so at the start of every engraving session, Estlcam turns the laser on and then it seems to sit in place( around 6 seconds) leaving pretty obvious and ugly burn holes. is there any way to instantly start moving after it turns on the laser? i figure this is some type of spin up delay but i cant see it in the gcode or how to change the setting for it.
the G4 p10000 is added by me before it turns the laser on for each engraving to give the laser a break. removing this has no effect on the 6 second delay.
;Project selulogo
;Created by Estlcam version 11 build 11.040
;Machining time about 00:09:20 hours
it ended up being a tad more than that, but if figure it out!
it was the m3 s100 that was doing it
the settings for that delay are here
#define SPINDLE_LASER_ENABLE_INVERT false // set to “true” if the on/off function is reversed #define SPINDLE_LASER_PWM true // set to true if your controller supports setting the speed/power #define SPINDLE_LASER_PWM_INVERT false // set to “true” if the speed/power goes up when you want it to go slower #define SPINDLE_LASER_POWERUP_DELAY 5000 // delay in milliseconds to allow the spindle/laser to come up to speed/power #define SPINDLE_LASER_POWERDOWN_DELAY 5000 // delay in milliseconds to allow the spindle to stop #define SPINDLE_DIR_CHANGE false // set to true if your spindle controller supports changing spindle direction #define SPINDLE_INVERT_DIR false #define SPINDLE_STOP_ON_DIR_CHANGE true // set to true if Marlin should stop the spindle before changing rotation direction
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obviously, changing these from a 5000 ms delay to a 1ms delay makes the program immediately start moving after powering up the laser! yay!
Well it’s been a while so I don’t quite remember exactly, but if I’m not mistaken there are defaults for when you use a tool, you can edit the default command that the tool will start out with every time. I haven’t really looked at estl cam in 2 years or so now.
I know I say this a lot, but everyone with a laser should try lightburn. It’s designed for lasers and has nifty fearures specifically for them. One of the best ones is that it will coast past the end of a design when doing a fill pattern. This keeps the laser moving when turning it on and off to reduce the initial dark spot.
The spindle speed pause is disabled if the Marlin firmware is compiled with laser mode enabled. I don’t know whether there’s a Marlin gcode command to toggle between laser and spindle modes. In grbl, laser mode is controlled with the $32 setting and can be changed without having to flash firmware.
Thanks Tom, but I don’t know how to get into the grbl settings to remove the pause during engraving. I’m finding the command for DWELL, G4, listed in the Gcode listed in the progress panel on the right, while engraving. Can you edit this in the panel or anywhere in Estlcam to remove this dwell time after opening the file in the CNC Controller?
To change most grbl configuration options you just issue a command from the terminal, like $32 =1 to enable laser mode or $32=0 to turn it off. These settings are automatically persistent. Issue the command $$ to see your current settings and a short description of each. There are only a few things you need to edit firmware for, like tweaking the homing sequence, changing kinematics ( e.g. coreXY), and enabling auto sharing.
