Laser not firing when using rotary

Not sure where to post this, because I’m not sure where the problem is.

Chinese Red & Black 100 watt laser, Ruida 644XS controller, roller rotary plugged into Y axis with a switch on the side of the machine.
The laser is working when cutting or engraving on the flat bed, but when I try to rotary engrave, it doesn’t fire.
Files can be sent to the laser using either Lightburn or RDWorks, the roller rotary rolls, the laser head moves, but the laser does not fire. I can press the “Pulse” button and the laser fires.
I can’t adjust the steps or circle pulse as I cannot do a test fire with any images.
I think have everything enabled correctly in both Lightburn and RDWorks.
Any clues as to what is going wrong?
Anything else you might need for a diagnosis?


I notice you have the Y Axis selected in LightBurn but you also said you are connected into the X Axis. This could cause issues so I want to confirm you hardware configuration.

Thanks for pointing that out, Rick. That would be my mistake. It is the Y axis… the forward and back movement of the gantry. Sorry, I will edit the original post.

But correcting the mistake in my post hasn’t solved the problem.

There is no functional difference I’m aware of that would make the laser not fire in rotary mode, but work for flat work. You have your cut settings hidden - do you have Min Power set too low possibly?

Thanks for the reply, Oz.
They are currently set at minimum 25% power, maximum 25% power, 250 speed, with a .060 line interval. This works well for engraving on flat glass, although I could speed it up a bit.
This is a screenshot from RDWorks, but the settings are the same in both programs. I just can’t screenshot Lightburn using this computer, and the Mac is in the shed with the laser.

That is very strange - I’m not aware of any setting anywhere in the Ruida hardware that would prevent the laser from firing because you were in rotary mode.

Can you try it without connecting the rotary plug? As in, leave your existing Y axis connected, and just let it run with a funny scale. If the laser fires that way, it might be something about the wiring of the rotary plug causing issues.

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Your suggestion worked. The program ran and etched. So I tried tweaking the settings a bit.
I reset the etching settings in lightburn to default, and then re-entered the settings I wanted.
I plugged the rotary in, pushed the switch on the side, but did NOT enable rotary within the program.
I slowed the speed down to 250. Not sure if this had any effect on making it work. The max was set at 25%, and the min set at 20%.
It etched! I ran it a few times, and it worked every time.
However, I can’t use the laser any more today, as it has stopped working due to the temp being over 35 degrees in the shed :smile: I think I need a new pump without a radiator, or better chiller system. The water temp was 27, and the power temp was 27.9. So it stopped working.
But, all good :slight_smile: Thanks for your help.

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