Trotec firing during outline?

[Scott Boatner]

Three times in as many days now, my Speedy 400/80 watt has fired during outline, twice burning a hole in material and last time running a cut line where there was no line on the file. Trotec is looking into it but has no firm answer yet, could be a tickle setting change where the laser tube becomes excited and fires, not sure. Anyone ever see this issue on their laser?

[Ron Sleeman]

Hello Scott: send me your e-mail through private message with your phone number, I had the same problem with my speedy 400/80, it would stop then start cutting in different areas. When I get home next Monday. I will send you some pictures of mine designs, that it cut through....lol

Thanks Ron Sleeman

[Neville Stewart]

Out of curiosity, would either of the halogen bulbs be out on your machines?

[Scott Boatner]

Don't even know how I could tell. The laser is engraving OK as long as I don't try to run an outline. Support is out of ideas at this point so looks like it's my not quite right $35,000 tool.

[Neville Stewart]

They're the big lights in the front side of the cabinet facing in. One left one right.

[Tony Lenkic]

Can you give bit more details on your file,
1 - Corel or other program
2 - Color pallet Trotec or standard
3 - Have you looked the file in wireframe (hidden objects)
4 - Material settings for vector raster match color used in artwork.

[Kev Williams]

so what's "running an outline"..? (I've never did anything resembling an outline without engraving it)

[Neville Stewart]

Laser runs a perimeter pass without firing for alignment.

[Kev Williams]

Curious, is it a text or vector file, or a bitmap file? And/or, is your cut lines horizontal or vertical?

Many times on all 4 lasers I've owned, once in awhile with no warning, the machine will run a horizontal vector line across the top or bottom of the bounding box, usually before or after engraving. Many times I didn't know the laser did it until the customer told me. (hard to see a single line on leather)

I'm always wary of engraving bitmap files because it's purely random, even with the same files run over and over, and I know of no way to prevent it other than don't engrave stuff! --not really an option!

Whether or not you're running a bitmap, raster or vector file, everything sent to the laser has a bounding box, all individual entities, and all entities as a whole. Could be a similar anomaly going on... my only advice would be to disable the laser while running you cut pass, if that's feasible...

[Tony Lenkic]

Laser runs a perimeter pass without firing for alignment.

Would like to see that in action. There are other aligning options in software.

[Neville Stewart]

Would like to see that in action. There are other aligning options in software.

Its under Edit/Outline jobs. Not familiar with other options, what are they?

[Scott Boatner]

Tech is working on my machine right now, cannot get it to repeat, I was running a text only file, no vectors or artwork from AI. Trotec has seen this before on a limited basis and sent a tech to work it out, couldn't ask for more than that.

[Scott Boatner]

No, wondered why that would be important til Ron the Trotec Tech explained it to me, but mine are good.

[Scott Boatner]

Well, apparently the issues I had have popped up in several other Trotec machines recently, Trotec sent Ron from Michigan with a replacement tube and boards. We tried all day yesterday to make it misfire again to no effect. He replaced the parts just to be safe (I am under warranty) and as of now we are running great. They will check the old parts to see if they can discover a link. Couldn't be happier with the quick and thorough response from Trotec, and thanks to Ron. I'll post the results after this large run we will be completing this next week or so.

[Scott Boatner]

So my SP400/80 has been running all day for four days straight with no issues, the firmware was downgraded and our tech Ron says that Trotec Austria has been able to duplicate the issue and is working on it. Trotec support has been first class all the way through this and right now my engraver is back to making me money. Thanks all for the comments.