Help configuring/troubleshooting Chinese 20W Fiber Laser, Maxphotonics, EZCAD

[Gary LaGuardia]

I had a nightmare experience with a US seller of a desktop fiber laser system. I won't go into the details but the result is that I am left with a system that does not seem to work, and no support.
I don't know if the Maxphotonics source is bad, if the controller is bad, or if the software simply isn't set up properly.
This unit is the desktop style you see on Ebay and Amazon with the table and head that is separate from the control box portion.

Maxphotonics model MFP-20-C2NN4
EZCAD 2.14.5
Controller board is a BJJCZ Model LMCV4-Fiber-M

The red dot marker and galvos work fine. When sending the FIRE command, the laser appears to fire VERY weakly. So weak it can barely mark anything, but it can burn wood, so I know its doing something.

I have tested the 3 power supplies and all are outputing within parameters.
The lens IS focused to a point where the beam seems most powerful.

The green LED on the board is on when powered up, and the red LED lights when the laser is supposed to be firing.

In the software I have no idea what the various port settings mean or are supposed to be. I have no idea what port masking means.
I have no idea what the Parameter settings are supposed to be. There is no choice in the parameters for "Maxphotonics" as a source, by there is a listing for Raycus, and various other manufacturers of fiber lasers.

Currently the Parameter setting Laser Control Tab is set to Raycus
The Port tab has all ports set to "NULL" and all High/Low switches set to HIGH

In many videos I have watched there is a distinctive sound when the laser is firing....I do not get that sound.

What is my next step? Is there a way to test the source?

By the way, I do have all three manuals...software, source, control card....but they offer little help.

I don't really know what to do at this point.

[Scott Shepherd]

Post some screenshots of your settings. How'd you determine the focus? Make a big black square and tell it to run, then crank your table or head up and down and see if you ever hit a spot where it takes off and starts engraving. It's quite possible that you are so far out of focus that it won't engrave. That's the simplest thing to check. I'd go up and down about an inch or so if you can. Put the power at 100%. A lot of wood won't mark at all on a fiber, so I'd try something metal, anodized aluminum or stainless or something.

[Gary Hair]

I'm with Steve on this one, it sounds to be out of focus.

[John Lifer]

Yes, don't try wood. Get scrap of aluminum, steel. I had several cutoffs of aluminum deck plating that I used to run a lot of trials on. Do searches here, lot of settings for materials. My laser hisses at the head just a bit when on and no changes when firing. It does make various materials sing when laser hits them...

Out of focus, too low of power, wrong frequency wrong setting in setup. And other possibilities.

[Gary LaGuardia]

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Here are the parameter setup screens.
The lens is a 160-210, the machine was advertised as having a 150x150 area. I originally thought 210mm was the focal distance for focus, but it was not working, so I found a post from someone with an identical lens and they said the focus was approx 9.9 inches from the bottom of the lens. I tried that as a start and quickly found the actual focus that gave the strongest flash when on metal or wood.

[Gary LaGuardia]

The lens is a 160-210, the machine was advertised as having a 150x150 area. I originally thought 210mm was the focal distance for focus, but it was not working, so I found a post from someone with an identical lens and they said the focus was approx 9.9 inches from the bottom of the lens. I tried that as a start and quickly found the actual focus that gave the strongest flash when on metal or wood.

[Gary LaGuardia]

I don't think my problems are with the output settings for type of material, I think its with the parameter settings, or setup of the laser itself...or maybe that the laser source is faulty. I notice you have a 20W unit from Ray Fine. I think they use a Raycus source, but maybe you could look at the screenshots I posted and see if they are anything like your parameter settings.

[Kev Williams]

Just measured my 210/160/150 focus stick, exactly 9.75", and I measure from the part to the lens HOUSING, to the lens glass itself would be close to 9.9", but I won't touch the glass!

As to your screenshots, my EZcad is much older and has a lot less options, but yours appear much the same as mine- However, the stark difference is the last 2 shots, where your input and output I/O masks show all blank; my input mask shows 3,2,1,0 as checked, and the output mask shows 1,0 checked. I have no idea what the 'masks' are or if they're necessary for normal use- If you find good focus fixes your basic problem then that's the main thing. But changing them probably won't hurt just as an experiment to see if anything changes.

[John Lifer]

Mine is a JPT not Raycus source. I googled Maxphotonics and this first site came up for your laser.

http://en.maxphotonics.com/Products/MFPT-20MOPAPulsedFib.html
A couple of things, I think your setting on first page should be wider, mine is 400 and 1, I have 'semi' MOPA and think you probably do also. Expand those settings (won't hurt anything, laser will ignore outside range).

But I think I would contact maxphotonics thru their chat and see what you can learn from them. First if it is a Raycus and if so, settings, if not then what should you use and settings for that. They may be willing to help.
Insure you let them know this is first of many you will purchase and maybe direct....

I'd be willing to bet laser is just fine, it is the setup that is wrong. I had to install and go thru each of those settings and change them.

[Floyd Siegal]

Chances are your Max 20W laser source settings for your system should look like this ...
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Also check the lens to make sure there is no crack or smudge on the lens or the lens filter.

[Gary LaGuardia]

Tried these settings, no change.
My lens does not appear to have a filter on it. There is the main lens body and that fits into an adapter ring, which then fits into the galvo head.
The screw threads on bottom of the lens (facing the table) look damaged, and there is a very tiny scratch in the lens towards the very edge (about the size of a grain of sand).389811
The rest of the lens is crystal clear.
From the manufacturer's web site, it appears this lens would have originally had a protective glass filter on it, like you can buy for 35mm cameras.
I can't believe such a tiny mark on the overall lens could cause almost complete power loss.
My 50W CO2 laser actually had metal shavings in it from the factory and it worked so well I never knew about the shavings until the 1st time I took apart the lens to clean it.
This lens is WAY better than that.

[Gary LaGuardia]

Yes, I am using the focus range you suggest, and that is identical to what I found in another posting. I tried setting the IO mask settings to your suggested ones and there was NO change. I still get the VERY weak laser firing. It is barely enough to burn off a magic marker coating on aluminum....and that's at 100% power and 1mm/second speed which is the slowest and most powerful combo. I have also tried various frequencies between 30-60KHz which is the manaufacturer listed range for this model fiber laser. Something is definitely not right.

[Gary LaGuardia]

I do NOT have a MOPA laser. My model is MFP-20-C2NN4.
The link you reference is a model MFPT-20 (the MOPA version in 20W power).
I have tried several times to contact Maxphotonics by email and thru the on-line chat.
It seems no one in the on-line chat speaks English.
There is an email listed for English communications, and my response from that was to contact the builder of the whole laser unit.
That doesn't help me as the "supplier" I got the unit from appears only to be a mass importer.
Who knows who built the unit.

[Kev Williams]

Considering the condition of your lens, I'm curious as to the condition of the mirrors and overall alignment. However, if the red light is tracking well, then so should the laser's beam, IF the beam is actually hitting the mirrors correctly-- Have you done any of the alignment tests?

[Dave Sheldrake]

Set port numbers to 5 or 15

[Gary LaGuardia]

There are a whole bunch of different settings that could be switched to port 5 or 15....which setting are you talking about?

[Gary LaGuardia]

How do I know if the beam is hitting the mirrors correctly? The red dot contour is slightly out of alignment with the actual laser beam...maybe by 1mm for so. Its enough to see that the Main laser is firing. I didn't bother trying to align the red beam with the actual beam yet because then I wouldn't be able to see if the actual laser were firing or not. However if there is some physical alignment method to align the laser emitter with the mirrors, then I am not aware of it. Is there a procedure to align the emitter and galvo head?

[Scott Shepherd]

How do I know if the beam is hitting the mirrors correctly? The red dot contour is slightly out of alignment with the actual laser beam...maybe by 1mm for so. Its enough to see that the Main laser is firing. I didn't bother trying to align the red beam with the actual beam yet because then I wouldn't be able to see if the actual laser were firing or not. However if there is some physical alignment method to align the laser emitter with the mirrors, then I am not aware of it. Is there a procedure to align the emitter and galvo head?

Not that I know of without special equipment. When the beam hits the mirrors, it's about 5mm in diameter if I remember correctly. It gains it's power density when it goes through the lens and focuses it, if I understand it correctly. The beam is invisible and doesn't mark on anything like tape, so if there's an easy way to align it, I've never seen it, and I've asked around a number of times.

[Dave Sheldrake]

There are a whole bunch of different settings that could be switched to port 5 or 15....which setting are you talking about?

The one that is currently set to "Null"

Just been dealing with exactly this kind of problem for somebody this week with the same non firing issues

[Gary LaGuardia]

WOOHOOO!....PROBLEM SOLVED
Someone posted about the alignment of the red dot image being OK so the laser must be OK....then I remembered that the red dot emitter is not in line with the Laser emitter itself. I loosened the emitter and started moving its alignment slightly while firing on a circle pattern. I hit a sweet spot and it immediately lit up like a welder.
The emitter is now in alignment with the galvo head itself and everything is working, it had NOTHING to do with the software settings.
I now have to align the red dot pattern with the laser produced pattern, but I think I understand that process. THANKS EVERYONE for your contributions...they helped lead my thought process in the right direction!

[Floyd Siegal]

Also make sure you have selected the correct color pen that you think you're adjusting! I've had customers inform me that their laser wasn't working properly because none of the power/speed/frequency changes seemed to make a difference only to discover the changes were made to a different color pen. Double check!

[John Lifer]

Ok, so you were OUT OF FOCUS! The outer red dot just help you GET into focus. How else can we explain to someone the next time this happens? I think that this is the third time this has happened and it took you a long time to figure it out.
(no NOT an insult, these dang things are SO complicated and if you don't have proper settings, a LOT of issues can happen (or not happen)
Glad to see it working

[Kev Williams]

John-

His problem wasn't that the lens was out of focus! The problem is/was, the laser beam itself wasn't exiting the machine and hitting the mirrors squarely, the 'emitter' he was moving was the actual laser's output 'snout'. He got 'lit up like a welder' once the beam actually hit the mirrors. Poor factory setup, or the snout moved whenever the damage to the scanhead happened- or both.

My machine has low-power spots in some areas that I attribute to my beam not hitting the mirrors correctly...

Awhile back I aligned my red emitter perfectly to the mirrors. See the pics below, after I was satisfied I was close enough, I took pics while the mirrors were moving to their extremes while drawing a rectangle larger than the work area. The left mirror, note the incoming beam dot is right in the center of the mirror (both directions, although not all that visible at that angle), and the second mirror shows the full-sweep of the beam, and that it uses nearly all of the mirror's length. The fiber's incident beam is much larger in diameter than the red beam, so I'm assuming alignment is fairly critical! Getting the red light aligned wasn't too tough to do, but since a fiber beam isn't as user-friendly with mirror alignment as a C02, can't do the blue-tape trick, the only feasible way to decently align the laser's beam to the mirrors, that I can figure out anyway, is to first align up the red laser to the mirrors (done) and then attempt to align the fiber beam's output to match the red output during test engraving... I haven't done that yet, simply an issue of available time, I figure it'll take 2-3 hours of moving and shiming and testing... So right now my red light is adjusted to match the fiber beam output for alignment purposes. But when the machine is engraving, the red light tracks 'as is', without those adjustments, and the fiber's output is a full 1/8" away from the red light output on the work, almost perfectly diagonal down and left. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it explains my low-power spots, the beam is simply running out of mirror!
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In Gary's case, seems his beam was barely hitting the mirrors at all...

[Scott Shepherd]

For what it's worth, I've seen those things shimmed with Chinese newspaper to try and make them all square. The Chinese seem to have a real shortage of squares in their country. Instead of making things square and bolting things together, they square nothing and shim everything, which just stacks up errors.

[John Lifer]

My Bad, Again, How can we more easily diagnose? Or just not?

[Scott Shepherd]

My Bad, Again, How can we more easily diagnose? Or just not?

In my experience, the best way is to manually align all the hardware yourself. The tube that is mounted at the top, I think it's a collimator or something, needs to be flat, and straight. Once that tube is straight, if you make that tube line up with the hole in the scan head, then you're going to be pretty close. The problem comes with the tower isn't flat on the base, so they shim the tower, so the tower is crooked, then that throws off the collimator assembly, which has to be shimmed to allow for the tower being shimmed wrong, then that makes it hit the mirrors in the wrong place. It's just a mess. If you start from scratch and make sure everything is square, then it makes manually aligning them pretty easy.

[Kev Williams]

Speaking of square, another issue I have with mine, is the laser's output path is rotated over 1/2° CCW to the machine's case! Not a huge deal, but some parts are big enough and easier to just place against the front of the machine, and especially long parts that need to be done in 2 or 3 sections. But to use the front face of the machine as a guide I have shim the left edge by 3/32"--

still not that big a deal, but one of these days I'll get it straight! :)

[Bill George]

I have noticed on mine now the red lasered outline box is not aligned perfectly with the output. Are the adjustments in the F3 Menu for those settings?.

[Kev Williams]

YES!!

In the first window (field tab) you adjust all the critical stuff of the actual laser output; you draw say, a 4" box, engrave it , then measure it, you then choose which axis to resize, hit the arrow button to the right of 'scale', then enter 'desired marking size' (4" or 101.6mm), then enter the 'actual marking size'-- the software then makes the adjustment.. there's also the trapezoid and pincushion adjustments-- you've probably already taken care of all this stuff :)

In the same window are offset adjustments for X and Y, and "angle"- I've never messed with these, could be the 'angle' adjustment will take care of MY angle problem? I need to experiment!

If all is ok with the actual laser output, then hit the "other" tab, then hit the 'red light pointer' button... here you can offset AND scale the X and Y red light output. So what to do is, engrave a simple outline of something, just a simple box is good, the bigger the better, and I use black trophy aluminum, the gloss black absorbs the red light and the silver highly reflects it, easy to line up to. Fire up the red light, and move and/or resize it with the offsets until it fits the engraving perfectly.
NOTE on the numbers you enter: your EZcad is many versions newer than mine, and maybe they've fixed this issue, but with mine, the mm adjustment numbers that APPEAR only SHOW to 2 decimals, as in 1.02mm, but not 1.022mm. However, you CAN enter 3rd decimal numbers, AND the software factors it in, and it's necessary for precise alignment- But it will only display to the 2nd decimal, which is just plain dumb...

If your display goes out 3 points, then no problem, if not, then write down your numbers entered, because if you don't have a photographic memory (I sure don't!), it can get frustrating not knowing your actual inputs when fine tuning!

Once your red light IS lined up perfectly to the engraving, pre-alignment is MUCH easier, and, when using the 'show contour' lighting, if you're patient you can line up previously engraved work and re-engrave it :)

[Bill George]

Kev, Thank You, I was reading the manual or PDF and it was kind of making sense but you made it easier!!

[Kev Williams]

In the 'learn something new every day' category-- I just fiddled with the 'angle' setting, and yes indeedy it does rotate the entire output! After a couple of minutes I came up with a -0.38° rotation that perfectly squared the output to the faceplate of the machine!

I also learned that the tweaks made in the "field" tab window affects the laser AND red light output. I also noted that after squaring the output, the red light lined up perfectly to my test engraved box in the Y axis, but was just a hair short in the X axis; I had to add .007 to the X scale in the red light adjust window. Now, I'm not sure changing the rotation had anything to do with that or not, it might have needed a tweak before I did the rotation change, I'm not sure. But I'm glad I checked, the red light and engraving line up nicely! :)

[Joel Leopard]

Hi Kevin. I’m having almost same power issues from my 30w laser. When you are referring to mirror alignment, do you do the adjustments with the mirrors with the laser in the “on” position? How do you actually move the mirrors?

[Kev Williams]

Hi Kevin. I’m having almost same power issues from my 30w laser. When you are referring to mirror alignment, do you do the adjustments with the mirrors with the laser in the “on” position? How do you actually move the mirrors?

Moving the mirrors-- Just draw a box or circle that takes up the entire working area and run the red light. Best is a circle actually, drawn large enough so the circle reaches the 4 corners of the work area. The circle will extend beyond the flat sides, but this is good, as it moves both mirrors at almost their maximum travel, and centered TO the work area. Adjust the red light emitter so the red-light travel is centered both directions on both mirrors, as in my pics.

When done adjusting the red light to the mirrors: draw a full work area size box, and engrave it on something. Then, run the red light to find out how close it tracks to the actual engraving. With the red light adjusted, the goal is to get the laser to match the red light as close as possible. This involves adjusting the laser 'snout' inside the machine or scanhead housing, which will be a lot of trial and error with paper shims and such ;)

But if you can get it close, you'll know the laser will be hitting the centers of the mirrors and lens, keeping power output equal throughout the work area :)

Final adjustments to match the red light to the engraving dead-to-rights can be done last in the software. These will be very small adjustments that shouldn't affect power output at the edges of the work area...

[Jay Majzoub]

Hello Kevin,
I am so grateful that I eventually found a forum about the Fiber Laser machine.
I bought 30w JPT machine last month from Ali Express, and since the machine arrived it has been a nightmare.
There are very few online resources to help in learning about it and the seller’s support is extremely useless due to the fact that they barely speak any English, and any question I ask has never been answered properly or thoroughly.
To begin with, I had a problem with the engraving before knowing how to do the alignments. Now I am having a big problem with the alignment and the quality of the engraving.
The engraving is always coming up 3 mm above the laser dot and even when I click RED on EZCAD, it shows that the engraving will be in the right spot, but when I hit “mark”, the engraving always comes up around 3mm above the intended spot.
Any idea on how to solve this?
The other thing is the engraving is coming very light and doesn’t seem to be sharp. I am doing engraving on bracelets and the engravings are not clean, clear, and visible. Any recommended setting?
I highly appreciate any support on this

[Matt Schrum]

...The engraving is always coming up 3 mm above the laser dot and even when I click RED on EZCAD, it shows that the engraving will be in the right spot, but when I hit “mark”, the engraving always comes up around 3mm above the intended spot.
Any idea on how to solve this?
...

In EZCAD there are settings to adjust/offset the red light pointer so that when you hit F1 it will correctly line up with what is actually engraved when you hit F2. Google "adjust red light pointer EZCAD" and you'll see plenty of videos.

[Jay Majzoub]

Thanks a lot Matt.
Your response was super helpful.
I googled what you said and I found out how to fix it

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In EZCAD there are settings to adjust/offset the red light pointer so that when you hit F1 it will correctly line up with what is actually engraved when you hit F2. Google "adjust red light pointer EZCAD" and you'll see plenty of videos.