Need some advice setting up my rotary

[GuyKass]

Hoping someone here can help me out. I’ve searched the boards and I can’t find these specific issues.

I am trying to set up my rotary attachment, but no matter what I do, I can’t get it to work.

There are two issues that I can see.

First, adjustments in the software make no difference to the machine…

When I first hooked it up this morning, I started with a .5 x.5 inch square in Lightburn. It imaged roughly .5 x .35. I tried adjusting the steps from the 1000 default to 500, and it elongated to about .5 x 2.

I went back to 1000 steps per revolution, and now when I try to adjust the settings, but they have no effect whatsoever on the size. (It’s easy enough to figure out the ratios.)

No matter what size I tell the software the cylinder is, or the diameter of the rollers, or the steps per revolution, all the images come out the same size now. I have tried minor variances as well as very larger ones and everything comes out to roughly .5 x 1.25.

Second, the other really weird thing is that when I turn on the “enable rotary”, it stops the rotary from working and I basically just burn myself a nice .5 long line deeper and deeper. When the “enable rotary” isn’t highlighted, it’s fine other than the issues mentioned above.

Everything else works perfectly other than this nonsense today.

It’s a Ruida 644Xs, using the latest Lightburn software on a Mac running 10.13.6 connected through ethernet.

Thanks in advance!

[LightBurn (Oz)]

You need ‘Enable Rotary’ on, and steps will likely be around 10000, not 1000 - it’s usually pretty high. The ‘default’ isn’t a LightBurn setting, but one in your controller, and unless the ‘Enable Rotary’ switch is on, the settings won’t do anything at all.

Start by choosing a completely arbitrary roller size, set the object size the same, and make note of the circumference. Create a tall, thin rectangle that is exactly that high.
For example, if my roller diameter was 10mm, I’d get a circumference of 31.415mm, and would create a rectangle that was that tall.

Run the job on the machine with the laser off. It should rotate 360 degrees, pause, rotate back 360, and pause again. If it doesn’t rotate 360 degrees (if the two pauses aren’t at the same place on the roller) your steps count is wrong. If it doesn’t rotate far enough, you need more steps. If it rotates too far, you need fewer. Get that to the point where the roller moves exactly one full revolution and that’s the number you need. Then set your roller diameter and you’re done.

[GuyKass]

Awesome. I will give it a shot in the morning. Thanks a million!