Missing engraving dots on successive jobs
Posted: Mon Jul 15, 2024
I made a custom "Laser Lathe" to produce lighting parts. It has this issue where after a few successive runs of the same engraving job it will start to produce spiral patches of unetched areas where the laser did not seem to fire. Usually after about 10-20 minutes of running.
My machine is featured here.
https://www.grbl.org/100-watt-rotary-custom-laser
The setup is built on a 100W Reci Tube and basic cloudray power supplysupply. The motors are nema23 steppers with integral drivers which drive X and A axis. The controller runs GRBLHAL to interpret our custom gcode. There are three mirrors that that direct the beam to a fixed head. The parts being etched are on a rotary mounted on a sled (axis). The included image shows parts made with the same exact program but producing different appearances. Baically the density of dots should be a smooth gradient without any spiral or empty patches like #3 & #7 in the image. With some discussion with the designer of the controller I have tried:
Changing out the pwm line from the controller to laser ps to a shielded cable. No change
Checked the thermals of the controller. Everything was cool. The water temperature stays between 18-20C
switching computers to send the program. Seems to help initially
Looking for ideas on what further to look into. Thanks in advance!
My machine is featured here.
https://www.grbl.org/100-watt-rotary-custom-laser
The setup is built on a 100W Reci Tube and basic cloudray power supplysupply. The motors are nema23 steppers with integral drivers which drive X and A axis. The controller runs GRBLHAL to interpret our custom gcode. There are three mirrors that that direct the beam to a fixed head. The parts being etched are on a rotary mounted on a sled (axis). The included image shows parts made with the same exact program but producing different appearances. Baically the density of dots should be a smooth gradient without any spiral or empty patches like #3 & #7 in the image. With some discussion with the designer of the controller I have tried:
Changing out the pwm line from the controller to laser ps to a shielded cable. No change
Checked the thermals of the controller. Everything was cool. The water temperature stays between 18-20C
switching computers to send the program. Seems to help initially
Looking for ideas on what further to look into. Thanks in advance!