Hi All.
I’ve been having some issues with my Atomstack laser cutter/engraver with Lightburn. What’s been going on I’ve been having alignment issues with my rotary tool. If I import a SVG or AI it will cause misalignment. If I import an image instead it will engrave on the item perfectly. With troubleshooting its the files. Drag and dropping or importing does not make a difference, It’s the files.
Also, side note tested rotary settings without the rotary tool attached and it did not cause the crazy misalignment.
I’m a newbee to laser engraving and don’t have a rotary yet but I’ve used svg files from Inkscape with Lightburn quite a few times. It works perfectly in my experience. From the images you are showing it looks to me like the your test tumbler is shifting position on the rotary. Is it clamped to the rollers at all? (I notice that the Y axis was transposed in your first example and assume that’s not the issue.)
The difference is not due to the source being Inkscape or Illustrator… the difference is based on it being vector vs raster. Raster images will burn line by line from start to end whereas vector designs with lines could have the rotary going back and for which is likely causing slipping.
You can resolve this by either rasterizing the vector in LightBurn or externally before burning.
Just an additional thought. - I noticed in the video that the rotary is a two roller system with no clamping mechanism. If your system is working fine with an image that may be because the image is being engraved as a raster with long, smooth, passes. Engraving the svg file may be bouncing things around due to the short passes involved.
Some ideas to try:
Group all of the art into a single group, perhaps try the Lightburn “Fill all shapes at once” setting.
Slow down the speed to try and minimize the inertial effects.
Use the export function in Inkscape to convert your artwork into a png or other image file. (Essentially to force the longer scanning movement.)
Well I ended up doing that but I don’t want to have to. Wanted to know if there is a way to stop the laser from jumping around at this point. I think that’s the problem. I had a mix of raster and vector and noticed that the laser movements were erratic with vectors and smooth with rasters.
The weight of the rotary will help stabilize it but that’s not the issue. The problem with jerky, short, movements of the tumbler (work piece) is that the movements will make it tend to bounce around due to inertial forces. This can cause it to shift position relative to the laser and rollers. That’s why many of the rotary designs have a clamping wheel or chuck to hold the piece in position relative to the rollers or wheels. Adding weight to the work piece can make things worse as that increases the inertial forces.
