Problem: Laser not firing consistantly in the X-Axis

[Robert Walters]

I'm still looking into this, but if anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate the feedback...


1" circle, solid black fill, no outline.

Instead of it rastering a solid circle, what I'm getting is what in essence would be an outline of a rastered circle, but in the X-Axis (left and right sides of the circle) it's "feathering" which gets strongest at the midway point, then begins to taper back towards the bottom of the circle.

The feathering is consistent on both the left and right sides.
It doesn't matter where on the 12"x24" work area I place the circle.
The material is flat.

Since it's not actually filling the circle, I'm thinking software/driver/Corel issue.
But wouldn't explain the feathering, and only in one axis. Would it?

Results from a previous test...

Using a pair of calipers:
The OD of the Y-Axis (top to bottom) at the maximum height of the circle is 0.475"
The OD of the X-Axis (left to right) at the maximum width is 0.475"
The ID of the X-Axis (left to right) including the feathering at it's peak is 0.405"
So that would be 0.035" of feathering per side.


Pwr 50%
Spd 100%
PPI 200
DPI 500

I just tried a different computer, same results.


Tried a new test of black fill, no stoke:

1/2" Square
1/2" Diamond (1/2" square rotated 45 deg), and
1/2" Circle

The square resulted in two vertical rastered bars about 0.050" wide (feathered?) each.

When I change them to no fill and black hairline stroke:

The circle and diamond did as normally expected, but the square looks like [ ],
it's as if the laser isn't firing in the X-Axis if the travel is ONLY the X-Axis (not Y-Axis),
and if no more than ~0.050" at a time.

All three shapes measure correctly, so the motion control itself is operating correctly.
It's as if whatever fires the laser isn't a coordinated move, but only in the X-Axis.


I suspect (gawd I hope I'm wrong here) that due to the age of this machine/laser, that I might have some bad/leaky caps or bad driver and whatever drives the the X-Axis trajectory is not allowing the laser to fire for more than 20mS at a time. But this is a wild guess at best.

If anyone has any on ideas, I'm open.

[Robert Walters]

Update...

I pulled the controller boards and inspected for cold solder joints and domed caps.
It's mostly surface mount components and there are only 4 electrolytic caps on the motor driver board and look good.
Solder actually looks great and shiny.
Battery measures 3.04V (checked it just in case).

I thought I might be able to confirm what I suspect if I could change the rastering from left-to-right to forward-and-back, but the printer driver doesn't allow for this.

Ran another test with the same square, diamond, and circle...

Pwr: 20%
Spd: 10%
PPI 1000
DPI 1000


I am getting *some* fill in the conter of each shape, but strongest marks are the same as before.

Someone thought this might be a thermal expansion issue, so will try some freeze spray next and see if there is any change.

If someone might have a M-300 controller board I could borrow, I might be able to isolate the issue by comparing signal voltages as I highly doubt that I'll be able to get the Service Manual or schematics.

If you have a working M-300 and are a bit tech savvy, getting some pinout voltages might help out too.

[Bill George]

Robert I know its a long shot, but are the HV connections on the tube clean and tight? Could be vibration has loosened just enough so when the machine is cutting one direction its getting a lower input?

[Jerome Stanek]

check to see if your mirrors are not loose in there holders.

[Dan Hintz]

Sounds like the RF boards may be going...

[Mike Null]

Depending on where you located the jobs it could be a ramping issue. Give each a border a half inch larger than the engraved image and in a color that won't engrave then run the job.

[Kev Williams]

Not sure what the cause would be, but---

As we all know, as our laser raster back and forth, it's constantly slowing down for 'the turn', and as it slows down, the laser power is decreased
and this seems to be exactly when your laser IS firing, but NOT firing in high speed/high power sections...

[Dan Hintz]

Post a pic, please...

[Dave Sheldrake]

Robert I know its a long shot, but are the HV connections on the tube clean and tight? Could be vibration has loosened just enough so when the machine is cutting one direction its getting a lower input?

Bill, it's an RF unit, no HV to check

cheers

Dave

[Robert Walters]

1/2" Square, No fill, black hairline stroke:

289753


1/2" diamond and circle, both no fill, both black hairline stroke:
289754


What I suspect what it happening is in that 0.060" X-ONLY motion, is the acceleration curve, when the motion has not got to full velocity yet.

In another test, If I slow the speed down to 0.2% I get a strong vector mark even at 10% power.
Anything above 3% speed there is no vector mark.

If there is a bad/leaky cap on the PWM and only (lets say) 50% of it is actually getting to the laser,
Then once this threshold is met, it would no long have a strong enough pulse rate to keep the laser firing.
It would also explain the ramp down and ramp up you are seeing at the beginning and end of the X-Axis moves.

Could the 12yo tube be failing? Sure, but that wouldn't explain why the diamond and circle are ok.
To just tell me a $1200 replace tube is failing without any definitive diagnostics is not acceptable.
Especially when it'll cost me $150 (shipping both ways) for a "best guess solution".

I can't even use the laser power test mode as the controller is the one sending the signal to the laser.

Can anyone fax me a oscilloscope by chance? lol

[Mike Null]

Have you contacted ULS tech support? They may have an answer regarding an adjustment you can try. They may also arrange for you to get a power meter to test your tube.

[Dan Hintz]

I'd like to see the original problem you were discussing... solid black circle.

[Robert Walters]

Have you contacted ULS tech support? They may have an answer regarding an adjustment you can try. They may also arrange for you to get a power meter to test your tube.

I've been trying to convince them to give me test point voltages/signals to compare against, but have been dismissive of that so far.

The problem with the power meter, is that it's the controller/cpu board that is sending the LASER_FIRE signal to the laser.
So if the signal from the controller/cpu board is defective, the power meter would reflect that as well.

What needs to be done is bypass the controller and trigger the laser directly from the tube on a test bench.
That would eliminate the controller and wiring harness, and confirm/deny a failing tube as well.

They could be 99% correct in the tube is failing, all the signs are there.
But the dismissive tone like "Yeah, I've seen this hundreds of time, it's the tube" without confirmation AND since the results are not consistent with the X-Axis makes me suspect a "Best Guess Diagnostics" of the problem.
Just reminds me of those that repair their cars by replacing things till the problem is solved.

It's $1200 ($1050 + shipping both ways) to replace the tube.
$250 (plus shipping) flat rate to repair the controller/cpu board (5 day turn around).

[Robert Walters]

I'd like to see the original problem you were discussing... solid black circle.

All three are 1/2", solid black fill, no stroke, rastered engraved:
Each rule segment is 0.020"

289794

289795


I have another test I ran I still need to take photos of as well.

[Dan Hintz]

After seeing those pics, I'm going to again vote for RF boards giving up the ghost.

[Brian R Cain]

They could be 99% correct in the tube is failing, all the signs are there.
But the dismissive tone like "Yeah, I've seen this hundreds of time, it's the tube" without confirmation AND since the results are not consistent with the X-Axis makes me suspect a "Best Guess Diagnostics" of the problem.
Just reminds me of those that repair their cars by replacing things till the problem is solved.



Do you have a good relationship with a dealer who might be able to loan you a tube to verify that's the problem? My money is on the tube. By the way, ULS no longer supply replacement UL tubes that your machine has. They will send you a UL-R tube that they fit to the current machines. The connector is different so you need to order an adaptor lead which they supply free of charge, but you'll only get if it's on the order.

[Robert Walters]

Do you have a good relationship with a dealer who might be able to loan you a tube to verify that's the problem? My money is on the tube. By the way, ULS no longer supply replacement UL tubes that your machine has. They will send you a UL-R tube that they fit to the current machines. The connector is different so you need to order an adaptor lead which they supply free of charge, but you'll only get if it's on the order.

The local rep only has a power meter.

What's the UL and UL-R tubes you speak of and the difference between them?

Do you happen to have a part number for this adapter lead (pigtail?) by chance?


See me next post why I'm not sure it's the tube (yet).

[Brian R Cain]

The local rep only has a power meter.

What's the UL and UL-R tubes you speak of and the difference between them?

Do you happen to have a part number for this adapter lead (pigtail?) by chance?


See me next post why I'm not sure it's the tube (yet).

Does he not have any demo machines?

The UL tubes were ULS' original tubes. The current range of machines has a different user interface that gives two-way communication with the machine and has a driver feature that allows you to select the material you're working with and enter its thickness, whereupon it calculates the settings for you. For it to be able to do this, it needs to know the power of laser tube the machine has, so the tube communicates with the software. Also the UL-R tubes have variable speed fans to reduce noise. In other words, the speed they run at is dependent on the tube temperature, whereas on the UL tube they run flat out all the time.
I don't have the part number of the adaptor lead, but is you just ask your dealer or ULS tech support about it, they'll know what you mean.

[Robert Walters]

After seeing those pics, I'm going to again vote for RF boards giving up the ghost.


100x 4" long vertical hairlines black stroke, no fill, spaced 0.010" apart, vector engraved.
Basically emulating raster engraving, but in the Y-Axis.

289808

The left most line is Pwr 100%, Spd 100%
The right most line is Pwr 10%, Spd 3%
The only real difference is depth.

The actual run starts left of the first line by about 1/2"
I was changing speeds and powers LIVE as the job ran.


The LASER_FIRE PWM signal changes as motion changes.

If there is a defect somewhere in the path of PWM signal and only (let's say at best) 75% of it is actually getting to the laser. The laser can only at best output 75%.

When I go 3% speed or below, I get good marks in the material.

What I suspect the start (ramp down) and stop (ramp up) marks are is during the acceleration curve speed of the LASER_FIRE signal.

In post #10 photos, they are about 0.060" wide, so whatever speed that equates to.


As motion speed increase, the PWM signal gets narrower to compensate:
If that narrower signal is getting attenuated or even shunt to GND by a defective component, the laser isn't going to fire properly. Maybe it gets inverted and gets worse as speed increases.

Unless I can eliminate the controller and harness as culprits, and test fire as the laser itself, I won't know for sure.


I don't deal with this very often so I forget about it till now, but if I power on my laser, power it off, then power it back on within 1 to 4 hours, it will not initialize (boot up) properly.

Instead of getting:

[ M-300 Initializing ]
[boot up progress bars go here]


I get:

[bunch of black boxes]
[bunch of black boxes]


and have to wait till the next day (10+ hours) to get it to boot up properly.

That makes me think the POWER_ON_RESET line is failing, and since it clears itself up the next day or so, makes me think a capacitor finally fully discharged.

If one cap is failing, then maybe others are too. As I understand it, bad tantalum caps are notorious for shorting out.
I count 7 of them on the controller board.

[Brian R Cain]

Are you aware that the software uses proportional power control when it's rastering? The idea is that the tube output will vary depending on the carriage speed, so it engraves as evenly during acceleration and deceleration as it does when running at full speed. I suspect this works better with a new tube and is more difficult to control with a tube that's past its best. The samples you've shown are relatively small, and it may be that the carriage never reaches maximum speed over that distance. Try running a file with your circle between by a couple of others about 2" apart and see what you get. If it turns out that the centre one doesn't engrave at all, but you get something with the other two, your tube output is low.

How does it perform when it's cutting?

[Robert Walters]

Are you aware that the software uses proportional power control when it's rastering? The idea is that the tube output will vary depending on the carriage speed, so it engraves as evenly during acceleration and deceleration as it does when running at full speed.

Yes, I am. I tried to explain that in my previous post.

Since there is no service manual with wave forms listed, it's a guess at what it "should" be.

If it's a 0-5V PWM which changes pulse rates, maybe a defective component is only letting it see a sawtooth wave instead.
Maybe only getting 2.5V
Maybe the laser fires on the leading edge.
Maybe only on the trailing edge.

But, can you explain why do I get poor(est) markings when it's X-AXIS-ONLY motion?

[Brian R Cain]

But, can you explain why do I get poor(est) markings when it's X-AXIS-ONLY motion?

In normal operation, the laser only fires during X-axis motion. The Y-axis is irrelevant. It just moves the carriage down for the next X-axis pass. What you are seeing is a higher density of engraving around the areas where the carriage has moved down a step.

Depending on the driver you have, there was a feature you could turn on to change rastering from the X-axis to the Y-axis, so if your driver allows this, try it. I would expect the same outcome but rotated by 180 degrees. Although this feature was useful in a few instances to reduce engraving time on a Y-long but X-narrow engraving, the quality suffered due to the problem of moving the mass of the X-arm and all its paraphernalia at high speed compared to the lightweight carriage, so it was removed in later driver editions.

The earlier drivers are still available though, so if you don't have this feature and want to give it a go, either ask ULS for one with it or let me know and I'll have a word with someone who can give me a link to the driver download archive.

[Dan Hintz]

100x 4" long vertical hairlines black stroke, no fill, spaced 0.010" apart, vector engraved.
Basically emulating raster engraving, but in the Y-Axis.

289808


Okay, not a tube problem then...

EDIT: Though to be sure, I would want to run the same test with raster, not vector, data...

[Robert Walters]

Depending on the driver you have, there was a feature you could turn on to change rastering from the X-axis to the Y-axis, so if your driver allows this, try it.

The earlier drivers are still available though, so if you don't have this feature and want to give it a go, either ask ULS for one with it or let me know and I'll have a word with someone who can give me a link to the driver download archive.

No, the driver does not allow changing rastering from X-axis to Y-Axis, already asked support about this as well.
That was the purpose of me vectoring 100 vertical lines, in an attempt to emulate it.

If I can get drivers that allow for Y-Axis rastering for testing, if nothing else, that would be great

[Brian R Cain]

Ok, I'll see what I can do. It's coming on to 2.00 am here in the UK, so you'll need to wait a while.

[Bill George]

But you can Vector cut any direction without problems? A series of lines used for fill works ok, yes I know its not Raster cutting. Only one power source for the laser tube correct?

I am also a Ham radio guy from the days of tubes. I also have built a few projects, that sooner or later I got working.

[Robert Walters]

Short version...

Local rep came out with his 30W UL-R tube (and pigtail adapter, thanks Brian) and it works.
So a replacement tube is needed *sniff*.


Long version...

To fire the laser manually (to test with a laser power meter):
From front panel control, goto: PREFERENCES > DIAGNOSTICS > ALIGNMENT.
Change power level from 3.0% (default) to 100%.
Press 'XY' Button to fire laser, press again to stop.
Alarm sounds when laser is firing.


PWR: 10%
SPD: <15%
Dying tube will vector and raster engrave with solid clean marks *shrug*.


I grabbed an oscilloscope and probe the signals to the laser:
LASER_DIODE is +4.5VDC (red dot pointer)
INTERLOCK_LASER is an input to the tube of +12VDC when "safe" (all doors closed).
LASER_PULSE_INPUT is +5VDC squarewave @ 25KHz = Pwr: 100%


Whole machine idling draws 164W.
When firing my dying tube at 100% power, the electrical draw is 587W.
So even a "dead" laser tube can still draw 420W (420W / 48VDC = 8.8Amps)


I found an error on the wiring diagrams:
____Error: Wire #88, RED 18ga, P13-1, P14-7
Correction: Wire #88, RED 18ga, P13-1, P14-4

P14-7 is duplicated on wire #88 incorrectly, and on wire #59 correctly.


Nobody can explain the X-AXIS-ONLY artifacts.
Eh, maybe it's a firmware issue.


HDD magnets are great for bypassing safety interlocks =)


The 0.084" molex pin extraction tool is one of the rarest thing on the planet!


There is a mystery self-destruct DIP SWITCH #7 on the laser tube.


To exchange my 30W for a 30W is $1050 plus shipping both ways ($150 apx)
To exchange my 30W for a 50W is $3780 plus shipping both ways ($150 apx)
Warranty on a refurbished cartridge is 1 year.
To buy a new 50W cartridge is $8000 with a 2yr warranty.

30W when cutting 1/4" acrylic is a bit rough/slow/headache.
50W (I believe) would be wonderful, but I really don't have anything to judge by to be sure.

It's difficult for me to justify the additional $2730 expense right now on top of the $1050+$150 shipping.
Do those that have a 40W or 50W machine and cut 1/4" acrylic can provide any insight by chance?

Can you give/show some examples (if possible)?

[Brian R Cain]

"Whole machine idling draws 164W.
When firing my dying tube at 100% power, the electrical draw is 587W.
So even a "dead" laser tube can still draw 420W (420W / 48VDC = 8.8Amps)"

It will do. Just because you don't have much energy coming out of the tube at maximum power setting doesn't mean the electronics aren't working flat out. This tube can only turn on and off in a series of pulses, each pulse fires the tube at the same power whatever you set the power to be. The power control alters the pulse width so the amount of energy contained in the pulses can be varied, if that makes sense.

"Nobody can explain the X-AXIS-ONLY artifacts.
Eh, maybe it's a firmware issue."

I'm sure that when you change the tube you will be back to normal but if you want to reinstall the firmware to set your mind at rest you can do it easily enough. There is a back-up of it on the CPU. Firmware can get corrupted and throw up a variety of odd behaviour so having the ability to re-install it easily is a useful tool. I have to say though, that it's more often the case that issues are related to other things, but it's a free shot in the dark when nothing else makes sense, and sometimes it resolves problems.

This generation of ULS machines used one of two CPUs. I'll explain the differences in case anyone else wants to re-install their firmware. The earlier ULS machines had an EPROM on the CPU that carried the machine's identity i.e. whether it was an M-300; V-400 or X-660 etc. Later machines did away with this EPROM and used identical CPUs throughout the range. I'll pick up on this later.

With the earlier CPUs there are a couple of jumper pins sticking out of the circuit board. To reset the CPU, short the two jumper pins then turn the machine on. This starts the process of re-writing the firmware and you can let go the button or the short once it's got going. It takes around a minute then the machine will beep and initialise as normal. You can use a coin, paperclip, screwdriver or whatever you have around to short these pins.

The later machines, M-360; V-460; X-660; X2-660 and Superspeed have a CPU labelled LAS 6. This has a small button marked reset which needs to be pressed at the same time as the machine is turned on. In either case, the short or the button press can be stopped once the re-writing process has been started.

What's important to know with the later machines is that the CPU will default to one identity and the chances are it won't be your machine. You need to find out what machine it thinks it is or it won't run properly. To do this, go into the menu and scroll down to About. The screen will tell you the machine model. To change the model, hold down the start button and press next file until you get to the model you have.

"30W when cutting 1/4" acrylic is a bit rough/slow/headache.
50W (I believe) would be wonderful, but I really don't have anything to judge by to be sure."

Laser power will only change the speed it's possible to cut at and the thickness of material it's practical to cut. It won't affect quality. With acrylic, you might notice some striations around the edges. I believe these are probably due to hot fume trying to escape. No matter what laser power you have, if you reduce the cutting speed you will get a better result. So say for example, you've found out that your 30 watt laser can cut 1/4" acrylic at 100% power and 1% speed, running it at 50% power and 0.5% speed will give you a better edge finish. If it doesn't, you might have a mechanical problem.

One thing you will find is that your new tube is likely to be remarkably better than the old one. When they build laser tubes, nobody can tell exactly how powerful they will be until they've been tested. They can make two identical 30 Watt tubes, one gives out 35 Watts, the other 40 or even 50 Watts. My "50 Watt" ULS tube was giving me 70 Watts when it was new. As I understand it, ULS being an honest and decent manufacturer have a policy that all tubes they supply have to be at least 10% above their rated power before they can leave the factory so nobody gets short-changed. Over the years, they've got better at making laser tubes and my experience has been they are mostly well above their rated power and have far longer lives these days. Instances where premature tube failure has occurred can often be attributed to the machine being used in a poor environment or lack of basic maintenance, i.e. don't expect the cooling fans to be efficient if the filters they draw air in from are clogged with dust.

It's only common sense, and I say this on behalf of everyone, not to Robert, who I suspect is sensible enough to be wise to these things, If you keep your machine in a shitty environment and never do any maintenance, you can't expect it to do you a lot of favours. Here in the UK, we have a lady who keeps her machine in a wooden shed in her garden. She uses it in the freezing cold of winter before the shed has had a chance to warm up. The aliminium the tube is made from expands, then contracts overnight which isn't good if you don't want seals to break down. She heats the shed with a Calor gas fire so there's a lot of humidity which thinks the circuitry might have fun coping with. Her tubes need replacing every couple of years whilst other tubes last as long or longer than Robert's has.

We've got a lot of machines in architectural model-making workshops where they sand epoxy resin for reasons best known to them. The air gets filled with fine dust and anything you touch has a slippery patina of epoxy on it. The laser tube fans do their job and such whatever's in the air into the filters and before you know it they are solid with the stuff.

Nice business though, replacing laser tubes when they fail prematurely because nobody wants to think a lot.

[Robert Walters]

"Whole machine idling draws 164W.
When firing my dying tube at 100% power, the electrical draw is 587W.
So even a "dead" laser tube can still draw 420W (420W / 48VDC = 8.8Amps)"

It will do. Just because you don't have much energy coming out of the tube at maximum power setting doesn't mean the electronics aren't working flat out.

I was only mentioning the electrical draw, as i would expect it do be able it's optical output and alter it's levels accordingly.

Most HF ham radios these days will reduce or shut off (self-preservation) if the PA if the SWR is too high or if there is no antenna connected.



"Nobody can explain the X-AXIS-ONLY artifacts.
Eh, maybe it's a firmware issue."

I'm sure that when you change the tube you will be back to normal but if you want to reinstall the firmware to set your mind at rest you can do it easily enough.

When I say firmware, I mean a bug that may only occure under certain circumstances.
But doing a reset is easy enough. I also have an issue periodically when re-power on the machine the controller will not POST properly till hours later. I FINALLY found a way to get around this.

Leave the machine's power switch on, but remove power from the machine using a switched power strip.
This seems to drain whatever capacitors that are still holding a change and preventing form POST properly.

ULS Tech Support suggested to clean the SIMM'S and reinsert. As I have spares, I went ahead and swapped them out - didn't help, but the power strip did =)




"30W when cutting 1/4" acrylic is a bit rough/slow/headache.
50W (I believe) would be wonderful, but I really don't have anything to judge by to be sure."

Laser power will only change the speed it's possible to cut at and the thickness of material it's practical to cut. It won't affect quality.

Speed is what I was looking for. 1/4" on 30W is tedious to do.
I've see 100W cut like a hot knife thru butter easily, wasn't sure about a 50W though.

My take on wattage:

50W at 100% is NOT the same as 100W at 50%

To me, wattage is like punching power. When changing the percentage isn't changing the actual wattage, it's just changing how often it's on/off time is (PWM). A 50W is ALWAYS 50W even at 10%, same with a 100W,
it's just how often it's used. So if I want to cut acrylic, that 100W has better effectiveness at "punching through" the acrylic, than a 50W might. More punch, more energy density being applied, if if only 1/10th of the normal time (power percentage).



If you keep your machine in a shitty environment and never do any maintenance, you can't expect it to do you a lot of favours.

Ha, I baby mine! Tuck it in at night, give it it's blanky. When the rep came out he said it looked like a new machine. I just need to find a way to remove redeposited acrylic vapor.

I guess I can't complain about a 12yo tube, it's had a good life.
$1200 to replace my 30W tube.

Just in today's day and age of chinese lasers, I saw a 50W on ebay (200640422116) with local (50 miles) warehouse for $2300 shipped. They even offer free return shipping as well.

It's hard to justify $4000 for a 50W tube for mine.
I can get two 50W machines for the same price, if one dies, I'm still good to go.
Plus replacement tubes are only $300.

Brian,
Did you ever find those drivers that allow vertical (Y-AXIS) rastering by chance?

[Brian R Cain]

Hi Robert, sorry for not coming back about the drivers. You can download them from here: http://www.ulsinc.co.uk/cp/en/laser-sign-technology/downloads/#
Note that I think you will need XP or earlier to use the ones with Y-axis rastering. Version 1.07M has it. Go to the Engraving field tab and in the section called Orientation, change the setting from landscape to portrait.

[Robert Walters]

Version 1.07M has it. Go to the Engraving field tab and in the section called Orientation, change the setting from landscape to portrait.

That's the version I've been running.

You have to have rotary enabled or changing rastering direction is dimmed out.
Also page size has to be changed to be uniformed dimensions.

I'll give it a try.

Thank you =)

[Brian R Cain]

That's the version I've been running.

You have to have rotary enabled or changing rastering direction is dimmed out.
Also page size has to be changed to be uniformed dimensions.

I'll give it a try.

Thank you =)

So it does. I'm sorry to have mislead you with this driver version. It must have been an earlier version I used. I had a job engraving a number of awkward shaped awards once, tall awards with a sloping top that needed me to fabricate a fixture so I could engrave on the sloped part. The only way it was possible to do this was by rastering in the Y-axis, but as said earlier in the thread, the results weren't too good due to moving the mass of the X-arm at speed. Thinking about the date I did this, I could easily have been using a Windows 95 or 98 driver.

Enabling the rotary with your driver isn't going to work as the machine will send the Y-axis info to the rotary socket.

[Robert Walters]

I think I found a reason for the artifacts, at least in part, still not sure they were X-AXIS-ONLY though:

"As with all CO2 lasers, delays are inherent in the response of the laser beam output to the input signal. A typical laser will have response characteristics similar to those detailed in the oscilloscope traces in figures 9 and 10 below. These figures show a TTL signal and corresponding laser power output."

290740