find that if i cut at anything higher than 20mm / sec irrespective of speed I get a mark as the machine jumps off from rest. It seems as if the laser turns on at full power and then accelerates away from rest. Of course the line stats out very deep or thick and then thins out as the head reaches full speed.
I have just thought of a solution that may take a bit of doing, could one not run the machine at the appropriate speed and then turn the laser on and off without having the head come to a dead stop. The machine seems to position, stop, and then launch off into the cut. The problem seems to be that the controller doesn't have an intelligent look-ahead. Maybe it stops because it doesn't know where its going to next. What about using a CNC controller with look-ahead, wouldn't that allow one to process without stopping. I don't mind having to tweak G-Code to do this if it would work.
Any thoughts?
How do you handle this problem other than engraving slowly?
I have just thought of a solution that may take a bit of doing, could one not run the machine at the appropriate speed and then turn the laser on and off without having the head come to a dead stop. The machine seems to position, stop, and then launch off into the cut. The problem seems to be that the controller doesn't have an intelligent look-ahead. Maybe it stops because it doesn't know where its going to next. What about using a CNC controller with look-ahead, wouldn't that allow one to process without stopping. I don't mind having to tweak G-Code to do this if it would work.
Any thoughts?
How do you handle this problem other than engraving slowly?