EZcad software and rotary.

[Neville Stewart]

Is anyone using a rotary in EZcad and getting smooth results as you'd expect from a rotary in micro degree steps and not a 10 degree increment turn ( for example ). Has anyone done a completely filled 360 degree or thereabouts piece of artwork, not just text?

[Scott Challoner]

I hope someone has Neville, because I haven't had time to figure mine out either. There are videos out there, but in Chinese and not very intuitive. I haven't really had the need that I thought I would when I bought the rotary so I just haven't put a lot of time into it. As far as I can tell, it doesn't work the same way a rotary on a gantry style machine does where the rotary basically replaces the Y axis. It looks like you rotate a few degrees, lase, rotate, lase, rotate, lase. I bought some cheap anodized relay batons to practice on but haven't gotten to them yet. It looks like there are several ways to use the rotary in EZCad but none look easy to figure out.

[Gary Hair]

I bought some cheap anodized relay batons to practice on but haven't gotten to them yet.

After you have lasered them sufficiently, wrap them with a sheet of aluminum foil and either paint or use a sharpie to make it black. Either one works really well to practice. I have a hydroflask that I use that on to ensure I'm marking where I want to mark. I use the foil/sharpie method on parts quite often, the focus won't change with/without it and it conforms easily to whatever I'm marking.

edit: I just found this stuff and ordered two rolls - http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/237963-GAM-BlackWrap-2700

[Scott Challoner]

Good tip Gary. Thanks. A lot of the videos I've seen show them testing on a steel ring that they just repaint with a Sharpie to use over and over.

[Gary Hair]

I do that with anodized parts all the time - doesn't work the same on co2 though.

[Glen Monaghan]

Ah, now I get it... I was totally confused by the suggestion to wrap with foil and paint/sharpie "after you have lasered them sufficiently"... Why are you covering up your work? Was this some strange color fill technique?

And then the additional comments made me realize your comment about "lasered sufficiently" means that you've "used up" the practice substrate's surface with test engravings, and the foil/paint/sharpie is a means to allow you to continue using that same substrate for more practice rather than pitching it out and starting on a new one. I'm slow sometimes, but I usually get there eventually...

[Neville Stewart]

Forgot about that one Gary. Good little trick.

[Neville Stewart]

After you have lasered them sufficiently, wrap them with a sheet of aluminum foil and either paint or use a sharpie to make it black. Either one works really well to practice. I have a hydroflask that I use that on to ensure I'm marking where I want to mark. I use the foil/sharpie method on parts quite often, the focus won't change with/without it and it conforms easily to whatever I'm marking.

edit: I just found this stuff and ordered two rolls - http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/237963-GAM-BlackWrap-2700
That's an awesome find Gary, but what the hell is a "snoot"

[Glen Monaghan]

what the hell is a "snoot"
A snoot is a photography tool, usually a tube or tunnel of some sort, that is mounted on front of a lighting fixture to block the spread of light in all directions except for the exact direction the snoot is pointed. Put another way, it lets you light a specific object without lighting (and possibly washing out) the surrounding area. So, for instance, you can roll the foil into a tube and quickly mold it over your flash to make a one-time improvised snoot for a product shoot where the product is well lit but the surrounding area is very dark.

[Jesse Wheeler]

Has anyone gotten any further with this issue? I recently bought a 20w Fiber from Bodor and have not had any luck getting a seamless engraving (vector image) on a curved surface (stainless mug). I'm sure there's a setting that I don't have set correctly but I've been at it for days and still no luck.

I've tried engraving in 10mm sections, but after the rotary turns, the sections don't line up perfectly and there's a seam. I've tried changing the rotary increments to <1mm for a smooth mark, but I just end up with an image full of vertical lines.

If anyone has any recommendations or would be willing to chat on the phone, reply here or pm me, I would really appreciate it!

[Gary Hair]

If anyone ever does figure this out they will be my hero! I don't know of anyone who is successfully using their rotary. Any by successful, I mean markings that are virtually flawless, no lines, etc.

[Jesse Wheeler]

Arghhh, that's not what I wanted to hear!

I found this video, this machine is doing exactly what I'm looking for, no one has successfully done this with a chinese machine?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj0mVmVTY5k

[Gary Hair]

I don't see any lines in that text but I'll withhold "success" unless I could look at it up close. I'd pay someone if they could provide me with the settings - on my machine - to get a mark that looks continuous like it would on my Trotec.

[Gary Hair]

I just sent them an email asking for help and offered to pay if they would be willing. I'll be needing another fiber soon and if they can make this work I'd be very inclined to buy from them!

Check out their youtube videos, they have one that shows an ingenious fixture for marking small metal cylinders with the rotary - looks like a piece of plastic pipe, a piece of acrylic, a piece of Rowmark, and most importantly, a magnet!

[matthew knott]

it can be made to work , very well infact but it's not as simple as just getting settings, quite a few things have to be right and often the Chinese will supply a mechanically inferior rotary just so they can tick the rotary sales box, ezcad has about 5 different rotary modes and it takes time to understand them all. It's possible that with the set up you have you will never get decent results without changing a few things.
I don't have many videos of rotary stuff but found a few time lapse ones , these where all pretty much seamless ( certainly to a very close look with the naked eye) all using ezcad https://youtu.be/iLWYT9OKcuE

[Gary Hair]

It's possible that with the set up you have you will never get decent results without changing a few things.

Care to expand a bit on what the changes would be?

[John Kleiber]

I've been working with EZCAD2 for about a month trying to get it to work with my 50w Fiber rotary setup. Over the coarse of the past month, I've probably spent 3 solid days hacking at the problem. Both US and China tech support was zero help. I finally decided that if I would direct the energy I was wasting trying to get support, into figuring it out myself I would be better off.

So, long story short, mine works now, no more splits.

The problem with this issue, is there are a multitude of settings in EZCAD2. Most of the settings are poorly labeled in the application as well as named differently in the manual.

First off, make a copy of EZCAD2 in another folder... call it EZCAD2_todaysdate_backup, this will ensure that if you do mess something up, you can atleast get back to where you were before.

Now that you have a backup, you will make small incremental changes in your original program one at a time in an effort to determine what will improve the issue and what will not. Make only ONE change at a time, then test.

When you begin experimenting, keep your graphic simple, like a 5mmx5mm square with .01 hatching.
Working with a perfect square will help you detect other possible issues with disproportion.
In other words, you have a 5mmx5mm square, but it marks, 4mmx6mm, thats not good either.

Also,you might as well turn off, auto rotate, that just confuses things.

To troubleshoot the issue, first of all I think you should post the following screen shots;

1. All Param (F3) tab settings
2. Property Parameters (left side bar)
3. Mark Parameters (right side bar)
4. Laser Menu Item, RotaryMark (top menu bar)

-John

[Jesse Wheeler]

Okay I'm on it.

[Gary Hair]

So, long story short, mine works now, no more splits.

Instead of telling us to experiment, how about giving us your settings as a starting point?

[Jesse Wheeler]

So, long story short, mine works now, no more splits.
-John

This is music to my ears. Here are the screenshots. The program is in "demo mode" because I'm not down in the shop, but the setting are the same when the laser/dongle is connected.
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Other info:

-20w fiber laser manufactured by BODOR
-EZCAD2 is version 2.7.0 running on windows vista
-engraving stainless steel mugs, diameter is 102mm
-focal length printed on the machine is 273mm and to get a black annealing mark I increase the distance about 4mm

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, I'm throwing darts in the dark here!

[Jesse Wheeler]

it can be made to work , very well infact but it's not as simple as just getting settings, quite a few things have to be right and often the Chinese will supply a mechanically inferior rotary just so they can tick the rotary sales box, ezcad has about 5 different rotary modes and it takes time to understand them all. It's possible that with the set up you have you will never get decent results without changing a few things.
I don't have many videos of rotary stuff but found a few time lapse ones , these where all pretty much seamless ( certainly to a very close look with the naked eye) all using ezcad https://youtu.be/iLWYT9OKcuE

That is awesome Matthew! Exactly what I'm trying to do. Can you have a look at the settings I posted and see if you can spot anything that I'm doing wrong?

If I were to guess at where I'm going wrong, I would guess that the split size needs to be very small, like <1mm and the hatching maybe vertical (90deg). Also I imagine that it is important to have the diameter exact so I bought a digital micrometer to double check and have been using it ever since to no avail.

I am really interested to see what you guys come up with, I've been at it no less than 30 hours now and still no luck.

[Rodne Gold]

I might be able to shed more light here... I am having a teamview with my chinese supplier this week sometime so they can set up and talk me thru the rotary function etc. I will post my results and param files etc.

[John Kleiber]

If anyone ever does figure this out they will be my hero! I don't know of anyone who is successfully using their rotary. Any by successful, I mean markings that are virtually flawless, no lines, etc.

Don't question your hero.

[John Kleiber]

You are running EZCAD v2.7 and I am running v2.12
As you can see from the images, your original screen shot on the left v2.7 and my v2.12 on the right, there are many differences between the versions.
You have only 5 tabs and I have 7. Specifically Extention Axis1 & Extention Axis2

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Several differences in this screen also. In addition, your split size is way to large.
I found that varying my split size either way I eventually hit the sweet spot which in this case was .05mm.
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This seems to be the biggest difference between the versions with the Extention Axis.
339561The forum only allows 8 images so I was unable to post the other Axis tab.

You may need to upgrade your version.
My version was provided by my vendor, I have not tried to look for a specific download source for the latest version of EZCAD.

I did visit http://en.bjjcz.com (http://en.bjjcz.com/)and it looks like v2.7.6 is posted for download, but no other versions are listed.

Latest manual is for v2.10 http://en.bjjcz.com/zxxz/&downloadcategoryid=13&isMode=false.html

I sent an email to BJJCZ to see if EZCAD v2.12 is the latest version or is there a more recent version. Sometimes China responds.... and sometimes they don't.

-John

[Jesse Wheeler]

Awesome, John, thanks for that!

First thing I did was download a copy of 2.7.6 and set it up with all the parameters that I received from my supplier. I read the manual you posted the link to, it is way better than the older version that I had been working from. A lot of the same content, but lots of new info on the rotary and more refined I would say.

Re: The 2 "Extension Axis" tabs, I found them hidden in the "Rotate Text Mark" option parameters and set them up like yours.

The newer version has a few additional rotary engrave options, Rotary marking, rotary marking2, rotary mark, and rotate text mark. Can I ask which one you are using?

The only other differences I could spot were the Galvo settings were a little different between mine and yours, but I'll bet they are calibrated at the factory and differ slightly from machine to machine.

Also I wasn't able to select "enable tickle" for some reason, I'm not sure if that will have a bearing on the result but can look into it further.

Is your focal length really 160mm? The reason I ask is mine is 273. Different lenses maybe?

I'm heading down to the shop to do some testing and will report back.

Thanks again

[John Kleiber]

The newer version has a few additional rotary engrave options, Rotary marking, rotary marking2, rotary mark, and rotate text mark. Can I ask which one you are using?

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I use RotaryMark for none text marking and RotaryTextMark for text only marking.

I am not familiar with "enable tickle"

I have the lens that came with the laser, plus another one to increase the engraving area. The other lens is still in the plastic, so I have no idea as to the effect of changing them out other than usable workspace.

-John

[John Kleiber]

The rotary is working well. Here's a time lapse video of a stainless steel cooler marked with a Jolly Roger graphic I did today after making a few more minor adjustments.


https://youtu.be/-FRfV2iwgh0

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[Jesse Wheeler]

Wow, looks great, John! Can you post up the settings you're using to get that mark? What about focal length?

On my 20w fiber I've been using

speed- 130
power- 90 (I've heard 100/100 but it was overheating the metal and distorting the colour around the mark.
freq- 35

I've certainly seen some improvement after installing EZCAD 2.7.6, but the results are far from perfect, still lots of fine lines across the image.

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The focal length stamped on my machine is 273mm and I have been getting the best results with 280mm so unfocused by 7mm! Does that seem like a lot?

Do you have particular hatch parameters that you find work better than others? Check mine out on the screenshot.

Jesse

*edit* I've been trying to eliminate the lines by varying the part diameter but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. Do you put in the exact diameter or do you need to tweak it at all?

[John Kleiber]

Wow, looks great, John! Can you post up the settings you're using to get that mark? What about focal length?

On my 20w fiber I've been using

speed- 130
power- 90 (I've heard 100/100 but it was overheating the metal and distorting the colour around the mark.
freq- 35

I've certainly seen some improvement after installing EZCAD 2.7.6, but the results are far from perfect, still lots of fine lines across the image.

339637
The focal length stamped on my machine is 273mm and I have been getting the best results with 280mm so unfocused by 7mm! Does that seem like a lot?

Do you have particular hatch parameters that you find work better than others? Check mine out on the screenshot.

Jesse

*edit* I've been trying to eliminate the lines by varying the part diameter but it doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. Do you put in the exact diameter or do you need to tweak it at all?

My settings for annealing will be different than your as I have a higher wattage laser.

To anneal I have used spd 25 and pwr 25. I have also used spd 250 and power 50 effectively.

The focal length stamped on my machine is 273mm and I have been getting the best results with 280mm so unfocused by 7mm! Does that seem like a lot? I don't know. I don't even know if the label is correct.

Do you have particular hatch parameters that you find work better than others?
I turned off the Auto rotate and laser at 0 deg. (I found the effect of the laser on the stainless changed based on the angle)
I turned off Follow edge once and Mark contour.
Hatching is Bi-Directional (zig-zag image)

I also tried adjusting diameter and motor gear ratio settings, none of that worked either and I placed settings back. I did not like adjusting diameter and motor step ratios because I felt like I was not fixing the space problem.... just covering it up. Which to me was not really a fix.

I experimented a lot to get away from a brownish tone to a deep black.
I used a paint pen and wrote my settings next to the markings so I could remember what settings worked best.
This is 1 loop, spd 250 pwr 50...

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-John

[Rodne Gold]

Focus is not at the focal length printed on the f-theta lens

Engrave a square on a piece of stainless , 100 , 100/20. then adjust focus till the brightest light... the distance from the stainless to the lens edge is then the best focus..make a gauge...
Best black is an aggressive mark , 100/100/20 .. focus is real critical... often that brownish mark becomes black if you clean the object..the brown is like the resin staining on wood

[Danny Martinez]

Hi Jesse, the suspense is killing me! Did you ever get your issue with the seams figured out? I have the 30W Bodor and I'm going through the same trials and tribulations. Would like to know how far you've gotten.

[Neville Stewart]

Anyone know if you can be update your current card with the lastest release of EZCAD, I think I'm running 2.1.2.

[Rodne Gold]

what I did was to measure a tube and calculate the circumference (2 pi r)
I drew a thin rectangle of that length and then used the rotary , i checked that the ends of the rectangle lined up exactly on the tune and if they didnt , I used the steps per mm adjustment to see that they did ... that solved the gap thing ...

[Bill George]

Anyone know if you can be update your current card with the lastest release of EZCAD, I think I'm running 2.1.2.

Wondering the same thing? Someday DHL will finish sending my machine and I hope to find out.

[Neville Stewart]

Wondering the same thing? Someday DHL will finish sending my machine and I hope to find out.
I can send you a copy of EZCAD so you could practice with it, and your design SW. It's a lot of fun getting the right vector set.

[Bill George]

Thanks for the offer but I already have a copy of that software, I was just wondering like you if the newer version would work. I see the EZCad control boards for sale that come with the new software and wonder.

[Jesse Wheeler]

Hi Danny,

I think I have it figured out, thanks in a large part to the members of this forum. Here's what I would recommend:

1. Find the most recent version of EZ Cad. I am running 2.7.6 that I was able to download from a source mentioned upthread I think.

1. My settings are 100 power 100 speed 30 freq. From what I can tell freq doesn't make much of a difference within 10 or so Khz, but 30 is a good place to start. My laser is a 20w so you could probably run yours a little faster. As long as you're around this range you should get a black mark. Focus is way more critical imo.

1. From what I can tell, with a fiber, focus is the most important setting. Image too shiny? Check the focus. Burning? Check the focus. Too faint? Check the focus. I'm finding that a .5mm difference is the focus length can be the difference between a good black mark and a iridescent, hard to see one. My focus is approx 4.5mm SHORTER than the optimal focus (where the spark is the brightest). To find your ideal length, do a "ramp test" by setting up a piece of stainless on an angle that will cover the lengths from say 8mm closer to your proper focal length and engrave a 5mm thick bar on it. You bar should start out burned and rough, get blacker, black, then shiny and start to fade out. Find the length that made the darkest mark and that's your length.

2. Like Rodney mentioned, seperate the step motor from the rotary unit and make sure the coupler set screw is tight. This cost me many hours of frustration and dismay.

3.For rotary settings, i run on the x axis with "invert" checked. "distance per" relates to how far the rotary turns when you press the arrow keys so don't worry about that. My best split size is 0.010mm. Enter the diameter as exactly as you can. I'm pretty sure "focus length" relates to the lens you have, mine is at 160, I've messed around with it but it doesn't seem to change the results much.

4. Hatch- I use a uni-directional hatch at .02mm spacing and 90deg angle. 1 pass only.

5. Pulses per round-figure out the diameter of whatever you're engraving and make a bar that exact length in ezcad. you should be able to make a mark of some kind now so engrave it on the object and make sure that the ends of the bar line up perfectly (no overlap). if there's overlap, adjust the PPR number. Mine's 5000 (factory setting)

6.FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS is what you should be thinking when you're setting all this up. It has to be PERFECT. Within .5mm

7. What else? I notice that a vector imports in blue pen and I hatch with black. When I forget to change the outline pen to black before I hatch, the results arent as great. Is this a factor? I don't know, but now that I have the machine working, I do EVERYTHING the exact same every time and it seems to reduce the variables.

If you're having problems that these steps don't solve, post your issues and I'll do my best to help.

Thanks again to all the great forum members for all the advice.

Jesse

[Neville Stewart]

Excellent and very thorough explanation Jesse. Thank you. I'll have to load a new version of EZ and see what's compatible with my card.

[Gary Hair]

Excellent and very thorough explanation Jesse. Thank you. I'll have to load a new version of EZ and see what's compatible with my card.

Make sure you backup your current version, some of the configuration files may get overwritten and you'll have a hard time going back if the new version doesn't work out. I'd copy it to a flash drive and keep it off the machine while you are testing.

[Bill George]

Going to bring this back to life with a question I ran into today. Fiber laser, rotary and EZCad I tried to do a BMP image and no go, I thought the software was bad so I did some Text, Hatched and rotate on the screen so it will wrap around the cup or practice piece in this case.... and it did just fine. So it has to be Vectors and Hatched filled to work with the Rotary??

[Kev Williams]

There may be a way to get it to run a bitmap on the rotary, you might play with changing "X" and "Y" in the settings, but I'm kind of thinking the rotary won't do bitmaps--

a galvo-fiber normally runs a vector path moving to specific XY coordinates, extremely quickly. When running on a rotary, it truncates the engraving into sections decided by the 'split', engraving one section, then rotating, then the next, etc...

But, as you've noticed when it engraves a bitmap, it lays down a uni-lateral beam path, moving from bottom to top, much the same as a gantry machine, only without the gantry ;) The issue is, it's not following a vector path, but instead it's just pulsing the laser on each X pass where it sees "black", then moves up 'a notch' to the next X pass...

Seems like it would be no big deal for the laser to run a 1/4" split, move, run the next split, move, etc., and, maybe it will if it's set up to run parallel to the rotary's axis.

Or not ;) ... Experiment with the axis settings and let us know what happens :)

[Gary Hair]

It will work with a bitmap you just have to use a different plugin. I don't have my machine running at the moment so I can't check it but if you try the various plugins, one of them will work.

[Bill George]

It will work with a bitmap you just have to use a different plugin. I don't have my machine running at the moment so I can't check it but if you try the various plugins, one of them will work.

Plug in for EZCad did not know those existed? All I need a just one fish jumping for a gift mug. All my stuff seems to be not vector, everything else but... I need to look into buying some for mug projects.

Added. Thanks Amazon Prime my vector art for engraving and vinyl cutter are on the way.

[Bill George]

what I did was to measure a tube and calculate the circumference (2 pi r)
I drew a thin rectangle of that length and then used the rotary , i checked that the ends of the rectangle lined up exactly on the tune and if they didnt , I used the steps per mm adjustment to see that they did ... that solved the gap thing ...

Rodne I can see where to enter that calculation on the Parameter F3 tab mine has 12,800 steps for rotation and do you enter that C= 2 Pi R calculation for each job? Example a job 90 mm dia would need entered 282 mm? If so why does it ask the Dia on the first page, I thought if you did that the software was smart enough to do the calculation for you. Thanks again.

[Kev Williams]

I haven't use my rotary enough to be much help, but-- as to entering the diameter, that DOES do the calculation for you.
But- I experimented one day with one test project and I kept changing the diameter setting, in .01mm increments. No matter what I did, the seam was visible. Using a loupe I could verify at the seam when I had too large a diameter entered (the engravings at the seam didn't quite reach, and left a gap) and when I had too small a diameter entered (the engravings overlapped). But even when I the engravings appeared to align dead-to-rights, there was still a visible seam...

My guess is simply the 6,400 default pulses-per-round of my machine simply isn't a 'tight' enough resolution to create a seamless seam. Getting that number as high as possible seems to be what works for some of you guys.

But I'm still not sure what changes I have to make to the machine (dip switches, etc) if any, to get the higher PPR numbers to work.

And-- what plugins? :)

[Bill George]

Thanks Kev, I am heading out again today to the shop and do some more trial and error testing. My steps are set by dip switches on the stepper driver and I don't intend to change that, the software is also set to the same number. But it seems if those steps are fine for say a 25 mm dia piece and then you try to do a larger like a 90 mm stainless mug it be less than perfect. So if all you did were say rings it would be without a visible seam.
One thing I will try is reducing the split size, maybe if you make it small enough the seam will not be noticed.

There could be other adjustments in the software but without spending weeks doing trial and error you may never get it.
Maybe its time to move on.

Added I did change the Split to .01 and it did fine on the graphic. But add some text in and Hatch the same as the graphic, it does almost perfect except it misses part of the text. So the Rotary is back on the shelf until I have more time to waste. Thanks for all the people who posted on this Thread.

[Vlad Michailovich]

Hi, everybody! My name is Vlad, i am from Schelkovo, that's a city appr 20 km east from Moscow, Russia.
In december I bought a fiber laser with a rotary from China and have the same problems( incl support)- if dia is 25mm the resalt is more or less suitable but not seamless. If dia is 90 mm the result is awful.
The number of pulses per round in my machine is 800. So I wonder if there is a way to rise it up to 12800 ? The stepper motor has marking type 57 BHH76-300D-26E.
Thank you!

[Scott Shepherd]

Welcome Vlad! There is this thread and another thread talking about the issues....

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?253315-Rotary-settings-in-EZcad

I believe your 800 pulses per round is way too low. You can change it in the parameters when you have the rotary options on your screen. My suggestion is to write down where you are, and then start increasing it and see if it gets any better. Write down each try and you'll find the right spot. I'd guess you need to be over 4,000. In fact, I'd start with 4000 and work up from there, a few 100 at a time. On the other post, I asked people to post their rotary settings but I think the post slipped down the line and it didn't get much input. Maybe people will start posting it to help others find a setting that works.

[John Lifer]

Mine came set at 12800, but just as pertinent is to change the split to a very small number, default when I started was 1. That is Not small enough! Maybe 0.1 will work, or 0.01.

[Scott Shepherd]

Mine came set at 12800, but just as pertinent is to change the split to a very small number, default when I started was 1. That is Not small enough! Maybe 0.1 will work, or 0.01.

Plus, some people in the US are leaving their machines in metric, so numbers are varying wildly on settings. .1 in inches is a lot different than .1 in mm :)

[Bill George]

Hi, everybody! My name is Vlad, i am from Schelkovo, that's a city appr 20 km east from Moscow, Russia.
In december I bought a fiber laser with a rotary from China and have the same problems( incl support)- if dia is 25mm the resalt is more or less suitable but not seamless. If dia is 90 mm the result is awful.
The number of pulses per round in my machine is 800. So I wonder if there is a way to rise it up to 12800 ? The stepper motor has marking type 57 BHH76-300D-26E.
Thank you!

You just need to do as I did pull the cover off and look at the stepper motor drive or controller. Its configured with DiP switches and sometimes hard to figure out. Mine on the driver was set at 12800 which is 12800 Steps per one Rotation of the stepper motor. So your software should be set up with that number, and I think its under the Parameters for the Rotary F3.

[Kev Williams]

my default pulses-per-round is 6400. The other day I was fiddling the rotary doing some test engraving. For fun I changed the number to 12800. Know what happened?

All engraving around the cirumference (Y axis) was 50% condensed, X axis was unaffected. So "just" doubling that number is of no help (unless you double the diameter in the program), so I'm assuming dip switches must be changed...

[Bill George]

Kev, As I understand it the default for most steppers, is 200 full steps per revolution. YMMV. But they have developed stepper drives that can do micro stepping, as 100 or even 1,000s of steps per original 1 step. You would think 200 steps per turn would be enough but as you put on larger items that need to be engraved or milled then its not so much, hence the micro stepping controller and driver. My guess you could set your drive board at 12,800 and your software at the same and it would work just fine. I think you would be adding more work for the CPU for processing all those extra steps but maybe not. Experts can chime in now...

[Vlad Michailovich]

Good morning everybody thanks for the warm welcom and good advice ! Yesterday spent some time experimenting. Switched the driver settings first to 12800 then to 25600 pulses per round. The resalt was much better than at 800 though not perfect.Then increased split from 0.1 to 0.5 the resalt was even better.
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The driver can be switched to ......6400, 12800, 25600 ppr or ... 10000, 20000, 25000. Taking into account that motor has a step of 1,8 degree i.e. 200 steps per round may be it is better to switch to 10000 or 20000ppr or there is no difference?
In the attachment is pdf file my support sent me instruction to correct rotary. It is manue> draw>ext exis. Will be glad to hear any comment on it. Sorry, file is too big to be uploaded, available here https://yadi.sk/i/ypx9tG5l3GgNH2
Thank you!

[Bill George]

Mine is at 12,800 and others are at 6,400 so I can't give you any more ideas. I think the split size and figuring out more of the other details of EZCad would help.

[Jesse Wheeler]

You just need to do as I did pull the cover off and look at the stepper motor drive or controller. Its configured with DiP switches and sometimes hard to figure out. Mine on the driver was set at 12800 which is 12800 Steps per one Rotation of the stepper motor. So your software should be set up with that number, and I think its under the Parameters for the Rotary F3.

I finally got around to trying this over the weekend and it worked great! My default PPR was 5000 and I realized that my circumference/5000 was around .051 and I had been trying to engrave in .01mm increments. I switched it to 12800 and it's smoothhhhhhh as can be now!

Thanks everyone!

[John Lifer]

See this for really slow, smooth running! Yes, 0.01mm
https://youtu.be/qk8RsnChfIc
I changed to 0.05mm increment on this one and it is way faster, but no gaps or issues.
Added a QR code to it and scans great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97M7_T9jcY0

[Neville Stewart]

That is very slow though. It's not going to surpass a CO2 at that rate or are u still testing to increase speed?

[Bill George]

John maybe its to early in the morning but what is a QR code? I don't think high speed, fiber (EZCad) and quality rotary engraving belong in the same sentence. Just be happy it works!!

[John Lifer]

Neville, it is Too slowwwwww.
.01mm is not something you could do production wise. I changed to .05mm on the smaller engraving and it is a l9t faster, I'll try .1 on one later, I'll still use Cermark and my CO2 laser for my cups. Looks consistent, and works at good speed.

Bill, he with it. It's the coolest thing!:cool:
It is square that is printed black and white is best, that is a scan code. Smartphons have reader, actually Google's Android camera now comes with build in reader. Phones cqmera sees code and it has imbedded text. Mine has my web address. So you can place on item, scan and it will open your homepage directly. No typing or remembering...Pretty Swift!

[Arthur Stillwell]

I know this is an old thread but I'm having the same problem. Slowing the split to 0.05 is simply too slow. If I bump this up to 2-10 i get nice hatching but I have the splits in the graphic. My tech support in China suggested I try to change the Acc. Time in the external axis settings. That got me nowhere. They then said they contacted the software manufacturer and were advised to make incremental adjustments upward in the Step Per Rotation.

I did that slowing going up by 50 at a time. I'm able to reduce the size of the split/seam but can't remove it entirely.

Here is my setup.
Chinese 30w fiber with rotary
EZCAD 2.12.1
Using either splitmark2 or rotarymark produces the same results
All of my main settings are the same as John's

It's quite frustrating watching dozens of videos on youtube and being unable to replicate the results.

[Kev Williams]

Here's what I've learned about the rotary on these things:

Whether or not you can see the seam line(s) is 100% dependent on your rotating axis being perfectly aligned to the lens throughout the full 360° turn, AND the diameter of the part being perfectly round, AND the diameter being correctly entered in the program. If any of these ain't so, you're going to get visible seams if your split sizes are more than .1 or so...

As for changing the pulses per round: Going to higher pulses per round accomplishes exactly 1 thing: It slows down the speed of the rotary. From what I can tell, the rotary moves exactly X steps in exactly Y amount of time... The default pulse setting (on mine anyway) is 6400 pulses per round-- 4x that is 25,600 pulses per round... change the driver to 25,600- which I've done- and what happens is the rotary will now take exactly 4x the time to make a full 360° rotation as it did before. And while the extra steps may or may not increase the 'resolution' (in my tests I've found NO difference in seam quality or lack thereof), it still doesn't help the discrepancy issues with perfect alignment etc. The only benefit I've found- a good one- from increasing the steps is that the slower movement means the rotary turns very smoothly without a lot of jerking. The chucks on these things are quite heavy, and starting & stopping them @ 6400 pulses per round is quite a shock, and I've found if the rotary isn't clamped down, the shock can move the whole thing. The slower movement eliminates all the shock, and that does help the engraving quality.

The only way I've found to make the seams minimal is the same as everyone else, run the splits very tight, .08mm or less. Also, run the hatches either straight up or straight sideways, I've found they line up better than angled hatches..

[Arthur Stillwell]

Thanks for the input Kev. I've found that 0 or 90 degree hatch work best and I'm at 0.05. The step count on mine is 12800. I believe I tested it before by doubling this number and wound up with a very elongated image. When you changed this, did you modify any other settings? If i double mine, do I then need to double the gear ratio to match?

One idea I had was to run the split at 4 and then run it again at 6 to overlap. Haven't tested this but in theory it would work but may result in new splits at the 6mm mark.

[Kev Williams]

I had a elongated issue once, IIRC it had to do with matching numbers, I think my dip switches and parameters settings didn't match-

[Arthur Stillwell]

Does anyone have a diagram for the dip switches? I've seen this mentioned previously but how would one know what to change? I suspect one is incorrect as I have to revert the image before i engrave and others do not.

[Kev Williams]

The dip switch positions are on the module near the pulse numbers--

[Arthur Stillwell]

You lost me. Since they aren't labeled dip switch I don't know what i'm looking at or for.

[Kev Williams]

ah- that's why your engraving elongated, you doubled the number in the program, and the computer doubled the number of pulses it moved the rotary-- the problem is, the rotary stepper driver settings must match your program's settings, and I'm assuming you didn't change them?

--inside the machine somewhere (mine is right under the laser snout) is the rotary stepper driver, it's a little black box, it'll look something like this:
377413
note on this one the lower-left set of numbers, the far right column lists the possible pulse settings, and to their left are the positions the dip switches need to be set. Choose your setting, change the switches, THEN change the pulses per round setting in EZcad to match :)

[Scott Shepherd]

One thing to note about the rotary, when you go to very small split sizes, you are eliminating a lot of the value of the galvo head. It's meant to be really fast, and it is, when you using something like a 1/4" split size, but zap that down to .001" or something so it looks like it's rotating each line, and you might as well put it on the CO2 in many cases.

The value, and trick, is to maximize the split size and not have lines, which gets tricky because by engraving a round surface, the chord length of the engraving area isn't the same as the actual distance, which means if your rotational numbers are perfect, you can still get a line from that error.

[Arthur Stillwell]

One thing to note about the rotary, when you go to very small split sizes, you are eliminating a lot of the value of the galvo head. It's meant to be really fast, and it is, when you using something like a 1/4" split size, but zap that down to .001" or something so it looks like it's rotating each line, and you might as well put it on the CO2 in many cases.

The value, and trick, is to maximize the split size and not have lines, which gets tricky because by engraving a round surface, the chord length of the engraving area isn't the same as the actual distance, which means if your rotational numbers are perfect, you can still get a line from that error.

That is exactly why I'm here trying to figure it out. Setting it to such a small number completely defeats the purpose.

I see the diagram for the switch settings. However, what do I need to change so that it rotates the correct way and I don't have to select "Invert" every time?

[Kev Williams]

oh THAT-- :)

While engraving, the rotary only moves in one direction, CCW as you look at the front of the chuck, so the engraving surface moves from left to right.
But the program is defaulted to run each engraving within the splits from right to left... <<<< OOPS :D

after re-reading this, I find the above isn't accurate-
actually, what the laser is doing laying down the engraving in the exact order, from left to right-
problem is, the rotary moves CCW, so the machine's procedure is:
eng. H
~move
eng. E
~move
eng. L
~move
eng. L
~move
eng. O
~stop-

-and this is the result, because of the CCW movement. Since you can't change the rotary rotation, you change the order of engraving via "Invert"
<< edit over >> :) (sorry!)
377476
(imagine this is a chuck ;) )

-the engraving itself isn't mirrored, only the order of the engraving is. And the only way I've found to fix this problem is to always check "invert". However, when I DO check it, it STAYS checked even after shutting down and restarting the program..

I'm thinking if you rotate the whole rotary 180 so the chuck faces left, then it should engrave correctly, but I haven't tested that theory...

There's also an X and Y choice, in case you choose the have the rotary rotate in the X axis (rotated 90°). But I've always used the rotary as if I was using a lathe, chuck-left-work-right, as I drew it. I DO engrave rings, and I have to remember to un-check Invert...

[Arthur Stillwell]

Thanks guys, you've been a big help. I'm going to open up the laser this weekend to change the rotation step to 25600 and see how that goes. I'll also try moving the rotary, chuck right work left, and see how that works.

[Floyd Siegal]

Hi Arthur, the step count is the amount of steps your rotary will perform to complete a 360deg turn. The stepper motor has a controller inside the unit. You can check the dip switch configuration to see if it's set for 12800.
http://www.ewholesalecenter.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=559

[Gary Hair]

Hi Arthur, the step count is the amount of steps your rotary will perform to complete a 360deg turn. The stepper motor has a controller inside the unit. You can check the dip switch configuration to see if it's set for 12800.

Steppers don't have controllers built in, but hey, anything to be able to post a link to your website...

P.S. which is against the TOS for the site - but it will be deleted/modified by an admin

P.P.S. which is why I deleted it when I quoted you