Hello all. I have searched the forum woth no luck. Mabey I’m not using the best terminology. I have a JTech 7 watt laser mounted on a xcarve. I have done several successful pieces with light burn software. The past 3 I have tried I’ve had issues. All 3 were simple text designed I’m light burn. Set to cut at 20 ipm 100% power. At random points the laser is losing power and going to what looks like 4%. I can start the design over but it does the same thing. Not always in the exact same spot. By the end of the cut its barley marking the wood. Does anyone have a direction I can head in?
I would check with J-Tech - you might have a wiring issue, or it could be overheating and going into a thermal shutdown / safety mode. I’m not sure if theirs do this, but I know some diode systems do.
I initially thought this but what have found since posting is I can scan for 45 mins at full power and have no issues. But 5 mins in a cut run and it starts acting up.
Which version of GRBL are you running, and which device driver did you choose in LightBurn? The X-Carve normally comes with GRBL 1.0c, which is not really meant for laser use, and does a few non-standard things like reset parameters when restarted. You would need to check the settings for $30 (Spindle max setting, should be either 255 or 1000, and the LightBurn “S Value Max” device setting has to match it) and the $32 setting should be 1 (laser mode).
did you have any issues with initial start up?
I have the same set up as you and I can get my controller to move, however I cannot get the laser to engage outside of switching the controller manually to CW from TTL.
Any thoughts?
Nic, have you messaged J-Tech at all? They’re usually quite responsive.
Ill do so now. See whats going on. Great idea!