Hello everyone, I have strange issue with offset fill. I’m running a project where I fill text which text was made with the integrated tool in lightburn. After the job is finished part of the text doesn’t line up with the other. For example - word brown - br comes above the own. When I click preview in the program everything seems alright but I notice that the word is not filled at once but first one part, then move to the next word and after that it comes back for the missing part which comes above the other. Unfortunately I can’t share pics right now.
My machine is Omtech 60w running the job at 65mm/sec and 10 power.
Btw when I run the project with the normal fill the text alignes perfectly.
Can anyone help me here.
I want the offset fill because I get darker engravings and it’s a big project and I already completed the most parts and I want the pieces to look the same.
I forgot to mention that it doesn’t happen with every text. Some jobs get aligned perfectly but it happens on the same jobs. If I rerun the job which is not aligned I get the same result - not aligned.
Thank you for the suggestion, I doubt that it’s a mechanical issue because it happens only on one of the jobs at the same spot. When I ran regular fill even at higher speeds everything is aligned perfectly. I suspect that the problem is the following - the laser engraves parts of the word then moves to the next word on the other row and after that it returns for the missing parts of the first word. I think that when returning for the missing parts the laser calculates wrong from where to start the job.
I checked everything mechanical in the laser and everything seems alright plus like I said, in most jobs which are set to offset fill the laser completes the job aligned. The issue happens in the exact same text.
Once again thank you for your response, appreciate it.
Without an image to look at, I just try to imagine what could be happening.
By this do you mean to say that if you create a new job with only the text in question the problem will repeat itself? If not, try doing that. And if possible in more than one place of the bed (honeycomb, etc…)
If you’re right, the stepper motors are probably skipping steps. Reducing the speed should eliminate the problem. Have you tried this approach? It’s just another suggestion…
Well it happens only for some words, and it happens every time no matter where on the bed. I tried to recreate the file and it happens again.
It has something to do with the arrangement of the words. When i rearrange the words in such way that the laser engraves the whole word then move to the other word, everything is aligned perfectly. Unfortunately the words had to be arranged in order that created the issue in the first place.
I already completed the project but tomorrow I will try low speed and will share information.
Obviously this behavior is still strange without something mechanical involved.
Sorry for insisting, although I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’ve seen a lot of things working on the basis of Gcode and problems like these always have to do with loss of steps or mechanical play.
What may be happening is that a certain succession of movements is necessary to trigger the problem in question.
Keep in mind, when checking the cause of the problem:
Some stepper motors have a faceted shaft on the axle dedicated to tightening the pulley screw. You must check that the screw tightens well in this facet. If the axle does not have this faceting, then just check the screw tightness. (This on both axes (stepper motors)
Check the fastening tightness of the motors themselves.
Also check all the fixing points of the laser head (I don’t know what the deviation of the error is but if it’s not too big it could be from here and I saw this recently here on the forum).
I hope the technical translation that was made is understandable.
These steps would be what I would do if the problem were with me, ok? But as I don’t even have a machine like yours, I just think about it.
First of all I want to thank you for the time you already put into this post, yesterday i did go trough all the screws in the machine and everything is tighten and the belts are tightened. I read that probably the speed I’m using is bigger than the one stepper motors can handle and maybe that’s the reason. I read somewhere that there are different motors than stepper which motors can remember certain spots on the bed in order to prevent something like this from happening.
Anyway I’m going to try lowering the speed and will report what happened.
