How to turn off laser between letters

[Rick (Technical Evangelist)]

These are commonly called ‘Traversal Lines’ or travel moves:

Laser not turning off between cuts? (burning during travel moves)

If you have a GRBL device, and your laser is still on when moving between shapes, like this: [image] It most likely means you are using GRBL 1.1f or later, but do not have the controller in Laser Mode. Fix this by typing $32=1 in the Console window and pressing enter If you have a Ruida or other DSP controller and are seeing this happen, it is most likely a dying high-voltage power supply unit (PSU). The drive circuit that turns the laser power off and on tends to go first, before the part …

And here is another on the subject:

Traversal lines burning in my design

You’re asking it to go too fast then. $32=1 is ‘Variable Power’ mode which means the laser adjusts the power output from 0 at a dead stop to whatever power you request when it gets to the speed you request. [image] CNC3018’s are severely speed limited because of the screw-drives - they need to spin the screws a lot to move even a little, so the maximum speed is usually about 1000 to 2000 mm/minute. If you asked the machine to go 6000 mm/minute, for example, and it was restricted in the firm…