Machine Settings (what does LB know about them)

LightBurn Software Questions
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Caution - Long and rambling post ahead.

When I open the machine settings from LB a window opens with lots of setting like idle speed, acceleration values and many more.

My question is - Do all of these parameters and their associated values get read from the machine attached to LB? Or does LB have a set of parameters already and it does it just query the machine to load the current values for each of those parameters.

The reason I am asking is that my Boss laser has about 20 or so of these values and I have no idea what 75% of them are really doing or how they impact my machines performance. Like the acceleration values, I know that they control how quickly the stepper motors will accelerate the laser head/gantry but I have no idea what an acceptable value should be. From my CNC experience the values I see in LB look extremely high (Like 100 times larger than I would have guessed), But the laser does not have nearly as much mass on the gantry as a CNC, but the steppers on the laser are also much smaller. So who knows what value is reasonable.

Where do I find the technical manual that explains what each of these machine settings is and what an acceptable range of values is?

This question stated because my laser will occasionally loose steps when I am cutting larger objects, I assumed I had a belt loose and was about to figure out how to tighten the belts when a friend with the same Boss laser told me she was also having the same issue. She called Boss and they looked at her settings in LB and told her the idle speed was set to high at 300 and it should have been 200. I am not not sure what idle speed even means. But I changed it to 200 on mine thinking well if Boss says that’s the correct value it must be. But then my friend tells me she is still seeing the same problem after making the change. So now I am wondering more about all the settings and what values they actually should have to match the real engineering limits of the machine.

Any help/advice will be appreciated.

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I’m not trying to be rude, but why not call up Boss and ask them? Though I guess if they couldn’t fix your friend’s problem, then maybe you’re not too quick to get on the phone.

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Exactly. The settings seem to be preset into the controller and so far I have not been able to find anyone at Boss that has a good explanation of what the values mean and how the preset values were determined.

Boss has great support for the hardware and I am sure if I continue asking them I would eventually get what I am looking for. But what I would really like is a tech document describing these values so I can ask better questions when I do talk to Boss customer support.

I don’t want to just be told that parameter x should have value y. I want to know what x is really controlling and how y was picked as the correct value.

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Descriptions of all of the settings (albeit poorly translated) can be found in the manual for your Ruida controller. They’re stored in the controller itself, and LightBurn just knows how to read/write them.

And Idle Speed is the speed the controller will move between cutting moves.

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Losing steps, for me, has happened only when engraving at very high speeds. I would imagine that the acceleration or deceleration is happening in too short a distance for that speed and inertia is too much for the stepper motor so it skips.
And by the way, asking on a forum like this is probably going to lead you to a better answer than someone at Boss. I’ll bet LightBurn knows the inner workings of your controller better than Ruida themselves (or at least they can describe it better in English)

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I found the manual at

http://en.rd-acs.com/Private/Files/a4d9f12fe9e32eb7.pdf

Page 44 of the PDF begins describing the settings in somewhat confused English.

Maximum Speed: it means the maximum limit of motion speed that this axis can bear. This parameter is set in accordance with the power of the stepper motor, the inertia of axis and its drive ratio. The typical value is 200~500mm/s.

Maximum Acceleration: The maximum acceleration of the axis when starting or stopping. If the acceleration is set too large, it will make the motor lose steps, jar and even squeak; if too small, it will cause the reduction of acceleration so as to reduce the running speed of the machine. For an axis with larger inertia, such as the Y, its typical setting range is 800~3000mm/s2; for the axis with smaller inertia, such as X axis, its typical setting range is 8000~20000mm/s2.

Scope: The farthest distance that the axis can move, which is determined by the physical dimensions of the machine.

Key Takeoff Speed: The starting speed to move the axis when the keys on the keyboard are used, This value can’t be higher than the takeoff speed.

Key Acceleration: The acceleration to move the selected axis when using the keyboard, the value cannot can’t be higher than the maximum acceleration of this axis.

Key Reverse: To control the motion direction when move the axis by pressing key manually. When set the direction polarity parameters correctly, if press the direction key on the panel, the axis will move to the reverse direction, so enable this item.

Idle Move Speed: This parameter controls the highest speed of all traversing motions of the machine. Traversing is when the machine is moving to position for the next cut.

Idle Move Acceleration: it means the highest acceleration of all non-lighting (traversing) lines. Idle stroke speed and idle stroke acceleration can be set higher to reduce the working time of the whole figure, but if they are set too high, it may cause the jarring of track, so comprehensive consideration should be given to the setting.

Turning Speed: the turning speed at closed-angle corner, the lowest speed in the whole cutting process.

Turning Acceleration: the acceleration speed at the closed-angle corner when cutting. If the two speeds are set too large, vibration will be happened when turning; if set too low, it will influence the cutting speed.

Cutting Acceleration: it means the highest acceleration value in the whole cutting process.
Acceleration Mode: it is divided into T acceleration and S acceleration. T accelerate will quicken the
whole cutting process, but it will result in that its cutting effect is inferior to that of S acceleration.

One Key Setting: This is one recommended cutting parameters settings button; it is not a parameter,
there are several groups of parameters under this button, which is convenient for selection.

X- axis Starting Speed
Y- axis Starting Speed
X- axis Acceleration
Y- axis Acceleration
The above four parameters are used to set the starting speed and acceleration of two axles when scanning. The higher the two speeds are, the quicker the scanning is.

Scanning Line-feed Speed: this parameter is specially used to control the highest speed at which that the previous line vertically moves to the next line in the scanning mode. If the space between lines is larger during the scanning or if the distance of each block is larger during the scanning and deblocking of figure, it is necessary to position each line or block accurately. In such a case the speed of scanning line-feed can be set as a lower value.

Scanning Mode: it is divided into general mode and special mode for option. If special mode is used, the laser power should be increased. The smaller the speckle percentage is, the more the laser power reduces. The laser power to set should be larger in order to reach the same scanning depth. The purpose to select the special mode is to make the laser light at high power and short time. On the depth scanning the effect that the bottom is flatter is obtained, but it should be noticeable that if the speckle adjustment is not appropriate, it can achieve this goal. If the high power remains short, the lighting mode will influence the life of the laser. The system will default the selection of general mode.

Spot Size: When the general mode is selected as the scanning mode, this parameter will become ineffective; when the special mode is selected, this parameter will become effective. The controller will
control this parameter among 50%~99%.

Before-feeding delay: can be set 0~300s, the upper axis will be moved after the last processing finished and delay this item. It is convenient for the user feeding and select during the delay.

After-feeding delay: settable at 0~9.9s. It can facilitate the feeding device’s delaying vibrated after
moving to the correct position and waiting for the 2nd work after the feeding axle stands still completely. If feeding line-by-line: if enabled feeding line-by-line function, the virtual array graphics on Y direction will be processed in the same position. Line-by-line feeding backlash: You can compensate the feeding length due to the inaccuracy for feeding axis moving.

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