No your cuts look amazing!!
I just know my etches come out way cleaner with no smoke stains, and my little laser cuts 1.5mm balsa real clean now. If you plan on using it in production, it could save you a step cleaning up the smoke residue.
I liked it so much I got a second and I use it with IPA to mist cool Aluminum while cutting, Lets me V carve when I have never been able to. leaves a super shiny surface.
I see what your saying. The laser has an integrated air assist and Iām pumping 30L/min through it. When I get the enclosure set up, Iāll be adding 300cfm of extraction to that too.
Also- Iāll be painting anything that comes off for production.
Am having an issue in that I canāt seem to cut 6.75mm in anything less than 7 passes at 180mm/min.
Thatās way below the advertised spec of 13mm, 200mm/min 3 passes. Of course- this is ālaser plyā and not āspruce woodā that they cut at that speed.
Iāve been messing with focus distance, varying speed (more passes at higher speed Vs slower and fewer)
Cutting 3.25mm in 2 passes at 180mm/min, 100%, which was expected.
Will have to do a proper focus ramp test - but you donāt get a lot of room to play with a recommended 5mm focal distance- and a calibration series to see what works best. Since i have control over the Z, I may also look into how lightburn handles that aspect.
5mm or 50mm? I think both lenses I bought are something like a 50mm focal length. Light burn has a focus test pattern. Give that a shot.
Ply can be more difficult because you also need to cut through layers of glue. 13mm is pretty nuts, but Seems odd you canāt get a bot more than half that. I donāt have much experience with deep diode cutting. Not sure if you are still supposed to focus on the bottom and run several passes, or maybe now at the tops and step down with the Z axis.
5mm focal length, but they recommend 3mm from Workpiece surface for cutting.
Itās a specialized short focal length module, designed for long time cutting. 11W dual diode. I got it because the more established A4060 module had issues with cutting for more than 30 minutes, was $46 more expensive and didnāt come with air assist. That one did have a 35mm focal length.
I put a question up on a neje Facebook page and the main comments are that the lens gets very dirty quickly since It is so close. They actually recommend 30 PSI of air assist, not the 30l/min written in the manual. It was a typo that they didnāt correct.
So now Iām looking into how to clean the lens, and getting an additional line and regulator for the compressor I have. Might get the air blaster too. Just need to figure out how to connect the 1/4ā compressor hose to the 1/8ā inch airline tubing
And yes to the focus ramp test in lightburn. Very useful
Man the lasers are kinda complicated.
I had mine running pretty low pressure and the valve was barely open but, I did have it aimed directly at the focal point and very close.
I am sure the users you are talking to would know better than me for your specific laser mine are all pretty old at this point. I definitely want to know if you get up to 10mm or more cutting though!
Weird one-
Just went to do a job, and only one file
Comes up on SD, despite the file list having a bunch more
What gives? Name formats too long?
This IS running the nightly that allows long filenames
Interesting.
Not the word I used, lol
Shortening the file name on the card fixed it
I usually save the file with the toolpath and tools appended to the start- a feature of carveco. Turns out thatās too much info.
Abbreviating the file name made it appear in the SD list
I think I have a habit of short names because the LCD only showed a limited number of characters. I would not have guessed that would be an issue.
Mine are all ā4 YZ platesā ā2YZ platesā even the printers are āZ Setā
Yeah, I could probably be more succinct, and takes notes in a notebook
For some reason, I couldnāt get that program to run.
Doing some checks, but something might be screwy
Ok, some weirdness
Looks like files over 100kb wonāt run from ESP3D
After the file name issue yesterday, I went to cut one of the renamed files, and it wouldnāt run.
I checked the gcode with a text editor, and figured the mismatch between the file name in file explorer compared to the file name in the text header might be an issue.
Changed the name of the file in the text header (after opening gcode file) to match the file
Name on the sd card- and it worked.
Yay.
So I cut 8x 5.1ā circles out of some 6.5ā squares of 12mm plywood, going fine. Using the Z probe, macros and some registration guides to smooth workflow. Having fun.
Need two more, out of 12mm ply, so prep some 6.5ā squares out of 18mm. Run upstairs, amend the toolpath to reflect new thickness, save gcode, put it in machine, set everything up- wonāt run
Uugghh
The ONLY difference between the two files (other than the name- I added 18 to the 18mm thick file) is that the latest one is bigger kb - 140 vs 88kb.
I get this error.
And this is the Terminal report I get when I run the smaller file, that works
And hereās the gcode start, side by side:
Any reason you can think why I canāt run bigger files (>100kb) through ESP3D? Anyone else noticed/mentioned that?
Thanks
The gcode I run everyday is 129kb
I donāt have any cuts to run today but I will double-check it probably tomorrow.
I am doing some other testing so I used the screen the last few days.
Your first line of gcode āG0ā is not right. You have a floating rate and two other āFā's in the same line.
Hmm, canāt believe I didnāt notice that.
Iām pretty sure thatās in all the carveco files Iāve done with origin at center. Itās in both, so not culprit, but Iāll look at the PP and amend.
So weird.
Could it be the SD card extension, you think?
That Z with no F, could most likely be the issue.
Those are hardcoded feed rates for some reason, they are not correct, I would just hardcore it differently for a quick fix.
āG0 [X] [Y] [Z] F480ā
You can use a larger feedrate as Marlin will limit it.
Actually just copy the line below it. With a G0 instead
