Laser off course :(

[Soren Christensen]

Hi guys,

So at the moment Im working on my red/black chinese laser and for some reason, it seems to be off course on some points. It might be the file, im using i cant really tell I was doing some coasters earlier today and noticed that it went off path a few times, during the cut. Even when i trying to mirror the cut, the same errors happened.

So i decided to make some small washers (who dosnt need those) of 3mm 1/8 inch plywood. And now the laser seemed to be jerking at the bottom of the washers. :/

Is it the speed or the power or something completely different, making those "jerks" in the bottom of the circles? And why is machine going off course?

I have compiled a little video, so you guys can see it.

[Glen Monaghan]

The jerkiness while cutting the washers appears to be due to speed discontinuities at segment endpoints. It looks like your driver is sending quadrants or similar partial curves that collectively make up a circle, and the laser is, at least sometimes, slowing down at the end of one segment before starting into the next segment, rather than smoothly transitioning from one to the next. You might have an adjustment in the laser software to tweak those transitions but I have no familiarity with your setup.

[Bill George]

Carefully check the wires or plugs going to the stepper or servo motors. They can have a hidden wire break under the insulation. I had that problem and Kev can tell you of his problems with the same thing.

[Kev Williams]

not sure about the driver, I'm thinking the washers must be drawn in 4 quadrants with a node at each 'corner'-?
If so, then these other problems (I've highlighted)--
misalgn.jpg
may be due to the source material, OR, your engraving program's inability to "deal" with it...

As my reference: If I load this graphic, shown painted and wireframe, which works perfectly fine in Corel-
spd1.jpg
Into my Chinese Triumph's 8 year old engraving program (Lasersoft),
it works perfectly--or I should say 'paints' perfectly--
mis2.jpg
Yes I'm rastering and not cutting, but I'm not thinking that matters here...

However, If I load the same exact graphic into just a year-newer version of
Lasersoft, I get this nonsense...
mis3.jpg
And it will engrave just like this--

But this version of Lasersoft has a 'locate data errors' function the early version doesn't.
When checking for errors, the program finds dozens of them!
mis4.jpg
Good hell, 22 sections unclosed, 66 overlaps, 14 intersections and 10 collisions-!

What's it all mean? Not sure but none of these errors are 'findable' in Corel, and even though the Lasersoft error function is supposed to be able to fix the errors, it simply doesn't work... I've tried many newer versions of Lasersoft, I found one that actually works pretty good but, and I don't remember what exactly it did, but it did something screwy and I stopped using it, and went back to the version I've been using...

and yet, this riddled-with-errors spade works fine otherwise...?

That all said, this is why I think the problem may be your source material, in one way or another... Lately I've been getting graphics created in Adobe Illustrator, and I'm appalled at how AI, while making it easy for designers to draw things that print out on banners and paper just dandy, makes life for those running XY plotting machines a living nightmare... I've gotten graphics with over 20 different layers of stacked graphics; if the designer needs another color he just draws a new shape and stacks it on top of another shape. While a printer only sees the surface colors, a plotter will see every last thing in the design. Newer laser software may be able to ignore the lower layers, but mine don't, and especially not my Chinese software...

[Soren Christensen]

Carefully check the wires or plugs going to the stepper or servo motors. They can have a hidden wire break under the insulation. I had that problem and Kev can tell you of his problems with the same thing.

After doing a few checkups none of the motors seems to have any breaks :/

[Soren Christensen]

not sure about the driver, I'm thinking the washers must be drawn in 4 quadrants with a node at each 'corner'-?
If so, then these other problems (I've highlighted)--
misalgn.jpg
may be due to the source material, OR, your engraving program's inability to "deal" with it...

As my reference: If I load this graphic, shown painted and wireframe, which works perfectly fine in Corel-
spd1.jpg
Into my Chinese Triumph's 8 year old engraving program (Lasersoft),
it works perfectly--or I should say 'paints' perfectly--
mis2.jpg
Yes I'm rastering and not cutting, but I'm not thinking that matters here...

However, If I load the same exact graphic into just a year-newer version of
Lasersoft, I get this nonsense...
mis3.jpg
And it will engrave just like this--

But this version of Lasersoft has a 'locate data errors' function the early version doesn't.
When checking for errors, the program finds dozens of them!
mis4.jpg
Good hell, 22 sections unclosed, 66 overlaps, 14 intersections and 10 collisions-!

What's it all mean? Not sure but none of these errors are 'findable' in Corel, and even though the Lasersoft error function is supposed to be able to fix the errors, it simply doesn't work... I've tried many newer versions of Lasersoft, I found one that actually works pretty good but, and I don't remember what exactly it did, but it did something screwy and I stopped using it, and went back to the version I've been using...

and yet, this riddled-with-errors spade works fine otherwise...?

That all said, this is why I think the problem may be your source material, in one way or another... Lately I've been getting graphics created in Adobe Illustrator, and I'm appalled at how AI, while making it easy for designers to draw things that print out on banners and paper just dandy, makes life for those running XY plotting machines a living nightmare... I've gotten graphics with over 20 different layers of stacked graphics; if the designer needs another color he just draws a new shape and stacks it on top of another shape. While a printer only sees the surface colors, a plotter will see every last thing in the design. Newer laser software may be able to ignore the lower layers, but mine don't, and especially not my Chinese software...

Regarding the washers, then I drew them myself with 2 single complete circles (maybe thats the problem?)

Software wise, Im using Lightburn, which should be good enough. However Im just currently trying RDworks out and so far it does not seem to have the same issues with it, as lightburn does when cutting If this is the case, then Lightburn goes out the window

[Kev Williams]

This is what Bill was referring to-
DSC04997.jpg
-I had a broken ground wire within the drag-chain wiring-
chain3.jpg

--when the chain laid flat, all was well, but when the chain looped upwards- about 15" down the table- the connection would open and all hell would break loose with the steppers!
Had this same issue with my Gravograph LS900 (at around 13 years old)
9wire2.jpg

HOWEVER-- when broke wires come into play things get noisy and radical But, an iffy connection at one of the plugs could cause some minor problems such as yours- I think

If RDWorks works and Lightburn doesn't, by all means use RDworks! But don't $#i*can Lightburn, could be an isolated issue...

[Soren Christensen]

This is what Bill was referring to-
DSC04997.jpg
-I had a broken ground wire within the drag-chain wiring-
chain3.jpg

--when the chain laid flat, all was well, but when the chain looped upwards- about 15" down the table- the connection would open and all hell would break loose with the steppers!
Had this same issue with my Gravograph LS900 (at around 13 years old)
9wire2.jpg

HOWEVER-- when broke wires come into play things get noisy and radical But, an iffy connection at one of the plugs could cause some minor problems such as yours- I think

If RDWorks works and Lightburn doesn't, by all means use RDworks! But don't $#i*can Lightburn, could be an isolated issue...

Ouch, havent seen any kind of breaks or connection issues like that though And checked all the wires on motors, PSU and driver and it dosnt seem to be that. So for the cutting for now, I'll go with RDworks. Havent tried RDworks for engraving, but will give it a go one of these days

Pretty amazed by the speeds im getting with the new tube (upgraded the "old" one) a Reci W2 from Cloudray with a new PSU and I must say, there is a clear difference between the old one and this one in terms of cutting and engraving quality

[Bill George]

AS Kev pointed out these wires are hidden in the bundles that move all the time, you need to Insp those wires, not the motors.

[Steve Utick]

Regarding the washers, then I drew them myself with 2 single complete circles (maybe thats the problem?)

Software wise, Im using Lightburn, which should be good enough. However Im just currently trying RDworks out and so far it does not seem to have the same issues with it, as lightburn does when cutting If this is the case, then Lightburn goes out the window

I would encourage you to post on the LightBurn forums, or at least e-mail their support e-mail. If there is some bug in LightBurn that's causing this, they would really like to know and fix it. The developers are very active and want to get bugs squashed. If you were to e-mail LightBurn, I'd send them the .lbrn file as well as an output .rd file from RDWorks and LightBurn so they can compare and advise on what's causing the difference between the two.