I need to start my lasering from the bottom up, and I need to set the item in the rotary at a specific point to start. Currently what is happening is I hit start and the rotary moves about 1/3-1/2 the circumference before lasering, therefore ruining my starting place. How do I set the origin / start of the rotary lasering?
From what I have read, there used to be a setting called “Start from” that allowed you to change where your rotary started. I read somewhere that this was removed. Also, I am not in beginner mode. What would be the way to do this?
For Galvo lasers you won’t see a ‘Start From’ mode. Instead, in rotary mode, your graphics will output on your rotary according to their position relative to the center line in your LightBurn workspace, in the dimension your rotary is set to.
The starting point of rotation is the current position of your rotary/object before you begin marking. To adjust this point, you can jog the rotary/object to your desired position, in the Rotary Marking window. The Rotary Marking window is the last window you’ll reach before running your job, with rotary mode enabled.
If your rotary is set to the Y axis, graphics positioned above the center line in Y in your LightBurn workspace will be output “above” the starting point and graphics below the center line will be output “below”, meaning the further away from the center line in LightBurn, the more the rotary will need to turn to reach the point where they begin marking on your object. If you position a graphic directly above the center line in LightBurn, your laser will begin marking immediately, and then turn as necessary to complete the areas of the graphic further from the center line. If your graphic straddles the center line, it will need to first turn one direction, and then travel back past the starting point as it complete your graphic.
That makes sense. And I have it working well, with a small headache.
I posted a second question in another post that is related to this.
My main reason for asking the question here was that I need to index small parts very very accurately with the artwork. My artwork is long, so if I start from center about half of it is off the workspace (luckily that does not matter with rotary). The ability to move artwork while framing is super helpful and would solve this indexing issue! Except, if any amount of artwork is off the workspace I cannot move the file while framing with the arrow keys.
Long story short: To index the starting point, I cannot set the file to start from the bottom, instead I need to move the file above center to make it start there. BUT, I cannot move the file while framing, which means I need to move, frame, move, frame, again and again till I get it right.
If I could change the starting point, or frame while moving the artwork, my indexing headache would be solved. Maybe jogging can help with that, but I believe it would lead to more mistakes on my end.
I see the picture you attached that has the Frame button in the rotary marking screen. Mine does not have that. Is that a setting?
Sorry, that screenshot is from an outdated version of LightBurn- the framing button was removed from that window.
There’s no simple way for framing to accurately represent where your graphics will output in the rotary dimension at this time. For highest accuracy it might make sense to separate your artwork into smaller pieces and position and run them each at a time. But maybe you’ll come up with a better solution with practice.
If your rotary is centered as perfectly as possible in your physical workspace, the red dot in the workspace center will help you with jogging your rotary to position the rotation starting starting point.
