Gap in lines when running Scanning Offset Adjustment test

Community Laser Talk
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1

I’ve been trying to correct an issue I am having when engraving on a tumbler. Lines are being left in the engrave area. I have adjusted speed, power, overscan, scan angle and LPI all to no avail!

I have posted some pictures and asked for help in the Xtool Facebook sites hoping someone would be able to lead me in the right direction. Some kind folks offered their opinions and I happily tried them out, still to no avail.

Then I decided to try turning off bi-directional fill and that seemed to do the trick. I did some more tests, changed speeds, power, LPI etc. and everything was still working the way it should, lines in the engrave area were gone. However, as soon as I turned bi-directional fill back on, the lines were back.

I did some research within this forum and came across the Lightburn tutorial for testing the Scanning Offset Adjustment. I ran the test and there is a gap between the lines. Problem is, I can’t find any information on how to fix this gap. As far as I can tell, the test is designed for the ends of the lines not being even, nothing about if there is a gap between the lines.

I’m not sure if this is the cause of my original problem but either way, I don’t think the gap should be there.

Xtool D1 Pro 2.0 20W
Firmware Version 30.33.001.01 B3
Lightburn 1.6.03

New Project

New Project (1)

2

I suggest when you have strange issues like this, look at it in the preview… this is basically a machine emulator. If the skipped areas are in the preview it’s an artwork issue.

It appears to do two lines then skip a line… I can’t tell you anything about your firmware, but it’s always possible. I don’t have one of these, which limits what I can do in this area.

When you watch this in the preview, notice where the lines start and end.

To me, it sounds like a firmware issue, as I don’t know how to I could re-create this in Lightburn, from a users perspective.

Do you have anything set in the offset scan adjustment? If so a screenshot would be nice.

I didn’t think offset scan adjustment is used when scanning in a single direction.

:smile_cat:

3

Jack thank you for your response.

I do not have anything set in the offset scan adjustment. I simply ran the test according to how lightburn suggested thinking that that could be the root cause of my issue. The preview does not show the skipped areas and watching the playback it appears to work as it should and definitely does not look like what is pictured with the skipped areas.

Here is a copy of the code (I did stop and restart the engrave)

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Project file saved as Tumbler Engrave Test Bi and Uni Directions.
Waiting for connection…

4

If it’s not showing in the preview, then you have a machine that’s skipping the line. Might change the interval and see if this effect changes.

I did not really look at all the controller values, but $30, is usually 0. Doubt it’s your problem, but it should be minimum spindle speed, which is zero for a laser.

If you have an error, then posting the output of some of the error messages are fine, but it’s not complaining, so the code is not of any use helping to debug this issue.

I don’t know of anything, off hand, that would cause this… Maybe @misken can suggest a course of action.

Hang in there

:smile_cat:

5

The bidirectional scanning might use such tiny steps that your mechanics can not handle.
Before going on, a basic note: it seems like you are scanning across the tumbler, which means you are using the y-axis for major movements and and the x-axis does only very tiny steps. This is usually not recommended, try to always scan along the tumbler, such that the rotary has as few movements as possible and the head scans across. In your case, turn the scan angle to 90°. This might already cure it, but still depends on the mechanical setup, of course.

How did you use the offset-test, did you use the rotary as well?

6

Melvin thank you for responding

You are correct, the picture of the tumbler above was done with the y-axis for major movements and the x-axis for minor movements because the scan angle was set to 90°

As far as the offset test, I followed the directions provided by Lightburn…
Created a box 50mm x 10mm
Set to Fill with bi-directional fill, 5% overscan, 100mm/s, 60% power and .5mm line interval, 0° scan angle

This produced the image above that appears to show a skipped line effect (also a new clearer image included with this reply)

I’ve also done the exact test above but changed the scan angle to 90° and the skipped line effect was gone.

I’m lead to believe that my problem resides with the bi-directional fill and scan angle of 0°

I have included a new image of offset scan test with showing the results of both the 90° test and the 0° test

I have done testing in both LightBurn and XCS and I don’t have this issue with XCS, only LightBurn.

Offset Scan Test

7

It might be a bug in LightBurn, but as far as I know, xTool firmwares are very different from “common” firmwares and LightBurn supports them only partly. So this might be a bug with the special xTool format and LightBurn. Maybe you can try using the new 1.7 beta release, which should enhance the xTool support drastically. Just to rule out it’s a communication / protocol issue.