Laser stopping part way through jobs?

Hi everyone
I have a Haotian 60W fiber mopa laser, and have a probelm with the laser stopping part way through jobs, and wondered could this have something to do with lightburn?
I recently updated to the new version: 2.0.01 but for several reasons at that time I rolled it back to the previous version: 1.7.08
Please see pic of most recent job, it had already stopped part way through 3 previous times
Any advice very much appreciated
Thanks
legepe



PS: I was recently provided a q-pulse chart for my machine, but I do not fully understand what this means and could my settings here have something to do with this problem. Can anyone advise what this chart means?

Hi Leigh

If you type “Laser stops during job” into the Topics search box you will get some suggestions on possible reasons and fix’s.

For example (cutting deck size configuration) and (Sending whole file to laser before starting the job ).

I dont have any personal experience to relate to you on the subject but you might gain some info from previous conversations until the real help gets here.

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This is a complex topic and not really easy to understand. But in general, this chart gives you an idea of the minimum frequency that you can choose before you reduce the power of the laser. You can imagine that the laser needs to be “loaded” with power before it fires. The longer the pulse width, the more time it will use to charge, and if you have a low frequency, it does not get loaded fully before it fires.
This is not related to your problem; this is only another factor you can use for adjusting the power of the output. If your frequency is below the “down power frequency” for a given pulse length, then you will just have less than your nominal laser power as output.

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Here’s a neat video from JPT on how a MOPA works. Fun to watch, even if you don’t get anything out of it. :man_shrugging:


These are pulse machines, unlike the typical continuous wave (cw) led and co2 that we usually see.

A MOPA lets you control the pulse shape to some degree.. There are discussions about this if you hunt around in the galvo area.

@misken is correct, but let me put it another way and you can pick which is more clear to you.

As with all circuits and systems, it takes time to pump up a fiber. Frequency determines pulses/s, higher frequency mean more pulses/s.

During a pulse, the seed diode controls when the energy in the fiber is released and it’s duration or q-pulse. Q is just a fancy term for a change in how well a signal is resisted or blocked. Hence the terminology of Q-switch the Q at the end of the fiber is switched to a low impedance or low Q, to allow the pulse to be released. While this Q remains low, energy of the fiber is released. Most of these pulse in the area of about 15kW, however a MOPA can change the Q pulse shape. This is from my JPT YDFLP-60-M7-L1-R User Manual-20191202.pdf.txt. It’s a pdf, so remove the .txt extension.

How long a fiber takes to pump up is based on it’s power rating, hence a 50W fiber will take twice as long to pump up than a 100W fiber… Output is similar, but the 100W allows more pulses/s, because it can pump up the fiber quicker allowing more pulses at higher power.

It’s unlikely this is an issue. These sources have lots of protections built into them, the most common that I see, is they overheat and a shutdown is triggered by the internal temperature sensor. Some have opened them up and allow fans to blow into them or just moved the machine to ensure better air flow.

Many of these, like mine, have a sensor that lowers power if there is a reflection issue.

Hope this make sense? .. A bit longer than I hoped for.. :face_with_spiral_eyes:

I’d suggest you ensure it can breath before looking elsewhere.

Please let us know what you find – Good luck.

:smiley_cat:

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Thanks for your advice and infomation on this. I must say it is going to take me some time before I can more easily understand the technical sfuff
The problem seemed to be - I had the wobble enabled, and it ended up several times crashing lightburn. If it did not crash it, it would just stop the laser and it would need to be restarted. Once i disabled the wobble, it stopped the problem

Can you repeat the problem if you enable wobble?


This sounds like it’s possibly a bug and Lightburn should be aware of the issue. No software should just crash and need to be restarted.

Maybe @gilaraujo can give us some thought.

:smiley_cat:

thanks @jkwilborn

@legepe would you be able to share a LBRN that would make the crash happen?
Also, have you tried it on 2.0.02?

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I posted at the beginning of this post a picture of what I was doing along with the settings I was using, if this is not what you need by LBRN then please let me know what you need.
Yesterday I installed the new version 2.0.02, I will repeat tmrw the same (with wobble enabled) and will let you know how it goes

The project file or .lbrn2 file created by Lightburn. That has all the information.

:smiley_cat:

I was only experimenting with this and various other settings and did not save it as a file, I would only be able to repeat the same process and test it using the settings that I posted at the start of this post
Please let me know if I should do it, and I will let you know if the problem is still there, or not?

It needs to be the project file that failed so they can find the issue and correct it.

If you can duplicate the issue.

:smiley_cat:

Did the exact same process and settings (with wobble enabled) as previously, but with version 2.0.02, and it completed without problems, so it seems the problem was with the previous version 1.7.08


Hi again, just started to read through briefly the [JPT YDFLP-60-M7-L1-R User Manual-20191202.pdf you posted earlier, and it looks very interesting. I was just wondering, would you know - how relevant is this manual to my machine - Haotian 60w fiber mopa laser? and is it usually normal for the manufacturer of a machine to provide this type of information when purchasing initially? I was only provided an EZCAD manual and a Unboxing-and-initial-setup-guide, but nothing else. Is there other documentation I should ask the manufacturer for?

Is a pretty standard fiber source. Most of these machines only have one of around three manufacturers. Mine is this model.

In the model means it has other specifications. You can find the breakdown of each variant in the manual.

I’d say Haotian can answer that better than I. If you have this model, then this is the manual and it applied directly. It’s pretty simple to ask Haotian laser what model was put into your machine.

I’ve also head of others sending the model/serial number to JPT for a more specific information pertaining directly to your model.

If it doesn’t void your warranty, then you could crack the case open and read it for yourself.

Make sense?

:smiley_cat:

Just running passes (3 passes) and its stopped again
Any suggestions what is happening, is this software or my machine? Or, have I simply got my setting wrong?
Running most recent version 2.0.02



Blade prep.lbrn2 (13.3 KB)

Be careful. I thought mine was stopping, but watch Lightburn where it shows % of job is moving. I thought my 200 watt mopa stopped, but it was the q pulse and freq combination and it was barely firing because of my settings. I didnt think it was firing but it was but weak. The post earlier in this thread about pulse sheds a lot of light on what my issue was.

I have that issue also, it does what I tell it to do, not what I want it to do :face_with_spiral_eyes:

:smiley_cat:

This is not the reason in my case. My camera will pick up even the lowest settings when the laser is working, even if you cannot see it with your eye. Lightburn does not recognise that the laser has stopped working and the % of job keeps moving, after a while if left untouched the laser starts working again (picture shows the first layer has stopped half way through then started again on the second layer, brown in pic)
Im informed from the manufacturer that with a 300mm lens, engraving upto 295mm I must use slow settings, as in this case 2500mm/s / 90% power is too much, and I suppose to stop any damage to the machine, it shuts down, until it can safely start again
This seems to make more sense and seems to be what is happening, I do wonder if this is normal though?
Any further comments very much welcome

There are certain q pulse / frequency combinations that the laser will run but NOT fire. Other times where it protects itself from overheating. Each laser is slightly different. Watch this video after the 15 min mark. It helps understand why lightburn is running but not firing. This video helped me understand in basic terms with a light switch.

Try different sertings and see if it corrects the issue.

Thanks for the video.. The light switch example is good but it’ll take me some time to digest enough to fully understand everything, and more testing!
You can see on my picture posted previously the right side of blade upto the middle is where it was marking, but then it just stopped, and the red led line just continued where it was supposed to be marking but obviously did not. Im guessing it just over heated, and then, by the time it came to the second layer it had cooled down enough to start and mark again