Here are examples of the issue I am facing. The machine will randomly shift the location of the engraving. As you can see on the navy tumbler, the whole engraving shifted up in one spot, and went back to normal after.
The other examples are when it is cutting, it will randomly cut wrong. No there is no hidden lines I am not aware of. The machine just does it. I moved to a new house, so I know something is off after moving the machine(as carefully as I did it), but I have no idea where to start.
I can engrave the same design in the same spot 15 time, and on the 16th time it may do something wacky. Its random when and where it happens. I am not sure if it is a belt issue, or leveling issue, or something even bigger.
Assuming it’s a Ruida controller, delete all the files stored in its flash memory.
If it’s connected with a USB cable, that’s always good for random communication errors. One way to diagnose this is to Send the file to the controller’s flash memory, then run it from the controller without involving LightBurn. Lay down some cardboard, run the same job until it either misbehaves or you’re convinced it won’t.
USB cables are always the last thing:
Using the Ethernet connection eliminates communication problems, with the caveat that you must ensure the router on the LAN cannot assign the controller’s fixed USB address to another device using DHCP. This long discussion gives some background:
So I bought the stuff to change to ethernet connection soon, but I swapped out my usb cord with no luck. After thinking about it, I never had this issue with my macbook because the usb plugs directly into it vs my mac that I need a USB C to USB adapter. When I went to the mac is when this issue started. Im wondering if the adapter is what is causing the issue of stuff getting wacky. I tried loading a file into the machine using a thumb drive and no issue at all with the file.
This is from USB cable. You can see the crab is not a normal cut and gets crazy without completing the crab.
Have you checked for missing or damaged teeth in the belts.
Is there any consistancy in where the deviation from the cutting plan takes place as this may indicate which belt or part has the issue…Like it always happens while doind this movement..sort of thing.
Which tells you the data was corrupted between the Mac and the laser controller.
Apparently Apple products are much fussier than PCs with regard to USB connections, particularly when a USB 3 port meets a USB 2 (-oid) device. The usual solution seems to be interposing the cheapest possible USB 2 hub between the two.
A discussion explored that, starting with an overly long unpowered USB 2 cable:
I havent inspected 100% but the belt looked good on a quick glance. I think its just going from the MAC to the laser is what messes it up. I for sure need to check my belt out though.
Ya after ready for hours and trying various things, thats when I decided to try a regular thumb drive. Of course I had to spend more time figuring out how to reformat correctly to work with the laser lol. However, my first initial test seemed perfect. I used the same file I had tried on previous other tests that ALWAYS would mess up. So it seems that the USB from the MAC is the culprit. For now I will stick with the thumb drive until I get the ethernet set up. Thanks for the help everyone! Still open to any other suggestions too.
Concerning the pic above with the engraving “Serve the Lord”, How did the control board make the cut from the disruption in comms point ‘A’ to the rejoining of normal pattern, point ‘B’ in an almost point to point straight line.
Is there a plan loaded and followed by a procedure.
The Ruida commands can use absolute coordinates (which are distinct from LightBurn’s Start From: Absolute Coordinates mode) to position the laser head. When some commands are corrupted in transit, the next valid command with absolute coordinates will yoink the laser head to that spot, leaving a straight line from the trashed section, and continue as if nothing bad happened.
We see that a lot with GRBL-based controllers when part of the G-Code file gets trashed by a flaky USB connection.
Neither the Ruida nor the GRBL controller have much in the way of error checking, so other weird things can happen. Mostly, though, the errors just punch out sections of the shapes and leave an otherwise mysterious straight line.
