Machsupport Forum
Mach Discussion => General Mach Discussion => Topic started by: Hardus on April 01, 2020, 05:09:24 AM
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Good day
I have a problem when i engrave on my laser machine
When i engrave with a zigzag patron the design moves in one direction even tho the mach 3 software say it is in position
but if i engrave in a fill it engraves without moving the design
also if i do normal cutting of parts all comes out fine and straight
I made a couple of test and the results is always the same in the same direction and the same amount
Attach some photo of the out come of my test
has any body came across a simile problem and do you have advice
machine as been doing it from the begging
I use aspire to do the designs and to write the gcodes
Thank you in advance
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My guess is that you are loosing steps - try reducing Velocity and Acceleration in motor tuning and save the changes.
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I have try adjusting Velocity and Acceleration still same results
I have used the same drawing only change i have made it the way it does the engraving
Engraves by going around the design and not zigzag using exactly the same settings
So my question is where can the problem be
Because if i am loosing steps why is the one type engraving correct and the other one not correct
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What are your Velocity and Acceleration settings for each axis ?
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Acceleration Velocity
X axis 175 1300
y Axis 175 1300
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You settings seem quite modest so the only other thing that I can suggest is that you look for some sort of mechanical slippage on your X Axis drive chain.
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If you .zip and attach the zig-zag Gcode file that is causing you problems I will run it here to see if the problem persists. Also attach your <your profile>.xml file (Mach3 folder (typically Mach3Mill.xml)) then I can check your settings to see if anything there is causing an issue. You need to rename the .xml file to hardus.xml before it can be attached (all files / attachments posted to the forum need a unique name).
Tweakie.
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I have attached the files as per request
The quick engrave 1 file i use the y axis to do the zigzag and the test square 0 deg i use the x axis to do the engraving
I have the same issue with both files
some times i will have this issue with only one side of the square
Also did another test with engraving a letter (B)
same velocity and acceleration settings but with different kurnel settings
the machine is using a parallel port
i did determent with DriverTest.exe witch is the best kurnel speed for the machine and it is 35khz
but i did also engrave with the machine using the impact/engrave plug in for mach3 and the pictures turned out with out any problem and i used a kurnel speed of 25khz
Please let me know if you require more information and thank you for the assistance so far
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Some more pics
Three of the sides are correct and only one is not correct
Big square was made with zigzag using y axis the small square was made using the x axis
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Your Gcode files ran correctly here without any sloping of the sides.
Interesting that you have the feed-rate set at 12,000 mm/min which an axis would not achieve over such a short distance as the zig-zag path. When I set the correct laser power for maximum velocity on the long strokes over-burn was created on the zig-zag. This results in pretty poor engraving results as can be seen in my pic. and it is really not the correct way to laser engrave anything.
I think you need to create a better toolpath and run at a modest feed-rate and see what results you get then. Something else worth trying (and this may correct your sloping sides) is changing your Ports & Pins / Motor Outputs / Step Low Active to Active Low (tick) for the X, A and Y axis.
Tweakie.
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I did some more testing on my machine and found my belt had some miss alignment corrected it and also brought my axis velocity and acceleration down
Got a much better result to my engraving also decide only to stay way from engraving with the zigzag pattern and stick to the fill method
Would like to thank you for all you assist Tweakie.CNC
I am using Aspire for our engraving and would like to know if you have any other suggestions on tool set up or perhaps a mod to my post processor
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Good to hear that you have identified the axis alignment problem.
The Vectric 'pattern fill' will often produce a ziz-zag Gcode toolpath which, as you have discovered, is totally unsuitable for laser work.
The best alternative (IMO) is to raster engrave a bitmap where the axis acceleration/deceleration zones are outside the pattern area. Although the Mach3 Impact/Laser engraver plugin will do this extremely well it relies on 32bit Parallel Port operation and many (like me) have now moved on to 64bit PC’s. Warp9 are working to perfect a laser, raster image function for their ESS and Mach4 and Artsoft are also working on an independent raster scan function for Mach4.
Perhaps sad to say but there are other competitive softwares out there which perform laser raster scanning extremely well but I shall leave it to you to look.
Tweakie.