I’m not getting anywhere with the 1600mw laser toolhead on my A150. I’ve now wasted all the plywood that came with the machine and had to wait for more to arrive
I know everyone is occupied with their new 10w tools ( closest emoji to a green eyed monster I could find) but I hope someone out there can spare a few minutes.
WorkOrigin is Center. Good.
Work Size is 160mm² . Not good
This confused me for some time and kept changing it to 150mm² to match the size of the plywood. I now think WorkSize = BedSize and leave it alone. But I think that’s wrong.
Now I took one look at this and thought:
“That’s going to be too small. If I can get a gift in there no one will be able to get it out again!”
So I changed the size of the Object by dragging the blue line and moving it around till it looked like it would be a better size. I now reckoned that it would be a good idea to test the camera .
That went well and the Object definitely fitted the WorkPiece. I’m sure some of you know what happens next. Don’t laugh.
Click Next
Generate G-code and preview
Export to the machine
Run boundary
The boundary is the blue line!! Who knew?
The toolhead knocks all the silicone plugs off because the boundary is now outside the workpiece! STOP!
Start again.
Is there a way to move the boundary nearer to the object?
This time while checking the object with the camera, as before, I discover I can add more objects, write text, import logos… Whoopee!
Somehow the coordinate origin or the work origin changes. I have no idea how.
RESULT:
It’s run off the workpiece again!
It’s not quite cutting through the plywood, even though I have set the thickness at 1.6mm. All the plywood sheets measure 1.6mm not 1.5mm.
I still have no idea what I’m doing or not doing.
Can anyone suggest a checklist of things to do and in what order?
Using camera resets work origin to bottom left, but the machine defaults to center so every time you use the camera it changes the job setup to have the bottom left again. After setting everything up in the project go back to job setup and fix work origin to center.
The camera alignment on 1.6watt isnt ever perfect, you use it as well as possible and check boundary then adjust if necessary.
To “move the boundary closer to the objects” you’d need to export the shapes and individually import them instead. The boundary is the size of the largest object or group. If you import an object with a large canvas size and tiny picture in the middle then that large canvas size will be the boundary not its visible contents.
Cutting all the way through was lots of playing, i preferred lower power (~70) and multiple passes and small z drop, but 100% power was quicker / different
Thanks tyeth,
Looking at the preview of the toolpath is there a way to see the origin? there’s no red dot like in the job setup box.
I can see there’s still alot of trial and error ahead. Unfortunately my expectations for the laser were very high because the 3d printing example print went so well.
The gift box has not been set up very well for the A150. Perhaps it works better on the other models.
Having just spent the morning playing, the Add background from Camera sets work origin to bottom left and locks it. To fix I had to remove background once happy and then able to set job to center origin. I think bottom left is easier if you always set your work origin on touchscreen to bottom left too. Either way a little to much fudging compared to 3d printing agreed, they have taken the feedback about camera preview adjusting to height of objects so improvements coming…
Finally a moderate success!
Because it’s so much smaller than intended the tabs around the top of the box for the double layer are not deep enough. But at least I have learned a bit about control of the origins.
Just playing again, the origin kills me. Was trying to get through 9mm hardwood ply, classic always making life hard for myself. Eventually I tried drilling bolt holes about 27.9cm apart and using M3x16 bolts in between slots of the bed, but the center origin when using the touchscreen is about -5mm X, -9mm Y, off, when using the middle laser-bed bolts when viewed from the side for alignment. It seems like the best option is to find my center and then drill offset bolt holes. If I use the 3d printed bed alignment corners (90degree L with bottom pegs for bed, not great but interesting especially their comments Printables) and square work materials then bottom left work origins only, it works okay, but I do have to set the work origin on the touchscreen to my bottom left offset. My problem is my materials are not square (and I want to support such objects) so I’m drawing a centerline and working from that. Eventually I plan to make a jig for centering from the corners equally, (like a slide rule) and 3d print adapters for workpieces to square them off if it’s that important, or actually square off the materials via cutting etc.
In regards to your question of a way to “see the origin” I have created a file with a single square box like 30x30, placed with bottom left corner at 0,0. I can run that file to check more easily what the origin looks like from different angles as I use Run Boundary, then I can go back and select the real file, it’s a hassle as you have to go through auto/manual again but has been useful in the past as I get to see it walk the X and Y center lines as well as it showing the offset at the start and end of the square.
Running from Luban just to test, seems far more reliable, it defaults to bottom left (machine 0,0) and after adjusting my camera calibration it is a lot better (I redid it then pixel perfect adjusted the lines to the center of the paper cut lines), and now it seems near perfect. I even chucked it at a jaunty angle to see if it missed… Admittedly I’ve only run 3 through so far (running from luban over wifi, not touchscreen) so will report back.
No improvement to using via the touchscreen.
Oh and related to your original question, lots of passes and drop the z each pass, on the 1.6W I was dropping 0.4mm each pass with 70-100% power, sometimes as little as 0.2 or 0 depending on power.
Just received similar advice for the ten watt
I have a guide on finding and using a repeatable origin on the laser here:
Now I simply make sure to just scoot my project X+5.5mm and put G53 (work in machine coordinates) at the beginning of my gcode file and my origin is always the same in the corner. None of the fiddling around.
closest emoji to a green eyed monster I could find) but I hope someone out there can spare a few minutes.
