When laser cutting I cannot find anywhere to set the thickness of the material.
Luban version 4.1.1
Snapmaker 2.0 A350 Firmware Snapmaker2_V1.14.1_20211207
Earlier versions of Luban allowed you to set the thickness of the material although this workflow was clunky and I often forgot to set it correctly. With the latest version I cannot find any way to set the thickness of the material. All I can find is via the touchscreen Settings - Laser - Adjust Laser Height. Surely this is a mistake!?
The Laser setup in Luban seems to be profile based now, set number of passes and step down, this will create the correct toolpath(s). You still need to set the material thickness on the touchscreen (or in Luban workspace if you are running the job from there) in order to set the focus correctly. This seems more logical to me.
could you elaborate on ‘set the material thickness’? Do we need to run the laser focus calibration every time? How can we set that in Luban? - I can’t find any way to do that. I see no option other than the touchscreen laser settings, where I guess we set that to material thickness + 20mm. I say that because running the laser focus calibration on 3mm workpiece resulted with a 23mm Z height.
My logic is that calibrating the laser focal point is a one time task (until a head change) because it is based on the interior characteristics of the laser module. That same focal point shifts up and down with material thickness which is the only parameter that changes. So name the change for what it is and allow us to specify material thickness easily and obviously. With my logic the Z height becomes focal length + material thickness.
Yes, you should only need to calibrate autofocus after a mechanical change to the machine (or firmware update). When you start the job from the touchscreen with autofocus you’re right, the distance from head to the material is whatever the calibration determined, the material thickness you enter is used to vary the laser Z to ensure the correct focus distance.
You only need to set the material thickness in Luban is if you are running the job from there, if I remember correctly a dialog box pops up.
The toolpath doesn’t care what the thickness is, it just moves the head in the Z increments set in the profile used to generate the toolpath. Hope that makes sense, its not gospel, just what I have discovered since the recent new version.
OK, so after creating the laser cut path, generating the G-Code and sending that to the workspace I see the G-code file in the list on the right. There is no preview. When I click on Start on Luban the Start Job window pops up, I set the material thickness and click Start. The laser starts cutting at this point. It is also the same point that I see the cut path in the main pane of the workspace, the first time I get to review the cutting path - not a comfortable process. We need to see the cut path on the grid before commiting to cut.
Totally agree with workingmatt. We need to see the cut path on the grid BEFORE committing to cut. It’s crazy that you’re blind to the path and height until you actually commit. It makes using the laser on non-standard/non-flat surfaces like bottles almost impossible. It really puts both the product you’re working on and the machine itself at risk of being damaged. The fact that this was such a big change and not well spelled out, is rather upsetting and shows a need for better change management.
