I’m finally starting to set up my 64W Jtech laser. I’m hoping someone can provide some guidance for some questions.
First off is homing procedure. I started to get the laser set and realized I need to home the machine. I already removed the bit from my router so there would be no interference issues. I’m also using a tool setter so the machine uses that to set Z home. The laser head hangs down farther than the router, so I had to pull the head back off and chuck a piece of 1/4” rod into the router to home. This is a pain as a startup procedure. Is there a way to swap homing methods based on tool? I suspect not but I’m hoping someone has a solution.
Second question is about feeds and speeds. Setup videos reference some feeds and speeds libraries on the forum but I can’t find anything even searching. Any help or basic settings to work from for the 64W laser?
Third question, would it be possible to use the 4th axis to do things like engraving tumblers? I had someone ask if I could, but not sure it would support something other than carving
Haven’t been using the 64-watt laser much yet, but here’s what I’ve found thus far: There isn’t a workable setup where you can have the spindle, dust boot, and laser on and at correct heights for work at the same time. The laser needs to be so close to the surface of the wood that it hangs down significantly past where the spindle does. The process of switching from routing to lasing is always going to be a brief shuffle where the dust boot is removed and the laser head attached, and likely even the end mill removed from the spindle, though heights of everything vary and that last detail may not always be true. I even switch dust extraction devices to one only used for smoke and fire; no need to blow up the shop with a dust explosion. Knowing you already have one to three manual processes, it’s easy to add in the fourth, which is turning off the tool setter in the F1 screen by unchecking it. After that, homing is just homing.
Feeds and speeds: Watch a few YouTube videos by people using lasers with LightBurn. Those using diode-based non-galvo head lasers will be even more beneficial. It’s a detailed subject, and those videos will show you how to set up a test card to try many power levels/speeds all in one file. There’s not a best feed/speed for the laser, it’s very material specific. The learning curve is forgiving, though. Try the wrong speed, and you just don’t get a good mark or cut through the material, but it doesn’t break your laser (unless fire, of course, there’s always that).
Using the laser with the rotary: I hope someone knows and has done it with our 1F equipment setup, as that’s a question I have also.
Good luck making smoke!
I don’t know that I will be able to answer all of your questions, but hopefully I can address some of these.
For a baseline, I have the BB Journeyman, RL Spindle, 64W laser, and revolution. For dust collection I use the double barrel dust boot that I purchased off of etsy with the smoke stack attachment (although I have not actually used the smoke stack yet because I have yet to purchase the 4in ventilation setup to go with it).
For your homing, I am not much help. As I said, I have a BB controller so I don’t use a tool setter. I think @WouldWork’s suggestion of disabling the tool setter is your best option (maybe). However, you should only have to “home” the machine on startup. Setting the zero’s for the axis needs to be done before a carve, and unfortunately, that must be done manually for the laser as there is no way to use a probe. The red crosshair is a nice feature of the 64W, but for me I still need to manually mess with the Y zero as the 1” offset from crosshair to laser isn’t quite right on my unit.
I have my mount for the laser set up so that the laser hangs lower than the tip of the bits that I normally use. This allows me to quickly swap between laser and spindle without HAVING to remove the bit. Most of the time I do remove the bit, but having the option to leave it in has been helpful when I have been working on a project that uses both the laser and the spindle.
On feeds and speeds, it is al trial and error for me. I purchased a “test pattern” from etsy, and then realized that lightburn can churn one out for you automatically (dm me or search the forums if you have questions on that and I can help you out). What I usually do is take a piece of scrap and run the test pattern file and then fine tune from there. I have tried the libraries in the past, but honestly, I have gotten the best results from running a test pattern myself for each new material I use. FWIW, the 64W takes off the powder coat on a Yeti very cleanly on the 44W mode at ~8000mm/min!
Which brings me to your last question about the 4th axis. YES! You can do tumblers! There are some gotchas though if you are on the BB machine, but based on the earlier comments, I believe you are on some version of the elite. If I am wrong about that let me know and I can talk you through my mistakes using the laser and the BB with 4th axis and hopefully I can save you some time (and maybe even save you from wasting a $40 yeti tumbler ).
I’d definitely be interested in hearing about your experience with tumblers. I had a couple friends ask me if I could do that and I was pretty sure but there doesn’t seem to be much info available on it. Since the machine isn’t solely a laser engraver, there’s much more carve info than engrave
I appreciate the responses. More or less confirming my research. Definitely need to do a light burn test pattern to gauge different materials and settings. I really the the smoke extraction dust boot. I have regrets over buying the onefinity version now. Need to rig that up to a window since my setup lives in my garage. A few laser tests and all the doors are open. It’s getting too cold for that!
I hope to upgrade to the Masso at some point for 4th axis, etc. But at this point, I don’t think I can justify the expense for my current uses over the BB.
).