Fellow laser users:
First, I want to thank Lightburn for providing us with this communications avenue to other laser users.
I’ve owned my Atomstack A70 Max for almost a year now, and it’s performance has been exemplary. I find that most of the work I do is done with the 35W setting, but the 70W setting is great to have when I need it. If I had it to do over, I would buy it again in a heartbeat. All that said, I wanted to provide some observational information for other Laser users having a bed level sensor. When I initially set up my laser, I affixed the external control screen (using its magnet base) to the back of the control panel metal enclosure. I’ve never actually used the external control as I have a dedicated Windows computer running Lightburn.
After using my laser for about three months, I experienced a controller failure, and Atomstack responded by sending me a replacement. After an easy installation of the replacement parts, all appeared to be working well.
Up until about a month ago, any other problems I experienced were corrected with some minor adjustments - nothing major occurred until recently. While using my laser, I accidentally bumped the external screen a little, so I readjusted it, reaffixing it to its usual mounting location.
After that adjustment (without even realizing there may have been a connection), I started receiving “bed not level” notifications, which would stop my laser, with a notice to re-level the bed and restart the job. This was a little disconcerting as my laser bed has been rather flat (within less than a half a degree of level using a rather sensitive mechanical indicator) since its installation.
After each notice, I would power down everything - wait for 15 or so minutes for my computer and laser to have had time to clear any memory buffers, I would then restart operation. Everything would work fine again - for 30 minutes or so - and then the “out of level” error would show up again. During the setup of my laser, I had mechanically secured its table to a much larger laser table to ensure stability during a job run. As for movement during a job, all I could feel was just the slightest movement of the table - more like a small vibration than a discernable movement - nothing that was concerning or was causing an error with cutting accuracy.
After dealing with this for several days, I started thinking back about what could I have possibly done “physically” to the laser bed that could be causing the problem - but nothing came to mind - except for moving the magnet mounted external control.
After doing some internet research, I discovered that my A70 was using a “solid state” gyroscope for movement detection - that was mounted on the control board - and that there were NO adjustments that I could make to recalibrate it. I ALSO discovered that these types of gyroscopes can be sensitive to a magnetic field.
Since I had never used the external interface, I decided to disconnect it (while the laser was powered down), and move it several feet away. Since that time, I have not experience ANY bed level related problems. I have been running numerous jobs that run from a few minutes to over an hour - and everything seems very stable now.
I have reported my issues (and my problem solution) to Atomstack, and await their response - which I will provide here when I receive it.
If you have experienced similar issues, I would appreciate your providing your experiences - even with other laser brands.
Even though its control panel is encased in a metal enclosure, it seems quite possible that somehow the magnetic field of my external control panel found a weak point in the shielding.
Thank you for your time,
Charlie