I bet your right about the angle thats the only real change I recal making and I did not consider the 2 axis movement slowing the machine down.
The Ruida controller is mostly hardware, but if you use scan angles that are not multiples of 90 degrees, the software has to perform them, not the hardware…
Ed,
There should have been a gold card located in the bag of goodies Thunder sent out with the laser. That card has the scanning offset adjustment info needed to input into lightburn. See this video below from Thunder on how to get this done.
Actually I had already done that but I think it was after I did the Walnut Plywood Material test. I can try to do another material test. I am still trying to figure out the low and high settings for speed and power for my Bolt material test on Engrave and Cut test (Have not tried a cut test at all yet).
I think your too slow, I usually do 6000 for engraving wood with my 20 watt laser, about 80% depending on materials
That is in mm/min, typical for diode lasers, rather than the mm/s used for CO₂ lasers:
6000 mm/min = 100 mm/s
Which is on the very low end of the test patterns.
For a 20 W diode laser, which I assume is the input power, that amounts to maybe 4 W optical output power, which would be around 10% of a 40 W CO₂ laser’s optical output.
Again, on the low side of the test patterns.
Units matter.
Really? Your thoughts on diodes are well known. I ‘assume’ you’ve had a CO2 for years. Congrats. Maybe got those early 40 watt ones? Great. Can you even get a 5 watt diode anymore? Which you classify as a 4 watt. Lets be real. A 4 watt diode, if it exists, is NOT the same as 10x less than a CO2 40 watt. Period. You are not running a CO2 at 100%. Or, if you are, you enjoy buying tubes.
Your a leader in here? Try treating the 80+% of users in here that have a diode with just a modicum of respect. I am quite sure he has a 20 watt output laser. You also told me that my 48 watt was input, not output. Wrong. You do know they have an actual 70 watt output diode now right? It is actually closer to 74 watt. Yes, the wavelengths differ, yes a CO2 can do things a diode just can’t, at least without workarounds, but enough man.
So someone tried to give advice that was wrong. Correct them…don’t try to demean them. Grow the F up already.
You’re right: I should act my age.
I guess I should appologize. But, from my experience, most laser users are pretty much older rather than younger. I believe even you and I are close to the same age. We are all trying to learn and enjoy the creative freedom these cnc machines give us. Some come from almost no background of design or even computers per se. We can all get along.
So, sorry for that comment. I’m not sure if your musically inclined. When I first learned how to play about 5 open guitar chords, I showed every single person who would listen…until I showed someone who was a real guitar player and he said ‘great, good job…now play me an F shaped barre chord in G…a D shaped barre chord in G’…you get the picture. I didn’t know anything about that or those shapes. But they didn’t demeen me, they taught me. I taught quite a few people how to get started and they so surpass what I could ever do. (Because of joint issues, I can no longer play) and I am happy for them. I played for over 35 yrs and now can’t…but I taught them. And it didn’t cost me a thing. And maybe you are teaching too, but I never came across as condescending. And maybe you don’t mean too either. We all start at one point regardless of age or ability. So sorry for my comment.
Absolutely. This is because there is a difference when doing bi-directional scan, printing, engraving. Goes by different names, means same thing. LB has a scanning offset parameter that can be set for different speeds to compensate for this. If NOT in the thumbdrive, then maybe Brett could help you more. There are tests to do to detirmine but others are more qualified to walk you through them.
Almost always, unless you have the brand new CO2’s that are around $50k for starter commercial/industrial machines, that have such smaller modules, the X axis will always be a bit slower because it’s carrying the weight of the module. It get’s more noticeable the faster speed you run. Running at 45°, well there are some reasons to do that, shouldn’t matter for engraving. If anything, run at 22°. For whatever reason, the human eye can not readily pick up on a 21.5°readily. Your max speed, depending on size and angle will never be the true speed as the laser must slow down before accelerating to continue engraving and carrying more weight along the X axis.
Also, the LB built in test is great. But use it for what is. Squares…and small ones at default size anyway. Not truly representative for actual results. I have never had expected results from using that. Do a small text, if that is what you are engraving, and/or approximate shapes. The squares are not really accurate…it’s just to get you close.
Also…should mention that the power setting is misleading…same as a microwave oven. When you change power to say 50%, you are not decreasing in anyway the power, you are decreasing the intervals when it fires at 100% power. So it always fires at 100% ( or whatever you have the max at) but at different times. It is not a constant decrease of 50%. This is why it’s always speed AND power settings. I believe all CO2’s and fiber lasers can modulate Frequency. Totally different, and that is hardware and firmware. Very few, though I can think of 2, diodes can do this.
Y is usually a bit slower because it has the mass of itself plus the laser head and all the cables/drag chain.
I didn’t get anything useful in my thumb drive 
This is not true with a properly working dc excited tube. You can turn a glass tube on at 50% power.
Glass tube is an analog device, what you’re describing is a digital device.
Garden-variety DC-excited CO₂ lasers (the affordable kind) have tube current roughly proportional to the average PWM setting, so the optical power is more-or-less proportional to the PWM duty cycle.
The PWM “carrier” frequency remains constant and pretty much doesn’t matter as long as it’s above the PWM demodulation filter’s cutoff. Ruida controllers default to 20 kHz, about a decade above the absolute minimum around 1 kHz in old-school Arduino-based controllers. Neither are “tunable” in the sense of FM modulation.
The HV power supply can also accept an analog signal with no PWM modulation, with the tube current roughly proportional to the analog input voltage.
I had not noticed this till your photo, I will try a new test grid later and check it out, I have plugged in the adjustment numbers sent from the factory, I hope this fixes the issue. I also stopped the 45º angle on the engraving.