I am new at lasering and just installed a rotary. I have a Monport 100w CO2 with Ruida controller. I am using the Y axis for the rotary. I have things running and calibrated. When I power up the machine with rotary enabled, the Y axis homes and I have to put a metal object on the home switch to stop it. Is there a way to prevent Y from homing when in Rotary mode?
If you have the machine up before the rotary, you can disable homing on the Y axes…
Most people just press ‘esc’ and deal with it that way… no home, just ‘user origin’ for all practical purposes.
I get hammered for this and it’s up to you how you do it, but I let it home, then hot swap it… been doing this a couple of years…
I’ll probably keep doing this until I break something…
Thanks for the reply. I didn’t know sec would stop the homing. How do you disable Y homing? Can’t seem to find it. It seems like that would happen automatically if rotary is enabled.
I have purchased the hardware to add the U axis. Any reason you wouldn’t do that? I’m assuming it would simplify switch modes but have no real experience with it yet
You have to go into the controller to disable the Y homing… that’s why most people don’t do it.
I have configuration files for rotary and non-rotary use… there is no reason you couldn’t get it configured for your rotary, including no Y homing, save the configuration. When you wanted to use it, load the rotary configuration… power down, change to rotary and power up…
You’d have to remember to reload the original configuration on it before you power it down/up or just have to press the ‘reset’ button for it to home again…
Most just esc out of the home sequence …
What if you had a homing rotary?
Thanks again for your feedback.
Would having the I axis keep you from having to do anything other than plug and play?
Don’t follow the question here…
Sorry, I should proofread before sending. I meant U axis. The controller can support another axis. I think you can configure things so it uses that for the Rotary. In my case, the stepper motor on my rotary cannot handle the current of the Y axis on the laser. So, I have to get into the cabinet and set the current down on the stepper driver or the rotary overheats. For $30, I bought another stepper driver and was planning on hooking it to the U axis output on the controller and setting it up specifically for the rotary. That way, I should only have to plug the rotary in and use it. Assuming Lightburn,… can be configured that way.
Always good to read over what you are typing… 
Are the motors the same on the rotary as the table?
When I was doing some work on mine I noticed the steppers were very hot… after looking at the specifications for the motors I realized the factory had set the motor drivers to twice the current the motor are rated… no wonder they were hot…
I dropped it down to the proper current and they run relatively cool.
I’d check the motor and ensure the ‘factory’ settings are not too aggressive… Reach in there and touch the Y stepper… that will give you a clue if they are running hot.
Had to lower acceleration from around 65,000mm/s to about 50,000mm/s but it will still run 1650mm/s if I ‘want’ to…
Which Ruida do you have…?
I have a 6442g and from my reading, I’m not to sure the 6442 handles it well… most of what I’ve seen is the 6445 using the U axes…
I haven’t bothered to try and mount the drivers and check it to see if it will work for me on the 6442… I just boot it, swap to the rotary and use it, then swap it back…
If it works on the U axes, I’d do it…
Maybe someone can chime in the 6442/6445 differences when using the U axes…
The steppers on my machine are quite a lot larger than the one on the rotary. They get warm, but not really hot. When I hook the rotary up without turning down the current, they get real hot. when I turn the current down where they are spec’d, they don’t get very hot.
I also have the 6442G. I skimmed through the documentation, and it indicates x,y,z, and u outputs are all the same. Did you read that Lightburn doesn’t handle U well with the 6442G or that the controller doesn’t handle it well?
I never tried to hook mine up … there are lots of threads and there appears that some things work differently on the 6445.
There is no reason not to try it if no one says any different. You have the hardware…
Try this thread and see what you make of it…
If you can figure it out… post the simple answer
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