EZcad upgrade?

[Adam Herron]

Hey everyone,
First time poster here, Decided to post here because everyone seems very knowledgeable. I have a 30w MOPA laser with an M6 head, When I bought it, it came with EZcad 2.12. There are just a few things I like with 2.14. I found a copy and downloaded it. The machine opened it with no issues and pulled up the correct registration for that machine. First thing that I had noticed, is that the red outline laser did not do anything when F1 was pressed, but it would fire the laser when F2 was pressed. I finally figured out the problem which was only a setting needed changed and now I have everything working, kinda. I was wondering if there is a way to copy all settings from one version to the next version, or at least an easy way to go about doing it. I noticed while testing, that on the new version, the outline was actually off of where it actually lasered the test square. Also it is not talking to the rotary correctly. I tried to go though and made sure that all of the setting were the same, but I feel like I missed something, and could't end up getting it to work properly.

Thanks for your help!
Adam

[Jeff Watkins]

Hi Adam,

Welcome to the group. I've been a member for some time but don't post too often but figured I'd offer my assistance. I would create a copy of your 2.12 folder and then copy all the .EXE and .DLL files from the 2.14 folder into the new 2.12 folder. That should keep all your customized settings. I have separate folders for each of my lenses and then when 2.14 came out I just copied the .exe and .dll files into them and it's worked fine.

[Kev Williams]

I recently changed out the 2.5.3 version in my 4 years old Triumph to 2.14.10 which all my others have- I had to buy a new controller since the original was proprietary with a USB dongle. It was worth the price, and now all 3 of my fibers are running the same version...

I found that there's 2 distinct sets of parameters/configurations, (a) the user parameters, which are 'toolbox' settings, which is pretty much everything in the 'wrench' menu and everything on the right edge of the screen, and (b) the machine/program parameters, which is pretty much everything in the F3 menu. The toolbox items will transfer easy enough, but the F3 items, not so much. I tried many ways to make a full-transfer happen, the most radical was to create 3 new folders, one with a copy of the complete old program folders and files, one with a copy of the complete NEW program folders and files, and a 3rd folder where I copied only the application & dll files of the NEW version, and copied everything BUT the app & dll files of the OLD version... But, in the end the toolbox/user parameters were usable, but trying to use other old files within the new program ended up with lots of error messages...

I finally gave up trying. So I loaded up the old program, took screenshots and wrote down every F3 menu setting in every tab, and entered them manually into the new program. Pretty sure it took me less time to just do it all manually than it took looking for ways to avoid doing it manually ;)

[John Lifer]

I've got 2.12 (came with the machine) and I've a version of 2.14. Be aware, YMMV, but I cannot get my Ray Fine MOPA to use the rotary in 2.14. It tries to locate a home position and gives me a timeout.
I haven't tried to figure it out other than make sure settings were the same in the versions, I don't see where there is a home location on these rotaries. BTW, if anyone else has seen this and can offer solution, let me know!
But I did just copy settings over into the proper folder and even the parameters can be moved.

[Kev Williams]

Your rotary issue- do the Pulses Per Round settings in the rotary parameters of the new software match those of your old software (and the controller card)? Aside from those settings, not sure what else could cause a homing problem..?

There's no such thing as a pre-determined 'home position' on ANY stepper driven rotary that I know of, the 0,0 position is determined as the rotary is activated. But depending on the circumstance, such as escaping during a fiber rotary job before it's finished, then pressing the fire button and expecting it to start from the original 0,0 position, you're going to screw up your engraving because wherever in the rotation the rotary was when you escaped becomes the new 0,0 position once you press the fire button. Real PItheA. However, you can counteract this by manually zeroing the rotary yourself after an escape, which involves changing the distance-per-step values and jogging the rotary until you get the rotary position back to 0.

My GCC C02 has a servo controlled rotary, it DOES have a singular home position, makes inadvertently restarting engraving in the wrong place nearly impossible!

[John Lifer]

I'll check that Kev. I haven't worked with the new version with the rotary in a while, I don't rotary that much. And I've never heard of a home position either....

[Kev Williams]

I just checked the default EzCad rotary settings in EzCad 2.14.10 on one of my ebay machines, and it's 200 pulses per round-! I didn't order rotaries for those machines...

From memory, this looks like the rotary driver in my Triumph-
439399439400
Note it has settings listed in increments from 400 to 25,600, AND from 1000 to 25,000, and you set the dip switches on the side per the 'menu' list. I set mine to 20,000 a long time ago. These settings and the EzCad pulse per round settings must match.

FWIW, the difference- the ONLY difference actually, that I've noticed by changing from 6,400 to 20,000 is the speed at which the rotary moves, 20,000 pulses slowed it down BIG time. This was important to me because when you have 2 pounds of stainless or ceramic stuff in the rotary, the higher 6,400 speed results in severe 'stop-shock' when moving to the next engraving position. 20,000 pulses is roughly 1/3 the speed, and so is the shock, big improvement!

As an FYI, sometimes with heavier items the shock is still a bit much and the part is still vibrating when the engraving re-starts, which is not good. There IS a fix for this in the basic F3 parameters, under the "OTHER" tab, the very top item is "Start Mark Delay", you can enter a delay time the laser will wait to fire to give your vibrating part a chance to stop moving :) -- 500ms / 1/2 second is usually enough for the large ceramic urns I engrave. This delay will occur for EACH letter of text, or each separately grouped or hatched graphic, even when flat engraving...