Kev Williams
07-10-2016, 1:24 PM
I left the "desperate" thread to start a new one as my testing is showing great results!
It seems these Chinese machines have 'speed limits' as to decent cutting speeds, but I'm finding out
this is mostly due to the default speed settings built into most Chinese software.
Seems some of these settings are ridiculously high---
to quote myself in the other thread:
I've been playing with speed settings, in particular the "acc" settings.
And the changes I noticed in cutting speeds were pretty substantial. The settings I changed were:
Space speed -from 500 to 300
Space acc -from 2400 to 1200
Min Acc -from 600 to 400
Cut Acc -from 2400 to 1200
Space speed is when the laser head moves but the laser ISN'T firing, going from the end of one cut to the beginning of the next cut...
Lowering the space speed lowers the maximum space speed,
Lowering the space acc speed decreases the accel and increases decel rates- meaning it takes more time to reach max space speed,
and also starts slowing down sooner...
And, lowering the Min Acc speed seems to affect the slowdown during the process of cutting curves, or other shapes with nodes in close proximity.
And lowering the Cut Acc speed seems to affect the accel and decel rates when cutting long straights, and works like the Space ACC
speeds, taking longer to reach full speed after leaving the last point to begin a long straight, and slowing down sooner when approaching
the next point at the end of the straight-
So this morning I ran 2 tests, and took pics of the results-- very interesting, this test was well worth it...
I vectored a series of shapes twice, once at the original settings, and a second set at the new lowered acceleration settings.
speed was 300mm/sec both tests, power settings were 35/30...
The second engraving is offset down and right of the original slightly, so we have a side-by-side comparison.
I used a scrap black anodized operator panel that's covered with flood coolant overspray- perfect for this test!
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results.jpg
This is the upper left radiused boxes, upper left corners-not a lot of change, the machine did pretty good at both speeds.
The 2nd corner down, the slower engraving looks like it's not as good as the first, but look at the small radius 3rd corner,
BIG difference, the first corner is quite flat, the second is a near perfect arc...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results1.jpg
This pic is the lower right corner of the same boxes. Again, the machine did quite well at both settings. And again,
the smaller radius improved a lot...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results2.jpg
This is the tall oval-end shapes. There's bobbles at both speeds, but not nearly as bad in the second run.
And the 2 smallest arcs vastly improved...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results4.jpg
This shape is VERY telling, the difference in the 2 passes is very obvious! First arcs are very bumpy,
second arcs are very smooth--
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results3.jpg
This flat oval is vastly improved on the second run too...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results5.jpg
And the biggest improvement of all is the radiused corners of the bottom rectangles, the first run
is very bad, second run is nearly perfect!
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results6.jpg
----- Remember, both test were run at 300mm/sec, on my large 1300x900 machine! At these speeds some more
speed-tweaking downward may help, but there's not many typical materials we cut with these things in one pass
at 300 speed anyway. These results should exponentially improve at lower speeds as it is!
I'll get video links up later so you can watch both cut passes--
you can see and hear the differences in cutting speeds.
I hope this will help, I know it's going to help me! :)
It seems these Chinese machines have 'speed limits' as to decent cutting speeds, but I'm finding out
this is mostly due to the default speed settings built into most Chinese software.
Seems some of these settings are ridiculously high---
to quote myself in the other thread:
I've been playing with speed settings, in particular the "acc" settings.
And the changes I noticed in cutting speeds were pretty substantial. The settings I changed were:
Space speed -from 500 to 300
Space acc -from 2400 to 1200
Min Acc -from 600 to 400
Cut Acc -from 2400 to 1200
Space speed is when the laser head moves but the laser ISN'T firing, going from the end of one cut to the beginning of the next cut...
Lowering the space speed lowers the maximum space speed,
Lowering the space acc speed decreases the accel and increases decel rates- meaning it takes more time to reach max space speed,
and also starts slowing down sooner...
And, lowering the Min Acc speed seems to affect the slowdown during the process of cutting curves, or other shapes with nodes in close proximity.
And lowering the Cut Acc speed seems to affect the accel and decel rates when cutting long straights, and works like the Space ACC
speeds, taking longer to reach full speed after leaving the last point to begin a long straight, and slowing down sooner when approaching
the next point at the end of the straight-
So this morning I ran 2 tests, and took pics of the results-- very interesting, this test was well worth it...
I vectored a series of shapes twice, once at the original settings, and a second set at the new lowered acceleration settings.
speed was 300mm/sec both tests, power settings were 35/30...
The second engraving is offset down and right of the original slightly, so we have a side-by-side comparison.
I used a scrap black anodized operator panel that's covered with flood coolant overspray- perfect for this test!
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results.jpg
This is the upper left radiused boxes, upper left corners-not a lot of change, the machine did pretty good at both speeds.
The 2nd corner down, the slower engraving looks like it's not as good as the first, but look at the small radius 3rd corner,
BIG difference, the first corner is quite flat, the second is a near perfect arc...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results1.jpg
This pic is the lower right corner of the same boxes. Again, the machine did quite well at both settings. And again,
the smaller radius improved a lot...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results2.jpg
This is the tall oval-end shapes. There's bobbles at both speeds, but not nearly as bad in the second run.
And the 2 smallest arcs vastly improved...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results4.jpg
This shape is VERY telling, the difference in the 2 passes is very obvious! First arcs are very bumpy,
second arcs are very smooth--
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results3.jpg
This flat oval is vastly improved on the second run too...
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results5.jpg
And the biggest improvement of all is the radiused corners of the bottom rectangles, the first run
is very bad, second run is nearly perfect!
http://www.engraver1.com/erase2/results6.jpg
----- Remember, both test were run at 300mm/sec, on my large 1300x900 machine! At these speeds some more
speed-tweaking downward may help, but there's not many typical materials we cut with these things in one pass
at 300 speed anyway. These results should exponentially improve at lower speeds as it is!
I'll get video links up later so you can watch both cut passes--
you can see and hear the differences in cutting speeds.
I hope this will help, I know it's going to help me! :)