I’ve been working with the material test tool and getting odd results. I’m trying to dial in some settings for an inlay. I setup a test that would give me a matrix that I could use to estimate the depth of cut. But the material test tool doesn’t seem to be varying the power and speed setting across the matrix. I’m attaching an image of walnut with two test patterns that should not look the way the look. In the photo there is some variation in the color but this from the cloth I used to wipe the wood. The depth of cut is the same for every square and some of these squares should be very deep at these power and speed settings.
If I watch the control it’s reporting a speed and power that never changes and when I took the picture it wasn’t on the part of the matrix with the speed/feed.
The depth of the cut I’m getting is the same as I’d get from a normal engrave at 180/25.
At first I thought this was from the file I had open when I ran the test since that was the settings for that layer in the file. But I tried it with a new file and got the same results. Then I suspected it was because the material settings had the layer output enabled so I tried it with that off but it didn’t make a difference.
I’ve tried different ranges for both speed and power with the same result. I also noticed that if I change put the speed on the rows and the power on the columns the numbers are correct but it still labels the rows power and columns speed.
You have the interval set to 0.002 - is that inches, or mm?
I suspect this is related to a bug we had where the speed was not being changed properly with multi-layer materials, because this uses a similar method for bypassing the layer limit in the Ruida. The next release should fix this (and I’m expecting it out in the next couple of days)
I’m having the same issue with Lightburn v1.2.01. Regardless of the min/max speed/power, the cuts are all exactly the same. Even in the preview of the material test, it shows the same speed for every row.
I’m having the same issue. No matter what settings I specify from the Material Test dialog, the actual settings used are always one of the library setting presets (I know this because it’s the only one that has 3 sub-layers).
Despite no extra sub-layers in the test cut settings, the test swatches are being cut per the library setting with 3 sub-layers, not the Material Test cut settings with only one.
The problem isn’t that I don’t know how to operate the Material Test tool, the problem is that no matter what cut settings I specify, the Material Test tool ignores all of the parameters I set in the main Material Test dialog and the its cut settings sub-dialog, and uses the Engrave 30 setting from my library for every swatch in the test pattern without varying either setting I specified (in this case frequency and Q pulse). It’s ignoring the settings I told it to use because it somehow got stuck using the library setting, and it refuses to get unstuck. It is quite definitely a bug.
I updated to the latest version and I tried a test. It looks like it’s working. It might be hard to see in the image but there is difference and when I watch my controller’s display I see it changing the speed and power values.
It also looks like you’re using a different machine? Maybe that is the difference?
If you create a simple circle or square, is the layer showing up as a ‘linked’ for it? If so, that’s likely the issue - We might not be checking for linked material entries in the material test. It uses whatever your base settings are for layer C00 (for the swatches) and C01 (for the text).
The workaround is to save your cut library, create an empty new one, then open the material test tool. It will work correctly if you do that. But if you have a library open, the material test tool will often get stuck on a setting in the library and completely ignore the settings you enter in the material test dialogs.
After unlinking, open the material test, click ‘Edit’ for the material setting, then ‘Reset to Default’ at the bottom - that will wipe all the settings back to their defaults. Most likely there was some setting from the linked layer still in there that you weren’t expecting.
Layer settings actively linked would be an issue, but once they’re unlinked, the test grid should respect what you enter. I’ll have a look to verify that.
I tried that, but once the erroneous link is made, the only guaranteed way to break it is to save the library file and click the New button to make a blank library.
