I am totally new to lasers and have no experience with any of this. I’m 67. I got the laser just for fun. I have no business. I’ve had my laser for three weeks. I have InkScape and Lightburn. I’m only using Lightburn (unless I need to translate something from AI or whatever). I have downloaded the Thunderlaser projects and have cut two Eiffel towers. They are great. I have a Chinese 50watt (40watt) machine, CW5200, installed mA meter and air assist.
When I cut the Eiffel towers, I used 40% and 15mms on 3mm plywood. It was great. My mA was steady at 9mA.
When I try to create a program to cut some 1/4" acrylic, I draw it, make layers, assign power and speed. I select output and show. I preview. I connect, I push start and it goes through the motions. The mA sit there at 3mA. It cuts a little. I’m using 15mms and up to 60% power. It doesn’t matter what I change, the mms or power, it just sits there at 3mA.
This morning I went through the tutorial on LIghtburn on making the WiFi sign. I did that and it worked perfectly on 3mm ply. The mA were appropriate for each operation. I think the max mA was 9. Encouraged, I put the 1/4" acrylic back in the machine. I drew a square. Selected 20mms and 60% power. I saved and named it. I clicked on Upload, and Start. Same thing. Going through the motions and 3mA.
What am I doing wrong?
On Ruida, the Min Power value must be set above the firing threshold of the tube for everything to work. For your 50w that would probably be around 4% to 5%. Here is a bit more on the subject:
I was able to get it cut. It pulled 14mA. I think the final setting was 20mms and 55mA and two passes. I’m going to see tomorrow if I can get it down to 50 mA or less with the two passes.
Thanks for all your help.
Since the files you use from others, or create as part of a walk-through seem to work, upload one of the files you have that doesn’t work here to the forum so we can look at the settings used. Chances are that there’s something in one of them that’s causing the issue.