LaserUser.com Forum (formerly RDWorksLab)

I'm getting this error when trying to engrave at over 250mm/s say 500+ every now and then, it's never at the same spot and it's never consistent, but somes can happen 2-3 times per job, the head just stops and goes back to home with this error message "If restart at PowerOff" it asks me if i want to continue press enter or cancel esc. If i hit enter i would say 40% of the time it'll continue where it left off, but mostly it's at the wrong place. Any idea what may be causing this error to appear ?

The controller is 6445g.

Thanks!

I get that when I have a utility company power flicker. It thinks it lost power and wants to know if you want to continue the job that was interrupted.
You've got a loose wire somewhere, or a weak / bad 24V supply. Possible a bad main or E-stop could do it also. Do you still have you cover switch hooked up? If so, disable it in the software and see if that cures your problem.

Are you using RDworks or Lightburn?

RDWorks, but it's in the controller. If it gets a power flicker, it asks if you want to continue. The joys of living in the country... I would imagine it's so if there has been some time between power loss and restoration there isn't something sitting in the laser for the head to crash into. Like one step up from hitting the PAUSE. For mine, if I get a flicker I get it. Don't remember if it tries to restart from where it's at, or if it homes and then asks. Haven't had a problem recently during a cut. Had a few a while back that had me seriously looking at a small UPS just for the laser to take care of the time it takes for the whole house generator to kick in. Had two days of wind and power flickers...

I use lightburn, as for the power being at fault the problem i have with the theory is it's ONLY when running at 500 mm/s engraving, I can run and do at 250 all day 8h / day every day of the week and it never does that. If i try at 500 i'll get that error 3-4 times per hour. as for the power flicker, I have computers, and other things running in the same room and nothing gets interrupted. Also my whole house electric monitor would warn me if there was an issue.

As for cover switch I don't have it setup. The machine can run wide open. I never do but that's besides the point.

Don't know the details of your machine, just asking on the variables.

I'm out of guesses if it's only happening at higher speeds. The last thing I could think to check, wold be to clip a meter on your 24 supply and check voltage during operation. I'm grasping at straws thinking maybe the motors are drawing just enough more current at higher speeds to cause a bit of an internal brown out. It's worth a check. That or if you have access to another 24V supply, put the controller on that separately and see what happens. Again, grasping at straws here.

Sounds like you answered your own question - if 250 works all day with no glitches and 500 creates problems you are exceeding the capability of the system to operate without a fault.

Try decreasing speed incrementally - I would recommend 400mm/sec as a starting point and go up or down in speed based upon results operating at that speed.

A number of factors affect the speed at which a laser can operate - motor torque and speed, weight of the head assembly, acceleration rates in vendor settings, and response time of the controller to list a few.

You indicated in your profile that your system was DIY - I assume you built it so I presume you are familiar with the parameters I listed. The only real variable I cited was acceleration - all others would require a change in hardware.

Hi Pete,

Sorry about the lack of details. The gantry is powered by a high torque nema 23 (was 17 prior but that was upgraded in order to not have any issues at 500+) motor is powered by it's own 36v power supply, it does not share the power supply with any other motors. The controller is powered by it's own 24v power supply, same as above, not shared. Acceleration rate is 10,000 but it's giving me the same problem all the way down to 5. I can sometimes make it work for an hour without giving me this power failure fault at 700 mms and 10k acceleration.

Well, that exhausted all my ideas. If all the power is separated I am clueless as to what is causing the glitches. I do practically no engraving so I'm going to have to bow out in the problem solving. I will keep an eye and chime in if the light bulb comes on at some point.