Hide backlash / lead-in/out alternative idea

[Henri (Henri Sallinen)]

I’ve found that the laser cuts better when the laser head approaches a cut start-end point say from 11 o’clock rather than from say 5 o’clock. Like if I’m cutting circles arrayed next to each other along the X-axis from left to right, the first one usually doesn’t cut nicely, because the laser head is coming from a certain direction. After the first cut the laser head travels from left to right, so the rest of the cuts come out fine.

Could there be a option where you could point Lightburn to align the cut head say 3mm away from the cut start point to the angle you prefer (like lead in out) but so that it would start cutting only at the start end point? The machine would travel the lead in out, but the laser would only fire over the cut lines and just travel the set lead-in/out bit without firing the beam.

Not a fan of Hide backlash because I can’t select the starting point anymore and it’s a must on the jobs I run.

Perhaps add a “fire laser during lead in/out” or
lead in/out power
Dont fire laser, just travel [ ]
Fire laser at Power Min % [ ]
Fire laser, use cut settings [ ]
Or something along these lines.

Any idea if this would be useful to anyone?

Thanks!

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

@Henri

Could there be a option where you could point Lightburn to align the cut head say 3mm away from the cut start point to the angle you prefer (like lead in out) but so that it would start cutting only at the start end point?

A workflow that might work for you (there are several ways you can achieve what you are after)…

• 1 - Create array of circles, then the marker you see on the ‘Tools Layer’ (Tools Layers do not output yet can be used to define the start of the job)
• 2 - Edit ‘Shape Start Point’ for each circle as shown
• 3 - Set ‘Start From:’ to ‘User Origin’ and set the ‘Job Origin’ for the lower-left

Playing with the angle and length of the tool layer shape allows you to define your non-cutting lead-in if I am understanding this correctly.

[Henri (Henri Sallinen)]

Thank you for the reply and taking the time to explain with screenshot / steps!

This would work I think for cutting a few circles, but when I have a 60x60cm sheet of plywood prenested in Corel Draw (and starting points preset for each piece to cut), and I can only cut say 3 rows of circles at a time because of my cutting setup, this workflow where Start from: User origin is used makes it a bit hard to cut.

I use Start from: Absolute coords and set the machine origin from time to time when cutting the 60x60cm plywood. I also use Cut Selected Graphics to run the lines I currently want, then make adjustments to the plywood with weights etc. then select more shapes to cut.

I think that by using the User Origin as start cords that cutting of the prenested shapes of the plywood would be a bit hard.

This problem and the way to approach my cutting settings might be completely different, than what most people use

[Henri (Henri Sallinen)]

The underlying problem here is that the machine belts arent 100% calibrated and haven’t yet found a way to make perfect sense of belt tensions etc. I have a Thunderlaser Nova35 100W and while being a magnificent machine, they seem quite reluctant to provide with proper tips on how to align and adjust the belt tensions.