Gaps of no cutting on test piece

LightBurn Software Questions
1

I’m cutting a test piece to get speeds/power I should use on 3mm mdf.

This is on a 130W CO2 laser.

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I went through and set my max power to 63% (hits 27mA). I also set all of the min power to 0. This file is setup using the power scaling feature.

I run the cut, and it cuts pretty much as I expected, except on the circular cuts, there’s sections where the laser should be firing, but isn’t.

Front:

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Back:

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Figured before I go worrying about a hardware issue I’d make sure there isn’t some software setting I should be using.

2

What did you set Min Power to? If it’s zero, that’s why - CO2 tubes don’t fire at zero percent, but about 10% of the rated wattage of the tube (ballpark), so a 40w tube will fire at roughly 4% power. The gaps will be the start / end points of the cut where the power is ramped down, and when it falls below the firing threshold, the tube stops firing.

3

Yep min power is at 0%. So by your post I need to change each layer to 13%min/63% max? Minimum to fire, maximum so I don’t burn out the tube yeah?

4

Max is entirely dependent on what the amount of current is going to your tube. If you’ve determined that 63% is the max you can safely send, then yes. :slight_smile:

5

So then figuring out the actual percentage after the test would be max power - min power x (percent used) + min power?

6

Exactly right. 0% power scale == Min Power, 100% power scale == Max Power, though there’s a caveat - if you are going at or below the ‘Start Speed’ setting in the controller, it only uses Min Power. The ramping to Max Power starts when the controller passes the ‘Start Speed’.

7

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