Stray Vector Cut

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's a new one on me. Placed a nice piece of 1/2" acrylic in the laser, sent the rastor job over, with auto-focus. When it started, as the head move to position to measure the focus depth the beam was on! Cut a nice little diagonal line into my acrylic and ruined the piece. Tried the same job a couple of times with scrap material and then the real job again, and it hasn't done it since, just that one time. Epilog Legend 24TT 45 watt.

Looks like I'll start running manual focus with the lid up when I have expensive items in to engrave.

[Mike Hood]

I always run expensive items at least once through with the interlocks open. I've screwed upmore than one piece by having something set wrong :)

Here's a tip if you're engraving marble or granite shapes and dork a picture. If both sides are polished (most are), you can cover the mistake with by overprinting with a solid image. Just draw a square big enough cover the shape and then fill it with an appropriate fill and 'erase' your mistake. You can't truly fix it, but you can reuse the other side this way.

Great for samples of freebies.

[Keith Outten]

I haven't used auto focus in over three years. An Epilog is easy to manually focus and it is a lot safer than relying on the auto focus feature. By the way don't use auto focus with a rotary attachment...don't ask me how I know.

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[Mike Null]

Joe:

I'm going back a few years to when I used Epilog but had a similar problem on a fairly regular basis. It is a leak and as I recall we remedied it by changing one or two modules in the mother board. (I hope I'm using the right term) These were modules of about 3/4" x 1 1/4" in size with maybe 24 pins.

This was on an old 100 watt water cooled machine and I've forgotten the model.

[Bill Cunningham]

Welcome to the club.. I had posted this phenomenom in another thread a week or two ago.. This happens to me every so often. I have been lucky though, I have never had anything in the machine at the time.. Now, if I use the auto focus, I keep the lid open until the head returns to the start point, and then either quickly close the lid, or press stop, and then press go after the lid is closed.. If the lid is open, and you hit focus, to do a manual focus, sometimes the head moves slowly to the focus point..This is when the beam would be on If the lid was closed, and it would be burning that path :eek: It Just seems to be a hicup in the system once in a while, and it's been that way since my TT was new.... Now I NEVER hit focus or use auto focus with the lid closed.

[Joe Pelonio]

Now I NEVER hit focus or use auto focus with the lid closed.
I'll start doing that too, not worth the cost of "fixing" it since it's not on warranty, and it's only a very slight inconvenience.

[Jeff Chumbley]

Joe,

I have the same machine and I think tech support told me it was due to the fact that the job you sent to the machine was still actually spooling into memory causing the laser to fire while going to focus.

Jeff

[Bill Cunningham]

NOPE!!! thats not the case... I have had my machine just sitting there, and hit the focus button to manually focus it before I even sent the job. With the lid closed, it burned a path across the table to the focus point.. You can always tell when this 'hicup' is happening, even with the lid open because the head moves at about 1/4 speed to the focus point.. It's completely random it would seem.. Just NEVER hit focus with the lid closed :mad:

[Tom Buzz Bernard]

I have to agree with Jeff, we have found the spooling to be the reason for the miss fire on our Epilog. I'm sure others may have experienced other reasons, but it has been the spooling each time this has happened to us.

[Jim Good]

My Epilog went crazy and shot a 5" line across one of Buzz's custom photo frames. Luckily I was burning 4 frames and it only damaged 1. I will keep it as a sample and place it on my wall.

I think I may not have waited until the file was totally uploaded to the laser. I also stopped it while it was cutting through the wood. I'm not sure how long it was going to shoot across the table but luckily I stopped it quickly.

I'll have to be more careful.

Jim

[Aaron Koehl]

My first run on a vectorized version of the dragon (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=6614), a few years ago, the laser jerked suddenly and started cutting a horizontal line toward the edge of the machine. We power cycled it, resent the graphic, and all was fine.

Haven't had these strange problems since switching to Ethernet and Windows 2000. (Used to use Intelliscribe with Win 98)

[Keith Outten]

Aaron,

Funny you should bring up the dragon plaque, I was thinking yesterday that about making another one. I spent yesterday afternoon with the Xenetech Sales Rep testing our new 60 watt 150 IPS machine. We cut thin wood so fast you would not believe how nice the edges looked with no charing at all. I expect that 1/4" or even 3/8" thick stock will also cut nice and easy...I'll let you know :)

I was able to engrave a Corian sample yesterday at much less than half the time It takes to engrave on a 35 watt machine.

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[Aaron Koehl]

Aaron,

Funny you should bring up the dragon plaque, I was thinking yesterday that about making another one. I spent yesterday afternoon with the Xenetech Sales Rep testing our new 60 watt 150 IPS machine. We cut thin wood so fast you would not believe how nice the edges looked with no charing at all. I expect that 1/4" or even 3/8" thick stock will also cut nice and easy...I'll let you know :)

I was able to engrave a Corian sample yesterday at much less than half the time It takes to engrave on a 35 watt machine.

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*drooooooooool*

[Brian Robison]

I'm new here so forgive me if this has been gone over before. If I'm engraving something and I need to dry run it, I don't really dry run. I use the blue painters tape and cover the object. I'll run at high speed low power to check location or any other problems I might have had.
I use this for anodized aluminum, marking stainless etc.
Don't try it on particle wood plaques, the tape will destroy the finish.