Letters askew when engraving

[Cathy Wilson-Daly]

I have looked through the forum and found a post about squiggle lines. I may need new bearings, but I just want to see if anyone has any ideas first. The bottom half of the letters seemed to be engraving just off to the right. I cleaned the bearing and the rails for both X and Y. It seems that cleaning everything may have corrected the issue on some lines, but the squiggly letters happen on one line every time for sure. It starts about 7 inches from the top and happens to all of the engraving across the bed for that line. I have not run the entire job since I found the problem so it may be on other lines also. Any thoughts?




237830

[Scott Shepherd]

Download and reinstall the driver. I'd had it happen once before, did that, cleared it up, had it happen to someone else, they reinstalled the driver and it fixed it for them as well.

The latest driver is 5.34.55.6. Make sure you're using that one.

Try that and report back.

[Cathy Wilson-Daly]

I was using the current version but I reinstalled the driver and reran the job, same problem. Weird thing is that everything I have done seems to slightly diminish the problem.

[Scott Shepherd]

Only other thing I have seen is that there is dirt on a mirror or lens. Check them all. You can have things like that happen, when it hits a certain spot, the beam is hitting the mirror in a slightly different place, which means it picks up the dirt and shifts the beam over. I'd take all the covers off and I'd clean every optic on the system (5 minutes work), all the way to where it comes into the cabinet. If it's not being caused by that, let me know and I'll see what else I can pull from past experiences.

[Dee Gallo]

Did you clean the encoder strip and the mirror off to the left side that you can barely see or reach? Those did the same thing to me before I learned to clean them all the time.

[Scott Shepherd]

Dee, no encoder strips on her machine. I went back and looked at a sample I have when this happened (It ruined an entire sheet, so I kept the sheet to use for setup on other items), and this is the exact problem I had that reloading the driver corrected, so other than the optics, I'm at a loss right now.

[Cathy Wilson-Daly]

Ok, it probably is a software issue. I uninstalled and reinstalled and resent the file. I reran the job on paper because I have wasted too much material. The line where the problem moved from about 7 inches down to about 11. I completely uninstalled software again and reloaded the original software that came with the laser when I bought it (v5.28.52.2) and now there is no problem. I will try to bring the driver up to date and see what happens, but for now I can finish the job. Thank you so much for your help!

[dave cox]

Hi Cathy, I had a similar problems with a VLS 6.60 and it was solved by replacing the drive belt and the bearings, I think I tended to over tighten so adjusting the belt may give you a clue, and also running most jobs in the same place wears the belt more in one place than another. Glass and stone work doesn't help either.

This sort of thing can drive you nuts so good luck

[Cathy Wilson-Daly]

I changed the belt and bearings. Initially, the problem was still there. I also changed the file, etc. The problem seems to be gone, but since I changed so many things I can't be sure what the problem was. Thanks for all of the suggestions.