X Slop

[Mac Carnes]

I goMy answers are in bold italics below. Attached is a screenshot of the image/file/drawing.




Second, I think it would be very helpful for you to tell us the technical details of how you set up your job:
1. How big (in inches or mm) is the image you're trying to engrave / scan? 15” x 10”
2. What speed are you trying to use (as measured in mm / second or inches / second)? Engrave at 11.811 in/s (300mm/s) and cut at 0.276 in/s (7mm/s)
3. Where on the laser bed do you want the image to be engraved / scanned? Is it at the far left or far right? Or is it in the center? Please be as precise as possible with your answer (actual X and Y coordinates would be ideal). This issue is happening with multiple files – some being toward the bottom right corner, some being toward center-right, etc. – but this particular file is an image that is dead center with the center point being at 11.81102, 7.87402.

Picture of drawing.jpg

[Pete Cyr]

is you position in RDWORKS set to "current position" ?

current position.png

Are you positioning the lase head to the upper right corner of your material (align the laser head with the green dot in you picture)

[Jeffrey Aley]

1. How big (in inches or mm) is the image you're trying to engrave / scan? 15” x 10”
2. What speed are you trying to use (as measured in mm / second or inches / second)? Engrave at 11.811 in/s (300mm/s) and cut at 0.276 in/s (7mm/s)
3. Where on the laser bed do you want the image to be engraved / scanned? Is it at the far left or far right? Or is it in the center? Please be as precise as possible with your answer (actual X and Y coordinates would be ideal). This issue is happening with multiple files – some being toward the bottom right corner, some being toward center-right, etc. – but this particular file is an image that is dead center with the center point being at 11.81102, 7.87402.

Thanks for sending this info; it is very helpful.
I see that you're scanning an image that is relatively large compared to the size of your laser, and the speed is fast. Your laser should be capable of using these settings, but let's try an experiment to see what happens:

1. Create a small image, perhaps 1" x 1". You could just draw a square if you want. Draw it near the center of the RDWorks workspace.
2. Set that image to Scan at 50mm/s (2 in/s -- close enough) and low power (~15%).
3. Put a piece of scrap material in the machine and run the job.

Questions:
1) Did the experiment work, or did you get the same error again?
2) How do you run your jobs? Do you start them from your PC, or do you upload them to the laser and then start them from the control panel on the front of the machine?
3) What is the answer to Pete's "Position" question?


Questions for the OTHER FORUM MEMBERS:
I see that Mac has his RDWorks setup to use inches and not metric values (I'm using metric). I seem to recall that RDWorks has a few areas where this causes problems - like the screen prompt remains in metric, but the value is actually Imperial. Can someone remind me? Are the acceleration settings given in inches/second^2?

[Gene Uselman]

I believe that Jeffrey has this well in hand but would like to add that my machine will get these errors sometimes no matter what I do, sometimes saving and reopening the file or reducing the quantity of items helps, sometimes moving the cut object completely off the the [program] grid helps, seems voodoo to me. I think some days the machine just has a bad day? I wonder if Lightburn users get these errors?

[Mac Carnes]

My daughter and I finally got the machine to do correctly today. She was doing her project and was possibly not using the settings right. It may be better to set the software in mm instead of inches. My daughter has it set in inches and there is a possibility the software may have translation problems. We needed to set position at "Current Position" to work best. It doesn't have the slop error now. This was a good learning experience. Thanks guys for the help!!!!

[Pete Cyr]

Glad you are up and working.

[Gene Uselman]

I am beginning to think in metrics and imperial, maybe I will try with the machine in mm and see if that helps. If I can import in inches and the machine is working in mm, it would not be so bad. It is so sporadic tho that it would be had to tell if it is better.