I’m new to this Laser engraving hobby and know nothing. I’ve been digging through questions and forums for literally months (received the machine in April). I’ve gone throught the setup per the tutorial. However, when trying to move the head around it seems the X and Y axis are flipped. (Up goes left, down goes right, right goes up, left goes down) Also it seems the working area is 20 mm or so before im getting an error. Any help would be appreciated as I’m to the point of selling the machine.
Let’s first look at the mirroring issue.
Can you provide a screenshot of Edit->Device Settings?
And also a photo of the laser as it’s normally oriented towards you.
Okay. A few notes:
- The basic settings in Device Settings look fine. You may want to enable “Enable laser fire button” and “Laser on when framing” once you sort out these other issues. This will allow you have a low powered laser to visually guide you when framing and other times. You absolutely need your safety goggles on when you do that.
- However, I see a hint of a message in Console that indicates that your homing cycle may be failing. Can you describe what happens when the machine attempts to home? Can you look for the location of the switches (there should be one for X and Y each). Can you see anything that would be obstructing the switches from getting triggered. Or more specifically, anything that would prevent clearance once they’ve been triggered? The error message indicates that the switch isn’t being cleared after pulling-off. That could be because the switches are mounted too close to whatever is triggering them.
- I can’t see it in your screenshot but if you’re not already, can you select “Absolute coords” as your “Start from” mode in Laser window? This is the most intuitive mode. I suggest you stick to this until you’re comfortable with the functioning of the laser.
- Based on the photo of the laser itself. Be aware that the left side of the laser is the “front”. The right side would then be the back. So left to right in the photo is your 0-180 on the Y-axis. Similarly, what you see at the back of the photo is the left side of the laser and what’s close is the right side. So from back to front in the photo is 0-180 on the X-axis. With that perspective, do jogging controls in Move window work according to the way I’ve described it? If not, specifically what happens?
Thank you, I’ll take a look at your suggestions. Also I believe, being the novice that I am, that I may have been looking at this wrong the whole time. I was thinking that the bottom where the laser currently is located is the bottom or X axis and the top was where the rails are. I’ll play a little more and see what happens.
Ok, I checked the limit switches and nothing was blocking them or causing them to trigger involuntarily. I fired up the laser and everything seems to be working as it should now. I don’t know what magic happened, but it seems to be working correctly for now. I’m going to try some test items and see what happens.
Ran a couple test with the laser and they went ok. I have somethings I need to learn. However, I’ve only been able to get the test to run when I’m Current Position or User Origin. When I ran the last test in Current Position I received the below error:
Starting stream
Layer Labels
Layer C00
ALARM:2
G-code motion target exceeds machine travel. Machine position safely retained. Alarm may be unlocked. (Right-click the ‘Devices’ button to reset the connection)
On or near line 3366:
Stream completed in 3:01
[MSG:Reset to continue]
ok
Ortur Aufero 1 S2 Ready!
OLF 183.
Grbl 1.1f [‘$’ for help]
[MSG:‘$H’|‘$X’ to unlock]
[MSG:Caution: Unlocked]
ok
The piece was only at the 80 mm x 80 mm and I received the error. Is there a way to open up the travel as the machine still had 50% of the work area available?
All,
maybe irrelevant, but this T/X frame laser looks awfully similar to JL2. In the firmware post it was clarified that second image (red comments) is the proper and intended orientation, while my logic says it is the first one with blue comments.
It is quite possible that perception of orientation is cultural.
Another reasoning: head usually rides on X axis, not on Y.
So maybe perception is flipped, not the machine?
But I would agree that my preference is to have bulk on the pack, not under my right hand.
What happens when you use Absolute Coords? As I said earlier, you really should stick to Absolute Coords until you’re more familiar with the laser’s function.
When I use Absolute coordinates and try and run a project this is what the Console reads:
Layer Labels
ALARM:2
G-code motion target exceeds machine travel. Machine position safely retained. Alarm may be unlocked. (Right-click the ‘Devices’ button to reset the connection)
On or near line 4:
Job halted
Stream completed in 0:00
[MSG:Reset to continue]
ok
Ortur Aufero 1 S2 Ready!
OLF 183.
Grbl 1.1f [‘$’ for help]
[MSG:‘$H’|‘$X’ to unlock]
[MSG:Caution: Unlocked]
ok
You are correct, my perception was incorrect. I thought the machines X and Y axis rode the way the machine was oriented. However, berainlb put me on the correct path. Now we are working through other errors/alarms.
Can you take a full screenshot of LightBurn with the design ready to go?
Also, can you push the “Get position” button after homing and report back the reported position?
Also, at any point are you moving the laser head by hand after homing? If so, you want to avoid doing this as your controller will lose its understanding of position.
Position is X = 0 Y = 0 Z = 0
No, I’ve avoided moving the head by hand as I’m afraid of damaging the machine.
I don’t see anything unusual from the screenshot. Positions seems good and if you’re not moving by hand then it’s likely something in the design.
Can you check Preview? Does it look okay? Enable showing traversal moves. Do you see a lot of traversal moves to the left and right of the design? If so, that could be commanding the laser to travel beyond the edges of the laser boundary.
Can you take a screenshot of Cut / Layers window?
Preview looked good, however what was “engraving” vs what showed on the preview were different. Some of the wording was not lined up in the correct box, even though the preview showed the correct alignment.
The laser stays in specific areas when “engraving”. Not much back and forth movement. Included an image of the preview as well.
I don’t see anything particularly wrong in the Cut settings although it’s likely that some of those speeds are faster than your laser is capable of realistically supporting.
This implies you’re in a situation where steps are being lost. Noise can be a good indicator of this. If you hear a whining or buzzing noise it’s likely that the steppers are being asked to move faster than they’re capable of moving. If you don’t hear a buzz then look for potential belt skipping.
Check belt tension and make sure the belts are properly tightened. You should also check that the pinion gears are properly secured to the stepper shafts. The grub screws holding them in can come loose. Make sure the screw is pressing up against the flat portion of the shaft.
Thank you for all your help. I’ll look over everything.
I checked the belt tension and 1 of the belts was a little loose. Also after doing some additional digging I updated the firmware to the current version. That seemed to fix my problem with the limited engraving area.
Again thank you all for the help!
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I don’t think the firmware was the issue with limited engraving area. I think what was happening was that the belt was slipping. Because the controller lost track of laser head location it may have tried to move the laser head more than it was intended in a single direction.
It’s possible you were dealing with two separate issues (one related to an offset issue) in which case a firmware update could have resolved it as well.
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