I bought a Ortur Master Laser 2 a few months ago and I’m really enjoying. I’ve been able to cut 5mm plywood and other materials but now I’m faced with a problem.
In the pictures I try to cut 3mm plywood and just the Y axis is able to cut all the way through. The X axis takes more passes to be able to cut the ply. The belts feel well tensioned, the small wheels are all straight and there is almost no play in the machine.
Something that I have noticed is that the light coming from the laser looks continuous while cutting the Y axis but it looks like it’s pulsating very fast while cutting on the X axis. I don’t know if this may be related but it was something I noticed.
Diode lasers don’t output a round beam of light. It is more of a rectangle. You can focus it down to almost a square, but that is only at one depth. When trying to cut you are using the laser beam at more than one distance. As the cut gets deeper your laser is no longer in as good of focus. If the laser is traveling in the direction of the long side of the rectangle the energy is still absorbed my the same area of material, just over a longer time period. Going 90 degrees to that results in a wider cut so more material is absorbing the energy.
If your laser is indeed flashing in one direction and not the other, I would check your wires and make sure they are making a good connection and you don’t have a loose or broken wire that is only aggravated when the machine moves on that axis.
You may try rotating the square 45 degrees and see if it cuts evenly and/or if your flashing acts up on all sides of the square. The flashing may just be the light being reflected off the fibers of the wood. Hard to say without being able to see it.
Yes, I can see that the laser beam is a dash on the Y Axis. But this is a problem that happened out of nowhere. It has just finished cutting, I swapped the plywood to replicate the same cuts but this time it didn’t cut on the X axis. I’ll try to check if no wires are unconnected but if that was the problem the laser wouldn’t fire, right?
Vibrations can cause an intermittent connection of a loose connection, or frequent bending of a wire can work harden the copper to the point it breaks, there are multiple strands in the wires to try to mitigate this, and if one strand breaks hopefully the neighboring strands can take up the slack, but they may break in the same area or close to it. This can lead to no connection only when the wire is bent in a particular way, but good connection if straightened, or vice versa.
I think that one of the problems might be this red LED. I think it indicate that the PWM mode is on, but in this cut I’m not doing any shading, only 100% power. Do you know if is usual for this LED to be on?
It’s kind of hard to really see your laser point in the video, but the flickering almost looks like the smoke lighting on fire and producing a small flame, then getting blown out, and repeating. An air assist will make all the difference in the world when it comes to cutting wood. It blows out any flames and removes the smoke before it can rob too much power from the laser beam. I made one for mine with a 3D printer that slips on the O.D. of the lens, and an aquarium air pump. You can see it, and download it here Laser Master 2 Air Assist by red_rider95 - Thingiverse.
In the video it looks like your laser may be out of focus, but it is hard to really see your laser spot. I like to set my focus on black anodized aluminum, at 0.15% power. You can really see the spot size and shape with that setup.
To avoid having to always have to change your laser focus you can set it at the level of your workbench, then just shim your frame up the same thickness as your work piece.
