Lose carriage-how to fix

Community Laser Talk
1

Over time the carriage on my LM3 has loosened up. Any ideas on how to tighten it up or should not not worry about in and press on?

Thanks, Duane

2

Only if you don’t mind terrible quality.

The fundamental assumption of CNC machines is that the business end goes exactly where the controller commands it, which means any motion the controller doesn’t know about will produce incorrect results.

With that piece flopping around, run this test pattern at a fast speed on some scrap cardboard:

GrundTest.lbrn2

Then figure out what’s loose, tighten everything securely, run the test again, and show us the difference.

Thanks … :grin:

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3

Thanks Ed. But that is part of the problem. I have tightened every screw and I still have the slop. Might be time to buy a new system but it will NOT be a frigging Ortur!!! Nothing but problems and NO customer support until your machine is out of warranty.

4

In this case, you have nothing to lose and you can see what’s wrong, so use this laser as a learning experience.

Take the gantry & laser head apart, down to the level of removing components / brackets / screws & laying them neatly on the table, until you get to the part that’s obviously loose.

Take that part off and, with it in one hand and the rest of the machine staring at you, puzzle out how it should go back on and what will hold it securely in that position.

Some things to consider:

  • A critical screw is missing (so you can’t tighten it)
  • The screw threads are stripped
  • The threads tapped into the frame are stripped
  • The nut or rivnut holding the screw is loose
  • Any of those can be damaged / badly manufactured / bent / missing

If you search for “support” and any brand name you want in these threads, horror stories bubble to the surface. The reality of the market: no brand / company has more than sporadically decent customer support and all have faceplanted while dealing with obvious issues.

When you get to the point where you can take it all apart & put it all back together again without any effort, I think you’ll find it works a whole lot better and stays that way.

Protip: A set of metric ball-end hex keys goes a long way toward building your confidence. :grin:

1 Like
5

There are likely eccentric nuts at the bottom of the laser mount assembly that can be turned to draw the assembly more tightly to the gantry. It’s possible that the nuts have turned over time or perhaps the wheels themselves have eroded creating more slack.

3 Likes
6

Hi.

I don’t own an Ortur, and it’s rather hard to tell the construction details from that video of Yours @Jayhawk714 , but:

That’d be my bet as well.

On xTool D1 there’s three concave rollers riding on round rails (two rollers on the top rail, one roller on the bottom rail), and the play is adjusted with the lone one on the bottom.

There are lots of other possibilities on how to fashion a “linear rail” as cheaply as possible, so a (partial) disassembly as @ednisley suggested, would get my vote as well.

No matter how bad the design or the execution is, I for one doubt that.
Possible, of course, but highly unlikely.
Even with minimal lubrication, even the cheapest roller-rail system with only the inertial loads to consider, will probably run thousands -if not tens of thousands- of hours.
If adjusted properly (not too tight) of course.
And the sound that the failing mechanism produces, would probably raise the dead when something eventually wears, long before slop like that happens.

Regards,
Sam

:finland:

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Thanks Ed, I’ll give that test today.

8

I’ll also do that today. Hopefully the problem will be found.

9

I will check that out also. I think I’ll flip the unit upside down and look for those screws and anything else that could be the problem.

10

There are a few that are responsive. I personally have had good experiences with Sculpfun support.

11

OMTech did send a new switch and a new power supply without too much prompting during my laser’s warranty period, but have ghosted other folks in much the same situation.

They have been consistently unable to provide controller passwords, which should have a trivially easy support script.

The type of response may vary more with moon phase than anything substantive.

12

Or the fact that you are very active in the Lightburn Forum. :grinning:

Sculpfun did make it difficult to get a replacement board for my new iCube, but I think they just wanted to make sure I was just not trying to get a freebee,

Did not even know this existed for the controllers, or is it a Ruida thing?

13

Aye!

Now, admittedly, they’re not strong passwords:

  • RD8888
  • HF8888
  • CC8888
  • RX6666
  • RT6666

None of which seem to satisfy my controller’s desires or, if they did, would enable functions I’d rather not launch, like Restore Factory Settings. :fire:

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