Hi everyone,
I’m the new owner of a Aufero laser 1 and I’m running into some problems.
I’ve made 16 boxes, the squares are all perfectly square on lightburn but for some reason the result piece is a mess :
Does anyone have an idea of what is causing the problem?
I had a y offset problem that I managed to erase, but I still have a x offset problem. Could the two be related?
Thanks in advance and have a nice day
Not likely.
Looks to me like this is an issue of your pinions being loose on the stepper shaft. Check that the grub screws are secured with one on the flat portion of the shaft.
Also check for proper belt tension.
Hi and thx for the response! You were right, the belt was way to loose! I’m gonna try it again later today to see if it solved the issue!
Thx again
OK so you were right about everything!
Plus, the platform on which the laser and the x axis are mounted were wobbly. I’ve tighten it and now I don’t have wiggling lines anymore. I still have offset on my verticals lines, but I guess it’s just a setting on lightburn.
Thx a lot
Glad to hear that addressed your mechanical issues.
Can you explain what this means? Screenshot of LightBurn vs burn could be useful.
I don’t have access to my laser for 2 days, but i can try to explain 
On lightburn i’m running this :
I’ve tried to use the option
but it only leads to a misalignment on my horizontal lines
I’m guessing this is still something mechanical and likely backlash. Did you check that your pinions were well secured to the shaft for the Y-axis motor? Any play on the pinion or in the coupling between left and right could result in what you’re seeing… assuming that you’re doing bi-directional burns.
So i’ve check every screws and every thing is tight correctly. I don’t know why I have this differences 
It doesn’t seem to really impact what i cut and if I have to fill, i’ll fill horizontaly I guess
On another note, I’ve noticed something strange
I’ve tried to determine my kerf so i ran a set of 3 squares. I’ve cut them all at once and i have a strange thing happening, the first one have a kerf of around .3mm, the second .1mm and the last one almost none. The first square comes out alone, i don’t even need to touch it, the second and the last, i have to apply pressure to release them from the plate
At first, i thought my mdf was not straight, so i attached it to make it as flat as possible, i re-run the test, same result.
I’ve run them individualy, waiting a little between each cut. and they all came out with the .3mm kerf… It looks like my laser is losing power the more it cuts… I’m a little bit worried since it is brand new…
You’re saying that first cut is clean and then progressively worse? Or even the first cut is bad and getting worse from there?
MDF is a very dirty material from a burning perspective. You’ve likely dirtied your lens. Clean with IPA and consider adding air assist to aid in cutting and protecting your lens if you don’t already have it.
I’ve noticed what seems like inconsistent power levels at times. I do think that laser module performance can shift based on certain conditions but haven’t been able to isolate this.
One thing to make sure is that your laser is square to the surface… check focal distance at various points on the material and make sure it’s consistent.
OK, I realise I should have been more precise.
The first square was 19,68mm in x instead of 20mm, the second was 19,89mm and the last 19,99mm.
When I rerun them individually, they all came out being 19,69mm
I wonder if tightening the x axis belt would solve the problem, the thing is that I worry that I’m going to put to much tension on it and doing so hurting the motor or whatever
How many passes are you taking to complete the cut? How thick is the material? If mulitple passes, can you describe the order in which the passes cut each square?
Is square size dependent only on order of cut or does it change with position in laser?
There is a danger of over-tensioning. But generally people undertension rather than overtension. The belts should be taught with no slack but not stretched in any way. However, it’s not clear to me the issue is necessarily in belt tension based on what I’ve understood at least.
I’m running the laser at 100mm/s at 75% power (the lf version of ortur laser), I’m only doing one pass, it’s a 3mm mdf and it’s always the first square that is the smallest, the area on which I cut doesn’t affect the sizes. Plus the x axis length is the only length affected, all the y length are the same within a .02mm range on all squares across all my tests.
It’s pretty hard to move the y axis when the laser isn’t running, I’ve ajust the wheels so there is no wobbles when I touch the axis. Should it be easy to move?
Are you absolutely certain this is the right speed and not 100 mm/min? This would be an incredible achievement at 100 mm/s at 75% power with one pass on 3mm mdf.
This is likely due to the laser dot being asymmetric. However, the kerf getting smaller ofer time is still a little odd. I would expect the cut to be incomplete. Try increasing speed or reducing power until the part is just barely cut. Does that change anything?
This should be very smooth and easy.
Wheels should be tight enough to remove any gap and minimize play but should not be causing any binding or extreme resistance. There should be really no noticeable difference between properly tensioned wheels and untensioned wheels.
Oh yeah sorry, I meant mm/min xD
Well, the cuts aren’t totally incomplete, but in some spot some of the mdf is only 98-99% cut (depth speaking).
OK it’s not smooth at all xD. I’ll try to loosen the wheels a little but it’s going to be hard not to have gaps between the wheels and the axis 
I had room for the platform to wiggle a the beginning which was causing problem when the laser was moving fast
Are you sure the binding is caused by the wheels? Try to see if there might be something else causing the issue… perhaps the wheels are misshapen or not square to the frame. Or possibly a problem in the rail. Also, overly tightened belts are a common cause of binding.
What i mean is that i’ll try to play with the eccentrics on the wheels, see if it changes something.
I’m pretty sure that my belt is too tightened, but everytime i’ve tried to loosen it a little i had issues on my cuts/engraves,
most likely a hardware rather than a software fault. Could be belt tension or similar. My circles came out as ovals due to belt tension issues. This may be a similar issue
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