Hi I have an old 100w chinese 700x500 with motorized z machine. It seems well built but it has an older trocen controller (TL 3120) It all seems to wrok OK after I fitted new mirrors and 25.4mm lens. I am in the process of machining new lens tubes as they are much smaller (and lighter) than more modern stuff 12mm lens in a 16mm OD tube. Does anyone know what speed I could achieve with this machine if I buy a new controller? it is maxed at 400mm/s at present and I wonder if that is as fast as this old hardware can achieve.
where do I start in my quest for speed?
I doubt that will make a difference. The maximum speed is relative to how much curren or power they can put in the motor and it’s ability to accelerate…
Speed isn’t everything… Make it work and you’ll be happy… you can lighten up things later when you are more experienced.
Without knowing anything about your controller I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the controller itself is most likely not the limiting factor for speed on your machine.
Before even considering speed you should make clear goals about what you’re trying to accomplish. Is it purely about top speed or are you trying to reduce burn times? These are not necessarily one in the same. Are you looking to achieve specific speed values or just trying to optimize for what you have? What is your budget for what you’re trying to do?
In general, your biggest obstacle is in overcoming inertial mass. The reduction of mass in the laser head assembly and the motion control system overall will go the furthest to increasing acceleration and reducing run time. It won’t necessarily contribute directly to top-line speed but may allow your laser to actually achieve top speed. The reality is that 700mm is not a particularly long distance to allow for acceleration, cruising, and deceleration. Requested speeds are typically not actually ever achieved.
If you are machining a new lens tube you may want to take the opportunity to rethink the entire lens assembly and mount to reduce mass.
Once you’ve optimized for mass reduction then you’ll be limited by the stepper motors and possibly drivers. If you had a theoretical zero mass at the drive mechanism and head then you’d be limited to the stepper motors themselves. Upgrading the motors would allow for higher acceleration/top speed.
Only after you’ve optimized for mass and the drive mechanism would you likely be limited to the processing speed of the controller. I did a search on the controller but couldn’t find anything that would indicate processing throughput. However, it’s unlikely to be slower than any practical limit being imposed by the physical aspects of the machine.
The maximal mechanical speed usually makes no sense and is quite above cutting speed.
Maximal cutting and engraving speed is usually limited by LASER power.
May be that mechanical improvement will be futile, because you will not be abble to benefit from higher moving speed. Yes, there are some head movements that are done with LASER off and these could still help a little bit.
Removing mass will make you job run faster, so speed is not really the factor…
This shows the overscan between 40000mm/s^2 compared to the nominal 6000mm/s^2. Notice the slower acceleration takes more time to do the same job. One just under 7 minutes and the other just over 10. The red overscan is visibly larger.
