Greetings, I have a relatively new Ortur laser master 3 that I received for Christmas. I quickly assembled the machine and started using it with awesome results. I’m using Lightburn and had very good success at first. Then I disassembled the machine packed it back up in its original packaging to bring it to Mexico with me. After re-assembly images are all printing at an angle. I’m not sure if it’s a software issue, or a hardware issue, because the machine cuts almost totally square, it seems that only when I am trying to print a picture that my image is all out of square. Any ideas?
the piece of wood should be rotated 90 clockwise in the picture.
there are several tests on the same piece of wood. with different settings in LightBurn.
I would suspect Y axis out of alignment.
If the machine is cutting square, but engraving out-of-square, I’d suspect more than an axis being out of square (especially seeing the significant skew of those engravings). The images on the “left” appear to show a slightly different skew angle compared to the images on the right.
First, a question… Is the Y (non-gantry) axis of the machine oriented along the long edge of your engraving piece?
Anyway, from first appearances, it looks like the stepper controlling the laser head movement on the gantry is skipping steps as it reverses direction at the end of a pass, but it only happens when the reversal is in one direction. If you are engraving in just one direction, this might happen if the non-engraving pass is at too high a speed and or acceleration.
I would agree with that, though he said “almost square” which makes me think of alignment. I’d compare the two together to properly diagnose it. The way that picture looks on the left, it almost looks like it’s skipping back so maybe belt tension, alignment, etc.
A small amount of misalignment of the frame (i.e. tight and rigid, but slightly out of square) is not usually a problem. As long as the gantry is square to (usually) the y-axis, you will still get engravings that are perfectly square.
That’s correct but what I’m talking about is misalignment of the gantry to the sides where it gets progressively worse, then slips back to center. The picture on the left seems to reflect that but you’re correct that misalignment wouldn’t lead to a parallelogram shape.
I think that the workpiece shows actually four tests, using both different power and speed, perhaps changed while the job was running for the one on the right.
I should have oriented that block of wood exactly as it was for the test cuts to avoid confusing you.
Thank you for your responses. Also behind the square is a simple rectangle cut that shows that the lasers frame is just barely out of square. the interesting thing is that it is out of square in the opposite way that the picture is burning out of square, just barely out. Anyways. I found that the guide wheels were not all properly adjusted in their rails. I took the whole machine apart and am trying to tune it up. I haven’t had time to “fool” with it. My next door neighbor just showed up with a load of firewood, so now, it will be tomorrow before I can report back.
Thank you all for your helpful input. You motivated me to get the thing taken apart and inspected. Thanks!
Well, it sounds like you are on track to solving your issue. It’s amazing how seemingly small problems with machine setup can result in significant and perplexing issues with the resulting engraving.
Best of luck to you in getting it fixed!