Trotec Speedy 100 is scaling my vector cuts

[Jonas Brand]

Hi

I have a brand new Trotec speddy 100 30watt. I am going to use this to cut out screen printed gameing tokens. The screen printig process is 99.9% accurate i have spent that last week calibrating my frames and machines.

The problem now is that my laser seam to scale my cut file down by 0.5mm when im cutting a full work table 24x12 (ca 750 tokens). I know this becuse i took my cut file and scaled it up by 0.5mm and now it hits its cutting lines.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have a space of 1mm from my cut lines to my printed grafic so a scaling of 0.5mm is alot in my world. Im Using illustrator to make my vector and grafic files.

[Scott Shepherd]

Hello Jonas, I can think of one reason it would do that, and it has to do with how you send the job over. I haven't sent jobs from Illustrator, so I can't help on that one, but we would need to know what size your artboard is, then when you send it over, in the driver, what you have set there in the job size, along with whether or not you have Minimize to Job or Take from Application turned on. Can you give us that info, or even better take screen shots and show those screen shots of those settings?

[Jonas Brand]

I have corel draw x6 as well i was using that first. But i do my artwork in illustrator so i tought it might be something that happend in the file conversion. Since it happens with corel and illustrator, and its that same amout of scaling.

I use "userdefind" 609mmx304mm, Which is what my artboard is also set to both in corell and illustrator, I do not have "minimize to job" or "take from application" turned on. There is no scaling in any of the print dialogs that i go through either before i send it to the jobcontrol software.

[Scott Shepherd]

Jonas, can you try this- draw a rectangle around the boundary of the artboard (same size as artboard) and make it a color like light blue or some color in the Trotec palette that you aren't using. Then, send it over and when you put User Defined, enter something that's maybe 5 or 10mm larger in both directions, and check the "Minimize to Job Size" on. Hit print.

When it goes over, if you double click it in the job queue, it'll snap it into the top left. See if that fixes it. If it does, then we know it's an issue with something in the file that's getting resized when sending over.

What you are describing happens a lot when there is a mismatch between the size of the workspace and the size of the artboard, but it sounds like you have checked it. Try my suggestions and see if it solves it.

Essentially, we're sending the job over to a larger plate, so it should stop any of that from happening, if that's the case.

[Jonas Brand]

Just did that.

I got the same result. I tried corel and illustrator. I dont understand why it would scale anything.

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm stumped on that one. If you want to zip the illustrator file and upload it (strip out any engraving that you might not want seen), I'll take a look at it and see if I get the same results with your file.

I can't find anything in the service manual about scaling issues, nor have I ever seen it.

[Jonas Brand]

How do i upload to the forums? (edit: figured it out)

Its realy hard to measure the scaling without the print. How are you going to test it?

Maybe i should get the Trocam software from Trotec for these types of High precision jobs....

[Scott Shepherd]

Click on the "Go Advanced" at the bottom of the reply and there's a paper clip icon there. Start with that.

I should be able to see the sizes in the drawing, and when I can cut it on a piece of card stock and measure that against what's in the file. Trocam? That's like $5,000. I've never seen the scaling issue, so post it, we'll try and figure it out. You don't need Trocam to get accurate cuts. I've been around here since 2007 and I've never seen this issue raised, so my guess is it's something we can fix, not something you have to buy additional software to run.

[Jonas Brand]

Great to hear that i dont need expensive software.

I can fix it by scaling up my cutting files. But it is very annoying to have to do that when its supposed to be accurate.

When you are testing the file you dont have to cut all of the tokens i have been getting the same error with just a few in each corner, with the rest being in the file but in a "skip" colour.

[Scott Shepherd]

When you send it over to job control and put it on the plate, if you zoom into the plate and look at the end of the job on the scale at the top, does it come up short there? Drop a guideline at the right dimensions (click and drag from the ruler like you do in Illy), then click on the tiny little bar at the top of the ruler where the line comes in and it'll open up the box that lets you put dimensions in. Enter the exact dimension it's supposed to be and see if it's right. That would tell us if it's getting scaled from Illustrator to Job Control, or from Job Control to the laser.

I cut a couple pieces out and measured them and they looked right to me, but they are very small parts and it wouldn't take them being off by more than .02mm or so to make it wrong across the sheet and I'm not sure me measuring what I measured is going to tell us that or not.

One thing I'd ask is what the material is? I have certainly seen acrylic move around a lot on the table, especially when it's a lot of cuts. Don't know if that's what it is, but it's something to put into the equation. We're only talking about .5mm (.020" inch) over 24", so that's not much. I've certainly had acrylic move .8mm across a sheet before (too many times).

[Jonas Brand]

I did the ruler check as you said in job control and its spot on 609 if it was getting scaled it would be 608,something.

I am cutting acrylic 3mm.

But when im testing the cuttlines i set my power to 5% and i start with the parts most removed form 0.0, Its off with its first cut. Not that its moving cause the cuts are spot on when i scale them up by 0,5mm. The way I do this is by grouping all my grafics/vectors and then increase the groups total size by 0.5mm in both directions.

Also its not possible to measure the parts because the scaling is so small on the indevidual parts. You have to cut one part from each corner and then measure the cut to the left and top artboard edge on the cut and then on the file.

[Scott Shepherd]

Can you do a simple test, like just cut a rectangle that's a given dimension? Just add for the kerf? Maybe something like 600mm long x 25mm tall? Just add .15mm to all dimensions for the kerf (guessing), and cut it, then physically measure the piece and see if it's .5mm too short? That would tell you if the machine is scaling or there's some other issue.

[Jonas Brand]

Did the square test.

Made a square thats 600x300, did the ruler test in Jobcontrol its spot on 600x300 on the plate.
I cut the lines at 3% power and 0.65 speed. Got a nice super thin hairline thats easy to measure. Measuerd it with some help and trippel checked it using a steel ruler, the square is 599,5mm +/-0.01mm X 399,5 +/-0.01mm.

So the machine scales it?
Or the softeware scales it on the way to the machine?
What are the tolerances on these lasers? If its +/- 0.5mm im screwd...
Back to a previous topic. Would TroCam solve this at all?

Thanks for the help

[Scott Shepherd]

Did the square test.

Made a square thats 600x300, did the ruler test in Jobcontrol its spot on 600x300 on the plate.
I cut the lines at 3% power and 0.65 speed. Got a nice super thin hairline thats easy to measure. Measuerd it with some help and trippel checked it using a steel ruler, the square is 599,5mm +/-0.01mm X 399,5 +/-0.01mm.

So the machine scales it?
Or the softeware scales it on the way to the machine?
What are the tolerances on these lasers? If its +/- 0.5mm im screwd...
Back to a previous topic. Would TroCam solve this at all?

Thanks for the help

That's bizarre Jonas. I'm afraid that's going to take a call to Trotec on Monday unless someone else chimes in. The machine should not scale anything. I cut a lot of precision parts, not unlike what you are doing and I have never seen the machine scale anything. I'll poke around the settings a little and report back. I have a long running job on a different machine right now, so I have a little time to look around.

I have double checked the service manual and there's a troubleshooting section in the back of it and there's zero mention about anything scaling or having issues.

I seriously doubt Trocam would solve this. Your machine should cut right, Trocam or not. A 600 x 300 rectangle should cut 600 x 300 minus the kerf width, so it sounds like some issue. Let me look at my settings and get back to you. I've got to load another piece of material on the other machine, but once that's done, I'll spend some time looking around in the machine settings and see if I can see anything and I'll report back in the next 30 minutes or so.

[Jonas Brand]

Looks like i will be making that call.

Luckyly i know the scale factor. So i can scal up my cuts. Its just that i shouldnt have to do that.... It makes my production process alot more complicated for sure.
Could the files be corroupted in some way?
Maybe i should take them into a cad software first, measure them and then export them to Jobcontrol?

[Scott Shepherd]

Looks like i will be making that call.

Luckyly i know the scale factor. So i can scal up my cuts. Its just that i shouldnt have to do that.... It makes my production process alot more complicated for sure.
Could the files be corroupted in some way?
Maybe i should take them into a cad software first, measure them and then export them to Jobcontrol?

You're right, you shouldn't have to do that. I looked around at all the available options and I can't see anything that would allow that to happen. On the Universal lasers, there is a scale function, so I thought it might be tucked somewhere deep in the settings, but I can't locate anything at all.

The only thing I can think of is that the beam is out of alignment, which would cause the beam to shift as it goes across the table. I seriously, seriously doubt that's the issue, but at this point, I'm looking for any explanation and that's all I've got. It doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong, but I can't see the whole process of sending it over and what you have in all those options, but I'm assuming you're all good on those things.

Or maybe that the offset of the machine is wrong and it's actually starting too far to the left.

That's the only two things I have. Maybe some other long time Trotec owners will step up and offer advice, but at this point, I'm out of ideas, except for those two things I mentioned and I think the possibility that it's either of those isn't very high.

Which lens are you using? 2"? 1.5?

Wish I could be of more help.

[Jonas Brand]

I am using a 2" lens.

The machine is about two weeks old. Could the beam be out of alignment on a brand new machine?
How would i go about checking the "offset"?

Im hoping my call to Trotec will bring som answeres.

[Scott Shepherd]

The offset is just making sure that when you send the machine to X0,Y0, that it's actually at the top left of the rulers. If that was off to the left, then it would be shifting the entire job to the left. But that's not what's happening, since it scaled your box.

I thought about it some more and thought to look into the .ini file where all your machine specific settings are. There "might" be something in there that will fix it. It's essentially the settings for your machine, from the factory. They might be able to change a setting in that .ini file and you'd be good to go. That's where I'm leaning for now.

I wouldn't touch that file, it's something you'd want them to change remotely. I suspect a call to Trotec Monday morning and you'll have it sorted out. Let us know what it ends up being.

[Jonas Brand]

Ok I understand. The machine is not shifting everything so not offset.

That .ini file stuff sounds like something it might be.

Thank you for the help.
I will let you know what Trotec has to say and if they manage to fix it.

[Andrew Holloway]

Hey Jonas,

I have a similar issue with my Speedy 100, although I had the exact same issue with my old FSLaser too.

I print and then laser cut a lot of things and need them to be very precisely aligned. The print out always comes out slightly larger then the laser cuts it. I could never measure them precisely enough to know if it was the printer or the laser.
I always just assumed it was the printer printing them too large as the issue existed with 2 different lasers. So I scale my printing to 99.7% and that makes them all line up perfectly. I just set this as a preset in Illustrator so I can't forget the number.
I know you shouldn't have to scale it, but at the end of the day once you know the exact difference this is a very workable long term solution, it's repeatable and it works.

I'll be interested to see what Trotec have to say. I did ask them about it when I first found the issue, they told me it was probably the printer. I thought they were probably right and had no way to prove otherwise so I left it at that.

[Jonas Brand]

Great to hear that somebody else out there has had the same problem.

Not so great to hear that is has occured on different lasers.... So the scaling % is 0.3 that is interesting. Im going to try to scale my vectors up by 0.3% in the print dialog and see what happens.


The thing with my project is that it cant be the printer. Im using a method called "Photo set" (atleast that is what they call it in norwegian) to make my screen printing foile which in turn get used to make the printing frames. The frames go into a machine where i can adjust the frame placment on my printing surface down to 0,001mm accuracy.

And if that process is in some way wrong you can always measure the foil. Photo setting is just like developing a picture, except theres a machine controling the process. It is 100% accurate.

So then its only the laser left and from all of the testing preformed in this thread and before points in that direction.

As long as this is a constant scaling im all good with it, because it can be fixed by adjusting the jobcontrol in someway. if it increases over distance or changes from file to file, then we have a real problem....

Edit: I tried it with 100.3% it was to much for my laser. I measuerd the box and calculatetd the diffrence and got the magic number for my machine: 100.17%.

Punshed it in to the print dialog. Run a test, it is spot on :D
Im crossing my fingers for it being constant over several files and time.

It is interseting that it was a diffrent number form my machine to yours Andrew. Hopefully this is something that trotec can calibrate in the .ini file that Scott was talking about.

[Jerome Stanek]

can you cut 2 squares on inside of the other from the same file. Cut one at 600 300 and another inside it at 300 X150 and measure each if the are both. Do they both measure .5mm smaller

[Jonas Brand]

can you cut 2 squares on inside of the other. Cut one at 600 300 and another inside it at 300 X150 and measure each if the are both. Do they both measure .5mm smaller

I did that yesterday when i was testing Scotts suggestions. The closer the vectors are to 0:0 the smaller the scaling and the harder it is to measure.

I have made a illustatrator file (attached as jpg) that shows how much the laser scales and moves the vectors form theier original alignment.

So my scale % is 0.17%. my 0:0 is the top left corner. I have to use this corner because of my printing process, but if you changed the 0:0 it would not change the scaling only the alignment acording to the 0:0.

The black vectors are the orginal 609mm x 304mm the red is what the laser cuts and scales. As you can see its almost no diffrence between the lines at the vectors closest to 0:0. But the further we move from 0:0 it gets progressivly worse until at the vectors closest to 609:304 is off by ca 1mm : 0,5mm. Which is clompletly wrong when aligned with my print.

So the green shows my vector lines scaled up by 0,17%. When i feed this in to the machine it scales this down by 0.17% and then it fits perfectly onto the print both at 0,0 and 609,304.

It seams like this scaling % differs from machine to machine since Andrew encounterd the same problem, but he had to scale with 0,3%. I tried 0,3% in my machine and it where to much.

[Guy Hilliard]

There is a setting in jc.ini that changes the scaling of the x, y, and z moves.
Please contact Trotec Support to determine where the number you need to change is (I cannot remember).
Use the longest distance you can on the axis to measure the deviation for m the specified distance.
I needed to play around with the values a bit to get it "dead nuts".

[Andrew Holloway]

Jonas,
I am not sure 100.3% is exactly right for me as I can't measure as precisely as you can. It may be that 100.17% is right for me too and my printer scales a bit too. Just want to say that I don't think we should conclude that it differs from machine to machine just yet.

Guy,
That sounds like the answer! Where is the jc.ini file? I could not find it anywhere in my Job Control installation directory.

[Scott Shepherd]

Jonas, did you get this resolved? If so, what was needed to be done?

[Jonas Brand]

Im currently mailing back and forth with Trotec support to resolve the issue. I will post an Conclusion and all the methods we used when it has been fixed

[Jonas Brand]

The long expected conclusion

After convincing the Trotec support that it was not possible that it where my print that was wrong, they had me do a test.

I checked 0:0 that there where no offset by test firing the laser on a piece of tape. Then I moved the laser head in job control to 200:0, 400:0, 600:0, 0:100, 0:200 and 0:300. Test firing on tape for each step. I then compared the laser shots with Work bed rulers. As you can see in the pictures it get progressively worse the further the laser moves from 0:0

Trotec then sent me a small program called Resolution tuner V3. This program lets you change the scaling of vectors in both directions independently. I ran the program and adjusted with my percentage 0.17%
You can see the change in the pictures below.

It took a few days but it was fixed in the end. I don’t understand why they don’t include the resolution tuner program in Jobcontrol. It seams like a really handy feature. I’m glad that I have the program now and can calibrate my laser to be 100% accurate.

[Dan Hintz]

Need pics... :)

[Scott Shepherd]

That's really interesting Jonas! Glad you're up and running and the problem is solved. This is one of the things so many of us talk about when we talk about the value of support.

[Guy Hilliard]

It seems they now have a program that diddles the jc.ini for you.
Which is probably a good thing as some of the stuff in there will break your machine (and it will not be covered by warranty).

[Andrew Holloway]

The long expected conclusion

After convincing the Trotec support that it was not possible that it where my print that was wrong, they had me do a test.

I checked 0:0 that there where no offset by test firing the laser on a piece of tape. Then I moved the laser head in job control to 200:0, 400:0, 600:0, 0:100, 0:200 and 0:300. Test firing on tape for each step. I then compared the laser shots with Work bed rulers. As you can see in the pictures it get progressively worse the further the laser moves from 0:0

Trotec then sent me a small program called Resolution tuner V3. This program lets you change the scaling of vectors in both directions independently. I ran the program and adjusted with my percentage 0.17%
You can see the change in the pictures below.

It took a few days but it was fixed in the end. I don’t understand why they don’t include the resolution tuner program in Jobcontrol. It seams like a really handy feature. I’m glad that I have the program now and can calibrate my laser to be 100% accurate.

Great to hear you found a solution!