Losing alignment when traveling, can't make acceleration change write to hardware, xTool D1

LightBurn Hardware Compatibility GRBL
1

Hi Lightburn laser wizards,
I am having serious problems with my new xtool D1. Below is a copy of what I sent xTool tech support, but essentially, when the laser FAST travels between shapes I will hear an angry noise from the stepper motor and it will print 3-6 mm off of alignment from then on.
I am trying running to 80% of max speed with “motion limit” on to mitigate but it still happens once per hour sometimes.

I’m glad I’m configuring with inexpensive materials, would LOVE any tips!

------------------------------- Copy of my e-mail to support@xtool.com ------------------------
Hello,

I have gone through all the faqs, manuals and troubleshooting thoroughly.

My new xTool D1 is losing X axis alignment during fast travels between shapes.

I have new firmware,
I am using lightburn
Belt tension seams fine, i think
machine and travel squared beautifully
rails are clean
it’s brand new, 3 days out of box

I feel like if I could change “machine settings” → “X Acceleration” it would probably fix this, but I can’t get settings to write in firmware.
Lightburn says it writes to hardware successfully, but when I read them back they are always default. Have tried moving firmware lock switch to both positions.

I’m sure it should work with the default travel settings, so I am hoping I don’t have a broken machine. I can only find settings to speed up travel, not anything to slow it down! (other than those controller settings that i can’t get to write)

Essentially, when the laser FAST travels between shapes I will hear an angry noise from the stepper motor and it will print 3-6 mm off of alignment from then on.

This happens repeatedly even after slowing to 80mm/sec.

Thank you for your time, let me know if I need to clarify my question

2

Is there any speed below which you don’t experience this? It’s not clear but you seem to imply this is limited to the X-axis. Can you confirm?

Do you get this behavior with laserbox software?

You emphasize FAST travels… are you not seeing this with other movements?

What is this referring to?

Can you run a $$ in console and paste the results here?

3

Not sure if it would work but did you try slowing down white travle speed on Device settings

It should overide the jog speed betwen shapes.

Not familiar with X-tool firmware so is a wild guess

Alternativly did you try to alter the settings by console command instead of the GUI?

4

When my laser is scanning or moving short distances between images it appears fine. It seams to be when it tries to accelerate to move 2 inches ish plus without burning.

I said “motion limit”, I meant “Reduce Motion”, it is a lightburn setting.
LightBurn > Edit > Settings > Reduce Motion (slower)
This setting makes a noticeable improvement in how often I lose X axis position, but does not fix the problem completely

Thanks for the reply!

7

I believe you are conflating two things that are not related

That settings is based uppon the graphical rendering within lightburn GUI itself

To edit the GRBL settings of the machine you will need to edit the machine settings itself
Edit → MAchine settings
But better to know exactly which you are changing

1 Like
8

Usually most users tend to do the oposite, as accelerating it rather than slowing it but i thought it cuold help
I would find quite strange that the X1 needs such reduction . you sure you checked all belts well?
I dont own one - yet lol - so cant help much hardware wise

9

My belts are all snug, not tight tight, it appears to be overpowering the stepper motor in high G maneuvers, not sure.
at white space travel 200 I had issues, trying at 100mm/sec now (burning at 100 mm/sec also)

100mm/sec is the stated limit for precision, so it makes sense perhaps that it was not dealing with traversing faster than that. Unfortunate though. I will keep testing. Thank you so much for getting me moving again.

10

Wait… 200mm/sec?!
Thats 12000mm/min… well no wonder!
Thats a bit too fast! surprised firmware lets you go that fast actually

I would think anything above 100mm/sec (6000mm/min) would be asking a lot
remember contrary to Co2, theres the weight of the diode module to contend with
Physics are a pain

1 Like
11

That’s good to know, thank you

Before I edited white space scan it was going WAY faster than 200MM/sec to traverse (by my eye)

on complicated shading it would sometimes shake the laser violently free of the set screw when crossing dapples of white in image, so glad to not be as violent to my poor new laser now.

I imported the xTool provided lightburn config file and went through all the steps, twice. Apparently still some fine tuning to do.

13

For practical purposes that’s really in the upper limit of a unit like this.

Your 70mm/sec is fairly reasonable but I’d argue still quite fast. I doubt you’d ever be actually engraving at these speeds but I’m not familiar with your particular unit.

14

So I spoke too soon, device settings > fast whitespace scan set to 25mm/sec is not slowing me down for traversing, and I am still having problems at 70mm/sec, but only when moving from one shape to another. It looks like it really isn’t the speed so much as the almost instant acceleration, no ramp up or down in speed like it does when over scanning the shapes. .

If only I could get machine settings to write, is that perhaps impossible on this machine? (xtool D1)
I don’t know what I am talking about really, but I still feel like if I lowered the acceleration number in firmware it would be fine.

--------------------------------Consol $$------------------------------------------
Waiting for connection…

ok

ok

[ver:1.1.0 B3]

ok

$$

$0=1

$1=0.03

$2=0

$3=0

$4=0

$5=0

$6=0

$10=255

$11=0.0

$12=0.0

$13=0

$20=1

$21=0

$22=0

$23=0

$24=25.000

$25=3000.000

$26=250

$27=1.000

$30=1000

$31=0

$32=0

$100=100.000

$101=100.000

$102=100.000

$110=6000.000

$111=6000.000

$112=6000.000

$120=10.000

$121=10.000

$122=10.000

$130=200.000

$131=200.000

$132=200.000

ok

ok

15

I am scared but I will tighten them

16

I have not tried to change machine settings by consol. In will look for how to do that.

Trying to change x axis acceleration and y axis acceleration from 10mm/sec sq. to say, 8mm/sec sq. I would think?

17

10 mm/s^2 doesn’t seem unreasonable to me for acceleration but you can always try to reduce and see the effect.

Seems like max speed in $110-112 at 6000 mm/min is the bigger problem.

You should first see if you can eliminate the problem by dialing these down by half. Then increase by halves again until the problem presents and then dialing back.

I hope you’ve made a backup of your base configuration before starting. If you haven’t already, I suggest you do so.

You can make changes directly to these values by typing for example “$110=4000” in the console input field just as you did with “$$”.

1 Like
18

I tried to change those max spindle values in the console, but just like when I changed them in the machine settings menu they appear to write, but always return the default values with no behavior change from laser
:frowning:
I specifically bought this unit (xTool D1) because it said it could keep high detail at 100mm/sec. I understand that is a high limit, but still losing alignment at 70mm/sec makes me feel there must be adjustments I should make.

Thanks for the help, I’ll keep testing ant talking with xTool

19

If speed is a priority you may want to reconsider your options. Even if the laser head can move at those speeds it’s not clear you’d get a quality engraving. I’d be happy to be wrong and I’ve never used the xtool D1 but from what I’ve seen in videos it doesn’t seem fundamentally different in this regard. This is where CO2 lasers have an advantage. The lighter lens unit allows for much faster movement.

What types of materials and types of projects were you planning to make? You should consider doing your benchmarking in Laserbox to see if it gets you the speed/power that you need. This way you’re not dealing with multiple variables and an early release version of GRBL firmware.

1 Like
20

It does come out beautifully and with great detail when scanning back and forth at 100mm/sec burning coated aluminum, the only issues are diagonal moves between shapes.

  • xTool got back to me while i was writing this. This is a known issue to be fixed with next firmware update, I’ll post as an “answer” to my original thread. Thank you again barainlb *

I will do more benchmarking back and forth, but even if it works in laserbox it is still not really… useable. I’m a total noob but that software appears to be noober. Working on just improving my tool path.

If I could get it to just scan all elements from the bottom to top I could eliminate most of my issues it aoppears (more testing definitely needed).
I know I can flatten the whole image, but then my text and QR codes go grey and print as shade patterns not fills. If I could get the text/qr codes to go black when flattened I would be very happy.

For now I believe I will just bounce into Gimp and make text and QR codes black images, then bring them back over to lightburn design, then “convert to bitmap” entire project. ** this is still what I plan to do until firmware update **

21

xTool responded to me, apparently this is a known issue that will be resolved with next firmware. Below is the clarification I sent them (when I thought i had it fixed but was wrong) and their reply.

Me:

I am still having issues with loosing alignment when traversing between shapes in LightBurn on your xtool D1.

It appears that after finishing 1 shape it does not ramp speed like it does while scanning, it just accelerates too hard for the stepper motor to keep hold of. I am not sure, just what it looks like is happening.

This has been happening when engraving at 70mm/sec, though less often then at 100mm/sec . It NEVER happened when actually drawing a shape or shading, only when it accelerates and decelerates for traversing (At least that’s my current theory watching it go)

I cannot write values to firmware or I would slow down the acceleration. If there is a way to write to firmware, specifically the acceleration value, i would love to know it.

Thank you very much for your time,

Aaron H

xTool:

Dear customer,

Thank you for letting us know this issue. In fact, this issue is a known one and will be resolved in the next firmware update.
Thank you for your understanding and support

Best Regards

Email: Support@xtool.com

WEB: www.xtool.com

Global Leader in STEAM Education Solutions

22

If you haven’t already you should experiment with the different fill group settings as well as optimization settings to see if you can get the movement that you need.

This might not be a bad plan given your situation. One thing to try instead of having to go through the whole gimp conversion is to set the Image Mode to “threshold”. This will basically force a decision between black and white which should fall to black in your case.

That response was surprisingly unspecific. I assume they’re referring to the inability to change configuration but they could have been referring to something else from your letter. Surprised nobody noticed that changes couldn’t be made but sounds like they were rushing to get it out the door.

23

I have barely used fill grouping, but it looks promising, I’ll test more with it.
I have been using “Block backlash”, in addition to starting at bottom in optimization and ordering my layers as such, and things are doing well, so far. Time to go bigger.

I agree that response leaves a little to be desired for specificity, but I think there may be a slightly bigger bug than not being able to write to hardware settings, but hopefully fixed soon. I asked for an ETA, will post if they give it. I know its newly released firmware for LightBurn compatibility.

With all of that I am pretty happy with the hardware for the price point, but I don’t really know what I am talking about so, grain of salt (xtool D1).

I feel like it is being asked to do moves it shouldn’t be asked to do when the angry noises and loss of location happen. I hope a new firmware update tunes the traverse. If I can at least edit the hardware values soon I think I’ll be happy.