Hurrican Laser Agnes Motors sticking

[Jonathan Bowen]

I'm at a loss and thought I'd see if anyone had any ideas. So here is whats happening. The y axis is sticking. So in the middle of a cut the motor binds up and throws the entire cut out of alignment. It happens at higher speeds. I had to turn the speeds down to stop it from happening.

Here is what we have tried so far:
1. lubricating the rails with white lithium grease (recommendation from the manufacturer)
2. replaced the stepper motor
3. checked the belt tension.
4. Checked wiring connections on the driver.
5. checked for error lights on the power supplies
6. Checked the shafts for loose gears and binding.


I'm trying to cut at speeds from 250-400mm/s I'm vector etching thin styrene. I have noticed several things. Some of my files have issues with very tiny line segments working their way into larger lines. I have fixed most of those and know what to look for now. I have also noticed something on the x-axis that is odd. One of the files has a lot of long straight lines. It cuts those fine but there is a small gap in some of them. maybe half an inch. The Y-axis can't cut them at all and the X-axis slams hard. Like its trying to put the brakes on and start the new line from speed 0. The y-axis just binds up and grinds to a halt.

It uses a DM422 stepper driver. I wrote down the switch settings and it looks like the Dynamic Current is set for X=5 and Y=14. both have idle current set to off. Microstep resolution is X=5 and Y=13. I'm going to double check these settings with Hurricane but they all ran off to some convention and left me hanging this week.

On a sorta related note. The Z-Axis motor gets hot. It isn't moving or doing anything but it warms up the longer the machine is on. I check the idle current setting on the driver and it is set to off as well.

I'm not really sure what to do with it and I'm on a time crunch as I have a new product I want to post for sale and I can't because the machine isn't cutting it. Any help would be great!

Jonathan Bowen
CorSec Engineering

[Rodne Gold]

I assume you are vector cutting , tho you say "vector etching" . I think those vector speeds might be too high , the steppers might not be able to allow/handle them , its different when raster engraving when you can use those speeds.. seems also that your acceleration/cornering speeds might be wrong , I don't know how much you can configure your machine.. try reduce what the chinese call "the jumping off speed" (well they call it that on my machines)
I had an issue on one of my CnC overhead routers that used steppers in that a very shallow sloped move galled the steppers as they defaulted to max speed instead of programmed speed , say a line with a move 100 steps and go up/down 1, Turned out that was a software and a control card issue , not sure if thats happening to you...
I would be interested in what the solution is and what hurricane suggest when they come back...

[Jonathan Bowen]

I call it vector etching because I'm not cutting through the material. I've been through all the settings several times and not had any luck finding anything that made sense to adjust. I've been through several different manuals form various different sources and versions. Each on is translated a little different and sometimes they make one specific bit make more sense :)

I have adjusted Quick Speed, work-acc, and space-acc. These help but they are not fixing the issue. I also adjusted the fast speed for the test function to prevent it from binding when I use that.

I've have run a lot of stuff through at these higher speeds. Most of the time it isn't an issue. Mainly because they don't reach the full speed I guess. It has been rather frustrating because I really need it to cut these parts consistently. For instance, I can cut the file mentioned earlier with the lines oriented in the x-ais but no the Y. However, I can't cut more then two of them at a time (8 feet on a sheet) because it binds up trying to finish the windows that fit in the gaps.

BTW the file is a 1/100 scale Quonset Hut that I designed combining MDF and styrene.

[Phil Horne]

Can you take a pic of the work on the table and highlight where the problems are happening? You might try lenghtening the runout/slow down space(forgot whats its actually called) for the laser head in the machine settings. Is this happening close to the edge of the table? It sounds like you might be trying to run the machine at a pace that is to fast. The Agnes is a tiny machine and you are asking it to accelerate and decelerate in a very small space and it is causing the belts to slip

[Jonathan Bowen]

The belts are not slipping. The motor is binding and stops moving. Makes a wonderful noise as well. I hope to hear from Hurricane here in an hour or so. They are understaffed due to the inevitable convention flue. It doesn't happen in an isolated area on the rails. It just tends to happen more towards the middle. I want to say that the current settings on the driver are wrong. Hopefully Hurricane can verify that. It just feels like the motor is underpowered. The faster it goes the less torque each step has till eventually it can't move and binds up.

[Jonathan Bowen]

Motor current setting was off on the Y-axis driver. It seems to work now.

Factory Setting should be:

X-Axis: 10100101
Y-Axis: 10101101
Z-Axis: 00100011

The Z-axis was heating up a bit for some reason and the third switch was off for me. So I adjust that and that should fix the issue.