I'm New..Problem with machine?

[lucas kreft]

Hello

I am new to this field. I have just graduated with a graphic design diploma last December. I was looking for employment and had the opportunity to be a laser etch designer. I took the offer in January.

This is very exiting, I am able to produce some excellent pieces. To my eyes this is an excellent opportunity because I just turned 22, and I am part owner. I just finished my first large job 26 18"x18" tiles.

What I am doing is work on granite.

I use a cnc 80w and I am able to produce to a max of 60"x36" at a time. I use photograv to process the image. And a cutting program. I am at home, and dont remember the exact name of it.. something like "cync cutting program".

I have seen in the past people complaining about that cutting program, but I don't remember the name. I can re-post the name when I am at work tomorrow.

My problem is:

The laser is not aligned. I import the image, and draw a box to place where my tile is, it draws the box, but the box is not on a 90 degree angle. It is skewed. Is it something with the barrings, or something with the tracking.

This is making me very angry, because I have to now stretch the image so there is overlap... I want to do tile work... and I can't do it. I am for now resulting with not square images. For every 12" it goes off .25" to left. It is not level.

The cutting program is in Chinese, and I have no problems with photograv. Just that cutting program.

Also with that program. When I turn on the laser, then that program, my laser will automaticly track to the left. I have to click "stop" so it does not ram into the left tracking guide bar.

What I want to do is draw a 36x36 box so I use that as a guide. I do not know how to place the coordinates so when I turn on the laser, it will go to that starting point. Then I can shut the laser off, the next day turn it on, pop in the coordinates of the starting grid and off I go!...

Thanks for the help... If anyone can?

Here some examples of my work.

Also I etch on granite, and I have an example of glass.
I know I can engrave in all types of material. I hear all this great news with acrylic, but my business partner says it is poisonous and he doesn't want to work with it.

Are the fumes poisonous? I know there you can get ventilation units but it will just travel outside, and make the neighborhood stink.

Thanks for the help... If anyone can?

Here some examples of my work. Each tile is 12", the glowing is glass.. something like 18"x30"

Also a note:
I have been reading up on this site with the fourms, and the information everyone shares helped me to where I got to this point.
Thank you.

[Mike Null]

Welcome to SMC.

I can't address your issues with your machine but almost all of us engrave and cut acrylic with no problem. A well connected ventilation system should solve any interior problems and the odor dissipates in the outside air rapidly.

[Frank Corker]

Hello

Also I etch on granite, and I have an example of glass.
I know I can engrave in all types of material. I hear all this great news with acrylic, but my business partner says it is poisonous and he doesn't want to work with it.

Are the fumes poisonous? I know there you can get ventilation units but it will just travel outside, and make the neighborhood stink.


Lucas, your business partner is wrong. He is most likely to be thinking about PVC which is something hopefully none of the laser engravers use. Acrylic is the laser engravers dream. It is not poisonous and it engraving with it is fantastic. It also will not damage your machine where as PVC will. Get him to read up on the subject.

I love the work that you have done with the granite, nice contrasting, looks impressive.

Again I cannot really answer the question on your problem because I don't really know what type of machine it is that you are using. One thing that does appear to be obvious for me is that your measurements must be out. If the machine keeps making .25" to the left every 12" then your program appears to be making a margin. Check your settings in options to see if that is what is happening. Does the problem occur if you do 1 tile at a time? If the answer is no and it does not extend past the right of the tile by .25", then it is making margins on the other images. If the answer is yes or the engraving continues extending the end of the run by .25" on the single file it must be your measurements.

I hope this helps.

[lucas kreft]

Thanks. I am just about to head off to work. I will get some more information of the details, also send an image of the offline tracking.

Also if anyone else can give some feedback on the acrylic, that would be great. It is my business partners call on that material. I just want to show what can be out there.

Also I just found out about atomic art and Thermark inks last night with some fourms, what is everyone take on that? I think colored images are amazing!!!! Just double the cost...

[Mike Null]

You can find a couple of threads on Atomic Art by doing a search.

[Richard Rumancik]

. . . Acrylic is the laser engravers dream. It is not poisonous and it engraving with it is fantastic. . .

Frank, with all due respect, I'll have to differ here. Although acrylic may be a dream in some respects I don't think you want to breathe the fumes. In fact I would not breathe any fumes even from wood which is a "natural" substance.

I won't say this is an authoratative source but here's one reference to burning acrylic (from a firefighter's point of view). Scroll down to acrylic.

http://www.bcbs.com.au/chemical.php


I would not exhaust acrylic fumes into my building environment. I get headaches just from the fumes that leak out of my laser.

[lucas kreft]

Thanks for the help so far.
The cutting program that I am having with is "newlydraw" or "nsdk1 cutting program" (quick link).

Here is an of the tracking problem I am facing with.

For example I create a 12"x12" image, perfectly square and I get this skew.

I am using a Synergy 80w

[Scott Shepherd]

Looks like a serious alignment problem to me. Something, either the rail system the axis ride on, or the rulers or edges will have to be moved to correct that.

[Frank Corker]

Frank, with all due respect, I'll have to differ here. Although acrylic may be a dream in some respects I don't think you want to breathe the fumes. In fact I would not breathe any fumes even from wood which is a "natural" substance.

I won't say this is an authoratative source but here's one reference to burning acrylic (from a firefighter's point of view). Scroll down to acrylic.

http://www.bcbs.com.au/chemical.php


I would not exhaust acrylic fumes into my building environment. I get headaches just from the fumes that leak out of my laser.



Richard I never said that you should breathe the fumes in, that would be pretty dumb, I also never said that I would engrave without using the extractor unit on my laser. That would also be dumb even though it is possible to do both of those without air extraction. I also think that you are right not to over-expose yourself to anything that gives off fumes. That said I smoke.

If you are getting fumes coming out from your laser, you have a problem with your extractor unit or the seals, my work room is small - 13' x 6'6" and I don't even get to smell the acrylic when I cut and engrave (which is most of the time) the only faint smells I get come when the lid is lifted or I am doing leather and bone. During the process, there is nothing, at all.

Lucas, your machine is a lot different to what I had expected to see, the alignment issue is a lot more obvious there and not what I thouught it was. It's most definitely not running parallel to those rulers you have, it's almost as though the bed is out of alignment. I wish you luck with it.

[Scott Challoner]

Since you say the carriage slews when you turn the machine on. I think it may be a bad encoder. This could explain why it drifts while your engraving too. I don't know your level of technical expertise, but sometimes you can swap the X and Y encoders. I've never had to do this with my laser, but I've done it several times when I worked on component placement machines. If the problem follows to the other axis, you know it's the encoder. If you can, I would call the manufacturers tech support. They should be able to point you in the right direction.

And yes. I laser acrylic all the time but I also have proper ventilation.

[Richard Rumancik]

If you are getting fumes coming out from your laser, you have a problem with your extractor unit or the seals.

In my case I have a pretty good air system, the leakage into the room is basically from opening the lid to remove parts and reload. Pretty hard to avoid getting some into the room. Also, the parts tend to hold the vapor on the paper for some time so it dissipates into the room.

I just assumed Lucas had a "big bed" machine as he said he could laser 60" x 36". With an open bed system you almost need to have the suction tubes tied to the carriage to get optimum fume removal.

Lucas, you implied you do not have a ventilation unit at present. I would not suggest you cut acrylic without one. If the exhaust is directed up high, you should not cause a problem with neighbours but you are correct to be concerned and should take into account intake vents on other buildings.

BTW - your work is very nice.

As far as the skew is concerned: we can't see the construction of your entire machine. I am assuming conventional rolling gantry construction. Something has cause the two sides to become way out of syncronization and it may cause more damage to keep running this way. If the two sides are coupled together in some way, as I expect, try to release the coupling mechanism. It may be a shaft running from one side to the other, to provide equal drive forces on each side. Uncoupling the shaft may cause the gantry to snap back where it should be. Then re-tighten when squared up. (Hopefully nothing is bent.) If you can show a few more pics of the motors and drive mechanism it might be easier to help. Was it originally okay from the factory? Did you have any mishaps (bump into a part with the gantry) which may have made a toothed timing belt slip?

[lucas kreft]

well I was going on the net, and I found a website that sold the laser to us. On the site there are pieces of my work.. without my knowledge that it would be on the site.

You know what that means.. they will now have to fly down and fix the machine..

[Richard Rumancik]

Lucas, what is the url of the site?

If you can't get them to service it quickly, you may need to try and troubleshoot yourself. I get the feeling that one side may be driving and the other side is just "dragging", causing the skew. I think you need to open the panels and figure out the mechanics - where is the drive motor and how does the "other side" get powered. Usually it is a mechanical transmission (shaft) connecting the two sides, but sometimes there may be two motors. If one motor/driver fails, that side would drag.

What does this laser use to move the gantry - rubber belts, steel belts or leadscrew or what?

If you put your laser in standby or pause mode, the motors should be energized. Try to move the gantry on the left side and right side gently by hand. They should both be locked from moving by the motor hold current. If one side is locked and the other is soft, you have lost drive power on the "soft" side.

Even if your laser is under warranty it is a good idea to be able to understand roughly how it works. You won't get them to fly in every time for a repair, and if you can isolate the problem module it makes it faster to get the right spare part.

[Scott Shepherd]

It's a Gantry style machine, so I'd be careful engraving a lot of plastics as well.

Here's the link. It's a mess of a website that displays crazy menus down the content of the page on some pages. You can see the example shown in the thread here as being listed a the work of AlphaSigns.

http://www.intelicam.com/index_files/CNCLasers.htm

Link to the image in question :

http://www.intelicam.com/index_files/alpha_CNCLaser.htm

That also shows me that the problem is probably that the bed is not aligned with the gantry part of the laser. I would suspect there are adjustment bolts that allow you to fine tune it all in.

[lucas kreft]

Yeah that is the company I am a part of right now. Myself and my business partner tried seven times to get a name registered, for a sub company with the laser. I did get in contact with the company that got us the laser, and they gave us some feedback. My business partner said he knows what the problem is, I just wanted to get other peoples opinion before we do anything to fix the laser. A skewed laser is better than not having one at all.

I just want to get to some large products, not the 24x24 because of the skew.

[Mike Null]

Lucas

Now that I see the machine I suspect it is the table on the lead screws that needs adjustment. It is probably something you need their tech support people to walk you through.

[Kim Vellore]

I love to use acrylic but the smell gives me a head ache. recently I have been using cell cast acrylic and it is almost smell free. I do not know what type I was using earlier but I know the cell cast is ~1/10 of the smell of the earlier one I was using.
One more point on the burning of acrylic. If you take a match and burn acrylic the composition of the smoke is different from what comes out when you laser it. When acrylic is burning the smoke is black + it smells different
and worse, probably that is what the toxicity the fire fighters needs to be concerned about. Anyway I believe anything that comes out because of burning is toxic including burning food. So I'll avoid it if I can.

Kim

[Rob Bosworth]

A skewed laser system is better than not having one at all? I doubt it. Do not mean to sound sarcastic, but there is no other response to that statement.

If that is your ideal, I have a couple of systems that I can sell you cheap. I can beat the prices of those imported machines. They night not be able to do anything, but they are better than nothing. And they are made in the U.S.A.