I have finally got my Algolaser cutter to work and many thanks to all those that helped me through the initial problems. I have now designed my first application for this cutter and have, again, hit issues so here we go.
My first project for the cutter was to produce some station platform surfaces for my model railway. These should be plain wood all round except along one long edge there should be 3’ x 2’ paving slab edges. So, I have designed one of these with 18 paving slabs and approx 60mm width. I have some 300 x 300 2mm ply sheets so I drew an 300 x 300mm box to make sure that I wasn’t going out too far. Then I duplicated the first one four times on the board. When the print had finished, all I got was one correct board and the rest was rubbish.
As @fins observes, it’s almost certainly a mechanical problem and the photo suggests it’s in the Y axis.
Uniformly scale this test pattern to fit the platform and run it as fast as it will go in Line mode with optimizations turned off and power set to mark (not cut) a sheet of cardboard:
Any differences from the design will be informative.
Upload pictures of the result so we can look over your shoulder.
Those speeds are extremely fast for a diode laser, which typically uses units of mm/min. You set the units in Edit → Settings:
The machine almost certainly cannot achieve those speeds, but the attempt may be causing the Y axis motors to lose sync with the drive pulses. If that’s the case, changing the units and re-running Material Tests to find the new sweet spots for cutting & engraving will solve many problems.
As mentioned above. Your diode laser should be set to mm/min not mm/sec.
To change it navigate to Edit > Settings, then ensure the unit setting is set to “mm/min” (Best for Diode Lasers)
That said. I think that speed of 3000 mm/minute is way to fast. Try using 2000 mm/min and see if that is any better. If not then you may have an mechanical issue with your machine. Also make sure you are doing your engrave file first then your cut file
If it’s setup, even in the ball park, I would think it wouldn’t try higher speeds…
If the controller is set to mm/m, then it’s limits should also be in mm/m. If you really push these they make a terrible racket when the fields move faster than the mechanics can move.
I took the advice given to make sure that the base was not shaking and also to check to tightness of the belts. I put the laser cutter onto a Black and Decker workmate. I screwed a plywood work to to the workman and placed the laser cutter on.
That seems to have stopped those problems. So here is the result. Four nicely produced platform tops ready for painting. I can now print another 8 or so and then some shorter pieces for the platform sloped ends.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed to solving my problems. There was a time when I thought that I had bought a wrong one but all of your effort have resolved the issues and I am now confident of going forward. Thanks again to all of you.
