Just got my first laser last week – OMTech MF1624 - 50w – and have been setting it up and playing around.
I have have this design that I want to engrave on some products, but certain aspects of it cause the engraving to become jumbled. I assume this is a mechanical issue, but wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on Lightburn being a problem as well.
See the 2 engravings in the photo below. Exactly the same artwork (created in Illustrator and imported as a vector) except in the top engraving I’ve turned off the decorative dots that are part of the design. When they’re “on” everything gets wonky. When “off” it looks good. Compare “THE TWINS” text and the alignment of the heads.
Layer mode is set to “Offset Fill”. Both are running fairly slow for my machine 50mm/sec @ 15% power and 25mm/sec @ 10% power. Not really dialing that in right now. Just trying to get it to engrave as intended.
Any thoughts or advice on how to fix this would be appreciated.
Offset fill can be mechanically stressing on the machine as the laser path requires many rapid acceleration/deceleration changes. If your machine is not very well tuned and sorted it may not be able to keep up with the design.
If the Preview looks correct as well as the image displayed on the control panel then it’s likely something mechanical. Either sort out the mechanics or switch to standard Fill.
If the display panel reflects the odd spacing then it could be a communication issue between the computer and controller. In that transfer the RD file by USB to see if the problem goes away. If that works then need to sort out the communication issue.
Yes, the control panel image looks just as it should. It’s the same as what I see in LB.
I’ve checked belts and mirror alignments and all seems fine.
Going to try putting the dots on a different layer in LB and run it at a much slower speed/power than everything else to see if that helps it stay on track.
Do you hear buzzing or a straining noise from the stepper motors when the skips happen? If so, that could be the motors losing steps which would need to be remedied by acceleration/speed reduction.
Or else avoid offset fill and just use standard fill.
No, I do not hear any straining noises from the motors. I also used a bright LED flashlight to see through the protective cover on the machine to watch the belts move on the motors. Could not see any skipping or slipping.
I’m still getting familiar with LB, but I could not get standard fill to work with this art. It filled in vast areas of the design with black instead of drawing the fine line art.
