Trotec Speedy300 edge finish no good.

[alan evans]

Hi everyone,
This is my first post so please be gentle with me !!
ok I work in a small machine shop in Toronto Canada and part of my responsibilities is to laser cut blanks out of 1/8"black extruded acrylic sheet.
This is the 2 nd Trotec 300 machine I have worked on ( The first suffered a catastrophic fire and went to laser heaven ).
On this newer 80W machine I am using the same Corel X6 (64 bit)programs that were used on the older machine so the programs are proven.( Edge finishes all acceptable)
The problem I'm experiencing is the edge finish when cutting a combined x+y motion it appears "lumpy" but the singular motion X or Y cuts within the same program are good .
I have had Trotec service out many times this past year and the machine was given the Ok but the problem persists.
A service ticket was applied over 6 months ago and I was told Trotec were seeking advise from Austria but still no answers.
I have provided many samples pieces with x,y and combined motions highlighting the poor edge quality on the Hypotenuse and the ok finish on the other edges but again no answers.

Someone suggested that the combined X+Y motion was "lumpy because the included angle was 42.2deg (designers !!) and it would be corrected at 45 deg.
I'm use to aerospace CNC machines and that didn't strike a chord with me.

Anyway hopefully someone can help.
Appreciate
Alan

[Kev Williams]

How well or badly does the machine cut circles? Or a 9-sided 'nonagon'? (Yes, I had to look that up!) --Pic below is a couple of 2"-ish diameter holes cut in 1/8" extruded Rowmark, with my $4400-to-my-door-from-China 13 years ago, rather huge-ish Triumph 1300x900 80w glass laser. If this thing can make smooth curved-edge cuts I'm not sure why a mid-to-high 5-figure Trotec can't do it. Is it possible the thing is in some sort of 'draft mode'? Could be possible a connector plug is needing some electric contact spray cleaning; I've been running computer controlled engraving machines since 1981 and thee one common denominator I've found is that ANY male-female plug connection is subject to 'carbon-tracking' or whatever it's actually called, resulting in a faulty electric connection. My first fiber laser (now 7 years old) began engraving 'goofy', best I can describe would be it was 'not coloring inside the lines' -- got pretty bad at times, so I opened the box, found the circuit card that the galvo head plugged into, pulled apart the cable connection, sprayed both sides down with CRC electronics cleaner, re-connected and it's never messed up since. Every so often I'll spray both ends of every USB, LPT and Serial cable and connector in this place. Most of my machines are well over 10 years old, many over 20 years, they all work... knock on my head!

THAT all said-- several years ago my BIL who used to work for me, he upgraded is Corel X4 to X5, and he had similar issues with it, I don't remember exactly what but it was 'engraving/cutting quality' related... Corel eventually traded him up to X6 because they couldn't resolve the issue. I'm still using X3 and X4, for what I do they work great for me...

Not sure I'm any help, but good luck!

holes.jpg