Hey so ive got a modified D1 40w laser. Its xtool controller was messed up so we converted it to grbl which works great on lasergrbl itself, however when using it on lightburn produces a type of “step” look whenever i try and engrave, it runs and comes out beautiful when its just outlining something. Ive tried multiple things regarding speed, power, raising or lowering the laser, changing overscan, tried the different fill tools and even changing the acceleration to see if it was maybe too high or low but nothing seems to really help. Im pretty new to the whole laser engraving scene so im not sure if this explains it well but ill attach
I see a couple issues at play here. First, you have something loose in your gantry. The straight lines (side of L,P, M, etc.) have wobble. Possibly the bearings have play in them. I will link to a diagnostic process below. Also, your steps that you asked about could be partially caused by this same mechanical issue, but more likely you need to perform a scan offset adjustment. You can disable bidirectional scanning and this should improve the output for testing.
This guide will help find the play in your machine. It was written for Sculpfun lasers, but all gantry machines are similar.
When you use LaserGrbl is the engraving “bi-directional”? As in, does it engrave left to right, then right to left, or is the laser only on in one direction?
If LaserGrbl is only on in one direction, that’s the difference - LightBurn uses bi-directional by default, and if the belts are loose, the two passes won’t line up properly and you’ll get what looks like blurring, or an echo, very visible on the ‘a’s in the bottom of your image.
I’ve checked what i can and tightened up what i thought was loose however it appeared to have limited improvement. However the offset scanning aswell as lowering my Y axis acceleration did seem to have helped although theres still a bit of a ‘step’ and the lines are still a little wobbly. I’m unsure if theres perhaps something i’ve missed so rechecking everything.
Tightened up the belts as best i can, and made sure both grbl and lightburn use the bi-directional setting however for testing i did try using the single direction aswell however produces the same result. The overscan setting and lowering of my Y axis acceleration seemed to help a little but there still appears to be wobbly lines and a bit of a ‘step’ remaining.
