That’s not quite what I’m seeing, at least not with a Lightburn generated image file. The laser certainly does vary in power as it draws even with dynamic power off. The only difference I can see with dynamic power on/off is that the sides of the image are burned more when dynamic power is off so it seems that dynamic power on is considering the speed of the gantry movement and altering the laser power based on that.
Martin
I’ve tried turning off dynamic mode and still only get a flash from laser once. It will not flash again if I run code again. I have to turn everything off and on again to get laser to flash once more. I can guesstimate location and laser etch a design just fine but is not accurate. Doesn’t matter if I home machine or not
Did you hit save when you turned it off?
Yes. I hit save. Hitting a wall here.
I uncheck dynamic, hit save, enter m3 s10, start and laser comes on
When I move spindle to adjust it goes out. Then click the code again and start. It comes on again. Keep doing that till it’s where you want it.
I’ve only been able to get my laser to flash when putting in the m3/4 s10 command. I’ll continue messing around with it until i get something to work. ill update when I figure it out unless someone comes up with a fix.
#solved
I played with PWM min duty. Factory settings is at 1. I input 10 and it turned on because I still had m3 s10 running. I brought it up by one each time and hit save until it turned on at 5. This is also with dynamic mode on. So I don’t have to worry about switching it on and off to get it to work. I’ll keep you updated if I hit any snags with my solution.
I just found this thread after some searching for a resolution to some setup issues with the JTech laser. One of which was the MDI to turn it on for zeroing.
After reading through all of this I was able to set up my 1FW to perform MDI commands after homing. I changed my tools “pwm-min-duty” to (2) and then unchecked “dymanic-power” and saved. The laser would then turn on with M3S10 and not burn the material. After zeroing out the X&Y I then checked “dynamic-power” and saved.
The issue I now have is the laser only cuts at 100% no mater what I have it set at when generating toolpaths in VCarve Pro and using the Onefinity JTech post processor.
I did an etch with the min duty at 5. I’m doing another etch with it back at 1 to see if there’s a difference. I’ll keep you posted.
I was having the 100% power issue before any changes to experiment with getting the MDI commands to work.
The laser .pp generates the toolpath gcode with the feed rate I set in VCarve, however I don’t understand why each section has M4S0 as the power. I did 4 squares, one at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% power, each section in the code file has the same spindle speed in the begining after the G0 rapid movement…
T1
G17
G20
G90
G0X0.0000Y0.0000
G0X1.5000Y0.4332
G1F100.0
M4S0
G1X1.4793Y0.4125S250
G1X1.4510
G1X1.5000Y0.4615
Which program are you running for laser software?
You might need to set the min power back to 1 after homing as well. That is what I’m going to test out.
So… I found my error. I did not expect this diode laser to be as powerful as it is. Maybe it’s the high-resolution lens combined with the narrow kerf, I was not seeing a difference in the cut power because I was not examining depth of the cut.
I raised the Z height to 0.500" to un-focus the beam and then ran the test at 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% power. originally I was doing 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.
Lots of R&D in my future to prove out appropriate speeds and power for different materials.
Un-Focusing the beam may be a good way to speed up infill to reduce stepover on passes an increase cycle times…
So what I have noticed, don’t know if it is mentioned anywhere else, is you can move the laser around with the joypad controller and it won’t turn off the laser. I just found this out after getting pissed at my laser going off when trying to zero my laser. I didn’t have to go in and change anything with the dynamic laser settings. Also, side note is the joypad right stick that controls the z motion up and down also controls the a axis left and right. Just found that out today also.
What is “a” axis? I knew about the joystick working to keep the laser on but would like to know about the other function of the z stick.
The a axis is the fourth axis the controller can use (x,y,z,a) normally used for rotation. The way we get it wired up from Onefinity (x, y1, y2"slaved", z) so no A axis. But I have mine setup where I can switch between normal xyz and xaz for my rotary. This isn’t true rotary function but it can work for simple rotary like I do. gcode for the a axis is in degrees instead of mm or in so you have to trick this controller into taking degrees into distance. Long story short normally A axis is rotation along the X or Y axis. I can use the joystick to rotate my rotary clockwise or counter clockwise with the z stick left and right.
@OnefinityCNC
So just FYI, I ran into a more dangerous variation of this bug. The laser turned on when I jogged it. It burned straight through my focus depth gauge.
Like to share any pics on your rotary setup, I’ve been interested a long time? will love it
Well I have since moved my rotary onto a longer piece of old aluminum and use it inside a co2 laser that I recently got. I thought I had some pics of the old setup but I don’t think I did. But here’s pretty much what it looked like but a much smaller block of aluminum that I would have it sitting on to be flush with my waste board that I could unbolt and move out of the way when I wasn’t using the rotary. It was a pretty simple setup honestly. And even now using it in the co2 laser all I had to do was switch the connect to the 4 pin circular connector.
Ty , when you wired it to the 1f controller which motor did you disconnect to receive this one, C02huh
right on, God Bless
Yeah haha got a decent deal on it and it cuts my laser time down a whole lot. And I would disconnect both Y axis wires and plug this in for Y1 (non slave) but I would change the configuration to X, A, and Z. And set the Y1 to A and Y2 to disabled. And would use a wrapper post processor if using vcarve.
