Well I got one .....

[Kirk Robinson]

Picked up a slightly used 30 watt fiber unit with the console table and cabinet this week locally . I did not steal it but did save a little money over a new one . It has the Fiber Max laser source which was one thing I was not all that thrilled about but it seem to work well . I am learning the software and setting , a big learning curve for me , not having any cad experience what so ever but some machine work experience.

It has a 290mm( 7.5 inches sq. working area) lens and I am wondering if going to a smaller one say a 110x110 would gain me any power ?

Also have some questions about the ezcad 2 program , it seems at times the hatch setting simply will not change and at other times they will .
Such as changing the hatch pattern and line spacing it would hold on to the way it was set unless I would go to another pen . I think the version is the 2.12.1

I will be using the machine for deep engraving of numbers and such in firearms and like so I"m mostly interested in removing metal like a gorilla with a 8 inch angle grinder . Well kinda :)

I have another question about the settings , when I click on the slinky icon in the laser settings (can't think or know what it is called ) is it best to have those settings where the dot pattern overlaps just slightly or very dense? With regards to heavy marking 4140 carbon steel and 7075 Al. ? What dot size is best ? I am sure that most of these questions have multiple answers depending upon material and what a man is trying to accomplish .

Again keep in mind I am a newbie here so speak in simple terms , or I guess you could say I'm a simple guy.

Thank you gentlemen , this seems to be the source for this area of knowledge.

Best regards ,
Kirk
http://i.imgur.com/Bs3Bx0ih.jpg (https://imgur.com/Bs3Bx0i)
http://i.imgur.com/5fyfEFLh.jpg (https://imgur.com/5fyfEFL)

yeah I grabbed a file and then I thought - hey I need that to be smooth at times :rolleyes:
http://i.imgur.com/nBlrT74h.jpg (https://imgur.com/nBlrT74)

[Kev Williams]

pretty much a duplicate of my 2nd ebay machine. I have 3 fibers, all with Max sources, my Triumph is over 3 years old, no complaints...

YES moving to a 110-ish lens will gain you some power. It'll also gain you some detail in the form of a smaller beam spot. That all sounds very "pro", but the "con" with a smaller beam spot is, in some cases you'll need a tighter hatch fill, which takes more time. But, you get some of that time back with the increased power density cutting faster. I have a 72mm lens, only has a 2.8"-ish working area, and very finicky to focus, but it does have noticeably more punch.

My similar machine came with a 330 lens, but I'm still able to do this with it:
421932421931
-the barrel is quite deep, but to be sure, it takes time.

It's much faster to engrave like this-
421933
421935
421934

However, the quicker engraving time is eaten up by longer setup time, securing by clamp time-especially with tapered gun barrels the last thing you want is a barrel moving, depth settings, tool sharpenings- usually after every barrel, and with Glock slides, usually the first engraving requires a tool sharpening and cleanup pass...

With a fiber there's no secure clamping needed in most cases, setup by redlight is like 10 seconds tops, and you never ever have to sharpen a laser beam! :D
I just love the 'set it and forget' nature of fibering barrels and slides; while the engraving IS slow, I use that time to make money doing something else in the meantime ;)

As to your hatch settings, hatching graphics is a bit different than hatching TEXT as far as editing after the fact, be aware of that, and there's a lot of other funny stuff EzCad does. Hard to go into it all here, mostly it's trial and error as you go. Just try not to 'error' on other people's stuff ;)

HINT to not have that happen: When you first start working on ANY job, before doing ANYTHING ELSE, turn off all the visible colors; this is so that when you hit the F2 button instead of the "2" button, and it WILL HAPPEN, you won't engrave gobblygook on a customer's $3000 cable-camera housing (been there done that)...

Have fun, others will have suggestions I'm sure :)

[Kirk Robinson]

So what are the thoughts and a smaller lens to gain some power , not needing all the work area . ?

Also hatching issues , I'm sure that it is something I am doing .

Thanks , Kirk

[Kirk Robinson]

Sorry Kev,

Must of been posting when you were also. Thank you for the info .

Not sure I follow on the visible colors , I use the mouse to hit mark at the present .

I am trying to save some know setting and use those parameters .

Kirk

[John Lifer]

As I've said before. Find you a sheet of scrap steel and aluminum. (nothing fancy) and work with it to understand settings.
It is a learning curve that can be steep, but doable. (search here and you will find)
Have fun! Merry Christmas to you!

[Chris DeGerolamo]

HINT to not have that happen: When you first start working on ANY job, before doing ANYTHING ELSE, turn off all the visible colors; this is so that when you hit the F2 button instead of the "2" button, and it WILL HAPPEN, you won't engrave gobblygook on a customer's $3000 cable-camera housing (been there done that)...



The reason why we don't hit button 3 (source power) until jig is set and job is verified and redlighted. Much harder to stop a fiber over a CO2 when it goes south just 'cuz they are so fast.

[Kev Williams]

Not sure I follow on the visible colors , I use the mouse to hit mark at the present .

Doesn't matter how you fire, it's all too easy to hit the wrong button!

Pics to explain what I mean by 'visible' colors:
422061
(also "on" means they're active too ;) )

422062

[Kirk Robinson]

Got ya , thanks

[John Lifer]

A much easier way in my opinion, is to set the default power to ZERO. (this is what I did)
That way, if you happen to have a red selected by mistake, the power is ZERO.
You have to go in and change to make it engrave. And I do turn on the show start mark dialog, makes you press enter after you hit the F2.
(under F3 parameter settings under other tab)
It does make two step fire, but I like that myself.

[Kev Williams]

Acutally John, there's is no "zero" power, the laser will fire at 10% power even when set at zero. On some materials the mark won't happen, but the laser DOES fire.

Go into your parameters and check the 'power map'--
422088

[Kirk Robinson]

One glitch that I have found is that from time to time the laser will simply seem to loose all power and even though it shows its marking not much going on.

when I hit mark , it seems to not fire or the beam is really really small or nonexistant . It seems as though this is always after an adjustment or new setting it will run continuously just fine.

It seems as though I have read about this issue before. Maybe the programing is not catching up to commands ?


Thoughts?

[Marius Nel]

One glitch that I have found is that from time to time the laser will simply seem to loose all power and even though it shows its marking not much going on.

when I hit mark , it seems to not fire or the beam is really really small or nonexistant . It seems as though this is always after an adjustment or new setting it will run continuously just fine.

It seems as though I have read about this issue before. Maybe the programing is not catching up to commands ?


Thoughts?

I've experienced this as well, if you get it then a workaround is to apply the pen to the selected text/emblem and then hit the mark (f2) button again... It seems that even although the selected hatch is linked (or refers to..) to a specific pen that it doesn't mean that the same pen is 'attached'/applied to the work..

[Kirk Robinson]

I've experienced this as well, if you get it then a workaround is to apply the pen to the selected text/emblem and then hit the mark (f2) button again... It seems that even although the selected hatch is linked (or refers to..) to a specific pen that it doesn't mean that the same pen is 'attached'/applied to the work..
Thank you kind sir for the info , I will check that .

Right now for me it is like trying to get a sip of water out of a fire hose . :)

Best regards ,

Kirk

[Kirk Robinson]

Ok today I was marking some 17-4 cones and aluminum parts and was changing setting quite a bit and got the no power thing going again , I got it to go by runing the power level back off from 100 and then it worked again .

The pen settings are kinda funky also as others have said , I could not get it change pens no matter what I did it would show as using pen 0 . I have the program loaded on my laptop here in the house and will play with it some more this evening , but it gets old saying there was error regarding the laser board interface and what not .

[Kev Williams]

There's TWO pen settings on the right side of the screen, on top are the ACTIVE settings, marked as "on" will fire, "off" won't fire...

Below those are the ACTUAL settings, where the speed/power/freq are adjusted, AND, where you change colors. The 'actual' settings seem to have a mind of their own as to which settings are displayed, as in, you may have nothing but blue and red colors (pens 2 and 1) on screen and working, but the black (pen 0) may be what's displayed. Or red, or blue-- so it's important to note the pen number you're adjusting before making changes... Many times, even recently, I'll change settings on a color I'm doing only to find out afterward that I changed settings on the wrong color. After 3 years I'm still forgetting to check the pen number!

Another important thing to remember is, if you pick a color to edit from the 'actual' list while you have something grouped- for example, an object that you have a black hatch, a red hatch and a green hatch going- if that object is grouped and you decide to change the red hatch, then the entire group/all the hatch's, will change to red-! So before editing any colors, BE SURE nothing on screen is grouped!

As to the power fading, and 'backing off from 100' and having it work again-- My 3 year old Triumph's software, specifically the Power Map, in addition to showing 0% power is actually 10% power, my 100% power shows as 95% power. But my newer machines show 100% as 100%. And occasionally I've had firing issues with the newer machines similar to you guys's above... I'm not sure it's the same issue as yours, but something is going on, so I'm wondering if the 95% was on purpose to keep from overdriving the laser-? Because my Triumph has NEVER misfired like that. So from now on I'm going experiment with running at 95% instead of 100% and see if that stops the rare but occasional issue's I'm having. You guys should try it and see if it may help?

As to the power map itself, it IS "user editable", but I've found changing the map's numbers doesn't change the laser output. Which is to say, the power map is only for reference... At least mine is :)

[Kirk Robinson]

Ok I think I found the problem , wondering if the machine was actually overheat / temp so it would shut down a while , but when I set it on 90% I had no issues at all for the rest of the afternoon.

How do I correct the settings , when I tried to adjust it would take the values and then when I hit ok and came back to it latter it would be like the pic below. ? ?:eek:


Still struggling with the pen settings but I'm getting there. Baby steps here - Old man


thanks , Kirk

http://i.imgur.com/s9AiReeh.jpg?1 (https://imgur.com/s9AiRee)