Hello!
I have problem with my 80W CO2 laser machine with Ruida RD 6445G.
The lines are jagged, engrave are blurred.
Anyone can help? What may be wrong?
I aligned mirrors, cleaned lens, but it doesnt help.
Please check photos:
this is definitly - i believe - result of some issue with your X drive
If you power off the machine and move the head manually do you feel it smooth?
Compare vs Y
There got to be a lot of issues and should be self evident on movement
Altenrantive, triple check all your mirrors are well seated and not loose
any vibration caused by X motion can translate to a machine shake and therefore a engrave shake
it should be able to be heard though if the above is the case, jog the machine on X and then on Y do they sound alike?
Also the focus lens inside the laser head.
And the screws & brackets between the head and the X axis linear bearing.
And the screws holding the X axis linear bearing onto the gantry.
I’m guessing it’s the lens that’s loose or broken.
Hello!
What is both funny and confusing… My wife used the laser for about 7.5 hours on Sunday. At the first cuts there were small errors in the engraving but after a while, despite no additional actions taken, the laser worked FLAWLESSLY for 7 hours, the cuts were clean and the engravings were error-free.
At the end of the work, one of the engraved texts was “jittery” / “unclear”.
I don’t really understand what could be the reason for such a strongly random quality of the laser work.
Have you carefully examined the machine for all the possible problems we described?
We may have missed something, but those are the most common causes of what you’re seeing. Check for them first, very carefully, report what you find, then we can proceed.
I had a similar problem and found the solution. After going through everything, aligning the lasers, checking belt tension and motors etc, you name it i done it.
Turns out it was the smallest easiest fix that was causing the problem.
In the laser head on mirror 3 where the air inlet goes in to cool the head, you can adjust the head for focus, inside this adjustable head is a small piece of glass. The problem was that the screw nut that holds this piece of glass inside come loose and allowed the piece of glass to rattle.
Simple fix, remove the air connection, lower the bed, completely remove the head using the thumb screw and then pull the head apart to see the inside where you can tighten the nut that holds the glass in place.
Was an immediate fix for me with 100% clear results on assembly.
Based on your images, the problem is definitely mechanical — not optics, not focus. The wavy edge on the cuts and the fuzzy burn lines on the grid show that your gantry is physically shaking (or slipping) when it moves. This is what I would check if this were my machine. First off, go right for the belts. Gently press on them with your finger – they should feel tight, like the strings on a decently tuned guitar. Not loose, not floppy. If they bounce or sag even a little, that’s your problem. Also, don’t just stop there with the belts - check the tiny set screws on the pulleys (usually 2mm hex) - they are prone to backing out. If one of those pulleys is slipping even slightly on the motor shaft, you’ll get exactly the kind of wavy lines and misaligned engraving I see in your cuts.
Then grab the laser head and gantry and wiggle it - front to back, side to side. There should be zero play. If it moves at all, you’ve got loose V-wheels or rollers. Tighten those down.
Then, check your acceleration settings in LightBurn or RDWorks. If they’re too high, the gantry jerks around too fast to keep up, which causes ringing and blur. Try dropping acceleration down to something like 800-1000 mm/s2 and test again. Also keep your max speed under 400 mm/s for engraving just to rule that out.
Finally, if you’re doing fill engraving, make sure you have bi-directional scanning off while you’re troubleshooting. Sometimes the alignment between forward and back passes is just barely off, which adds to the mess.
Comment:
The lens was completely free to move around.
Should there be a cushioning washer of some sort on the securing threaded ring side? I’m scared to over tighten it.
There should be a thin silicone washer in there somewhere, for exactly the reason you expect. If you tighten the lock ring directly on the lens, it’s likely to overtighten at one point and crack.
Unfortunately, because the washer is small, thin, nearly transparent, and unexpected, it’s easy to lose.
They’re absurdly expensive as single items:
Because the lens gets hot in normal use and the washer must not melt or give off fumes, you can’t just (laser!) cut a ring out of squishy substances found around the house.
I had a couple of these and I finally just picked up a few o-rings from Ace Hardware.
Cut a piece out of the ring. Small gap isn’t going to matter. Then you can snug it down.
I was also lucky and found thin Teflon washers in the plumbing store. The ring that fits a siphon (standard 1/2" in the EU) fits perfectly.