Pausing while cutting?

[Ross Lowry]

Ok I took a scroll saw pattern and traced it with the bezier tool in Corel12.
On the striaght cuts my machine will pause about every .700"- 1.000" for about 2 or 3 seconds.
I sent it to a few other people and they are having the same problem.
I have no idea why and no one else seems to know why either.
I would appretiate it if anyone could take a look at the file and tell me why this is happening.
Thanks.

Ross

[Doug Griffith]

I opened it up in X4 and couldn't see anything odd. I then opened it in Illustrator CS3 and still nothing odd. So I exported from AI as version 3 and then resaved in X4 as version 12. You may want to try out this file.

Cheers,
Doug

[Frank Corker]

Ross, I have just had a look at the file. There are 5 nodes on the straight lines, it is possible that it is delaying there. You never said exactly how many times it delayed. Now the other thing is some laser engraving machines work fine on a straight line, the top line is not dead straight, it is slightly tilting down from right to left, is it possible that your machine is making an adjustment to keep faithful to your settings?

[Doug Griffith]

When I opened it in X4 I found 1 extra node on the top straight line about 3/4 to the right. It is a very shallow curve to the right. Frank is right. It could be your machine making adjustments to keep true to the file. The 1-2 second pause seems like a bug though. Try removing the extra node.

Doug

[Carl Sewell]

I tried it on a Universal VersaLaser and didn't experience any pauses. Was there one brand of laser that all your trials were run on?

[Scott Challoner]

After removing the node, convert it to a line. As Frank noted, it's not completely straight across. I would square it up. Just a theory, but maybe the angle is so slight that your encoder or stepper doesn't have the resolution to keep going straight and needs to stop and correct occasionally.

[Ross Lowry]

I ran it on a Epilog mini 45 watt.
Thank you guys for the suggestions.
Attached is a picture of the spots where it paused.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Ross,
Have you tried deleting that line and replacing it?

[Ross Lowry]

Ok disregard that first file I sent.
This is the one I am having problems with.
I found a way to get it to run without the pauses by creating a rectangle with the right radius and welding it to the piece, but this file for the life of me I cannot figure what is with the pauses.
Sorry guys I am a retard!

[Doug Griffith]

The lines in that file seem to undulate thick to thin. Take note of the start and end arrowhead selector thicknesses. Is it possible you applied an arrowhead filter with hairlines as arrowheads?

It is such a slight difference that you may not be able to see it with your display/monitor.

Cheers,
Doug

[Ross Lowry]

It is possible, I know nothing about the arrowhead selector you are talking about.

[Doug Griffith]

Here is a screen shot showing the arrowhead selectors. Notice how there are 3 line thickness selectors.

[Ross Lowry]

I see Doug, but what should it be set at?

[Doug Griffith]

In all honesty, I'm an Illustrator user and do not know how to get rid of the arrows applied to the stroke. Any Corel users out there?

Cheers,
Doug

[Ross Lowry]

Any Corel experts out there?

[Stephen Beckham]

Sorry no retard's allowed - take your laser and move to the next line (hint: that's the one I'm in...:D)

Seriously - what laser system do you have?

My Epilog mini-24 will sometimes pause while cutting. Usually at nodes that change angles drastically, but sometimes - it'll do it at a 90 degree turn. It'll get to the corner sit for 1-2 seconds will still cutting and then start again.

Strange thing is - if I rotate the image to make several fit on the same sheet, it pauses at different places. Not always at the same corner and not always at the same spot in the image.

It's never been an issue except on one piece of cherry that it paused long enough on to get some nice red charcoal effects going...

[Doug Griffith]

Any Corel experts out there?

Hi Ross,
This is an interesting issue that I'm sure others have ran into without figuring out what caused it and how to fix it. Now that we know what caused it, it might be a good idea to start a new thread with a more descriptive title (ie. Corel stroke weight causes pause in cut) to get the answer. I'm curious myself.

Cheers,
Doug

[Margaret Turco]

I was just looking at the file and when I make the lines 2pt thick it appears that there were overlaps before the weld was done. I can't break the file apart but that might be something to look at.

[Ross Lowry]

Thanks for your comment Margaret, but the image was created with the bezier tool and there was no welding done.

[Margaret Turco]

hmmmm, I'm drawing a blank then.

[Tom Cole]

On my epilog mini 18 using corel x3, i have traced outlines and then had the same problem. when looking at the line magnified i saw that i had backtracked on the line i.e. some of the nodes were drawn on the segment that i already had drawn.. you can either delete the offending nodes, or sometime use the simplify tool to reduce the number of nodes will help.

[Ross Lowry]

Thanks Tom I will give it a try.