Added new hardware accessory and now have issues burning

LightBurn Software Questions
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1

I’m a fairly new user and have run into a proverbial wall and need some help. I have been running Lightburn on my MacBook Pro with an Atomstack A10 Pro V2 laser for the past six months. I recently added an Atomstack R5 Automatic Conveyor and have started having issues with the software/hardware configurations. Per the instructions for setting up the R5, I had to disconnect and reconnect the Y-axis to the conveyor belt and make configuration changes to the machine and device settings. I experienced many issues, such as homing the laser, workspace printing, limits, mirror printing, and circles printing as ovals. I have read the forums, watched YouTube videos, and hacked my way back to normal on most issues. Squares are physically burning as rectangles, while the software shows squares. I still can’t bring my machine home because it wants to exceed the physical dimensions and limited space of my laser enclosure. I searched for re-homing settings and can only make temporary changes that seem to help with some of my issues (except the circle / square one). I already tried tightening the belts on the conveyor and on the X-Axis of the laser. Appreciate any help I can get

2

I have no experience with a conveyor system, but I must assume it’s like a rotary where it replaces your Y axis. Since the conveyor most likely doesn’t have limit switches, there’s no way to home the machine. The same with a rotary. You need to disable homing. You will also need to change the Y axis steps per mm in Machine Settings. BEFORE making any changes BACKUP the current configuration.

Before we go any farther, if you remove the conveyor and reconnect the Y axis does it make squares and circles? Did you change any settings to get where you are now?

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3

That is normal.

  • If you exchange the y-axis of the laser, homing is NOT possible anymore, since you don’t have a limit on the conveyor belt. You can’t use homing and can’t use absolute positioning.
  • because of the aforementioned issue, you can’t rely on workspace limits, you need to take care about those yourself
  • mirror printing is a result of incorrect axis setting. You can either turn the belt 180° or switch the axis direction in firmware
  • ovals are coming from an incorrect axis calibration. The belt might have a different step size than your old y-axis, as such, you need to change the steps/mm value in the firmware.
4

Thank you! I calibrated both x and y axes and i saw great improvement. Just have to repeat a few more times at a longer measurement and hopefully will resolve the issue.